Picture Perfect

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Picture Perfect

By Plot Roach

Sylvia was a photographer. It had been her wish since childhood to change the way the world saw things through her photos. She was in the yearbook club in high school and majored in photography in college. She traveled the world in search of the perfect subject and brought home more than enough photographs to fill five portfolios. Her dream was to work for National Geographic Magazine, taking pictures of people and places few ever saw, but would be brought to the eyes of millions through her hard work and determination.

She never even got an interview with her dream magazine, or any other for that matter. She spent the first five years out of college developing film at a local drugstore before being “downsized” since the modern digital camera made her job all but obsolete.

She picked up a few odd jobs through word of mouth. A wedding here, a birthday there. There was even one animal wedding between a Bulldog and a Chihuahua that she took photos of, trying to keep a straight face and a steady hand. The bride and groom were a handful, and the photos had to be carefully staged. Even one misstep created chaos in the photos and she had to edit the hell out of the final product with Photoshop before she could call the end product “good enough” for its owner.

Whenever perspective employers saw these doggy photos, they immediately hired her on the spot. There was just something about a Chihuahua in a top hat and a Bulldog in a tiara that made people’s hearts melt. It was suggested that she do more pet portraits. And Sylvia shuddered at the thought. It had been hard enough to keep the groom from humping the bride in public without losing her patience, but to do this on a daily basis? It would drive her crazy. But it would pay the bills.

She practiced on a few of her neighbor's pets. But her patience ran as thin as her wallet. There has to be a way to do this, she told herself. I’m just missing something obvious. A week later, while posing a stuffed animal in a makeshift costume to test out a new lens, it struck her. She called a friend who worked in animal control and asked him to start bringing his work home with him.

A few months later, and Sylvia not only had two calendars in the works, but a coffee table book and a line of greeting cards featuring her photos. She made sure that a percentage of the profits went to local animal shelters, but had developed quite a hefty sum in her own personal bank account as well.

She was featured on several local news stations as a local “interest’ story of small time girl making it big. When asked how she got the animals to pose for the camera, she gave her usual reply: love, treats and lost of patience.

What the rest of the world did not know, except for Dave, her friend from animal control, was something that would ruin her if the reality of the situation ever surfaced.

Dave was in charge of euthanizing the animals that had outlived their stay at the shelter. There were only so many kennels and so much food to go around. It was not just the old an infirm animals which were lethally injected, but whole litters of young animals which had no hope of being adopted out before their time ran out.

He simply carried a really big duffle bag to work with him every day, claiming that he would be going to the gym after his shift was over. He would bring the animals to Sylvia at the end of the night, where she would photograph them in various positions and costumes until dawn. Then he would put the animals back into his bag and dump them into the incinerator at the beginning of his shift. Since no animals were technically ‘missing‘, Dave kept his job and Sylvia’s secret.

The dead are so much easier to work with, Sylvia thought to herself as she dressed up a calico kitten in a Victorian dress, using a wirework frame to hold the body in position. It’s a shame that humans don’t still photograph their dead like they did in the old days. She worked fast, she had to. Otherwise the eyeballs would fog up and rigor mortis would set in.