Far Ahead of Its Time

The pink and purple neon sign garishly proclaimed "I Ching House of 
Electronics: Far Ahead of Its Time." Taken aback by its contrast against the 
inky evening sky, I looked at my watch. My eyes weren't making a mistake after 
all. It was natural for it to be this dark at eight o' clock on a September evening. 
All summer long, I had been putting off my trip to New York for one reason 
or another. This morning, I finally left Fenway Park and Harvard Yard behind 
me for my first sojourn into the city of infinite possibilities. When Kiana told 
me about the cheap buses that plied from Chinatown to Chinatown, one 
bastion of the Asian-American dream to another, where the air lay thick with 
the smells of a firmly rooted civilization at once experiencing the past and the 
future, I thought she was not being serious. She was telling me that it cost less 
for me to take a four hour bus ride between the Chinatowns than to cross the 
cities they were in with a half-hour cab ride. 

My busy schedule at work was relentlessly burning me out. When I was not 
spending nights staring at the wallpaper in my bedroom, I slept listlessly and 
fitfully. Things between Julia and me hadn't been very cordial lately. I think it 
was because we hadn't figured out how much space to give each other in two 
and a half years of dating on and off. Our relationship had its flaws, but I was 
deeply in love with her. Perhaps Prof. Eisenstein had started noting a decline in 
the quality of my research, when she suggested that a break and a change of air, 
however brief, might do me some good. On a whim I had called Kiana that 
afternoon and asked her for more details about the Chinatown bus to New 
York. Julia said she would miss me even though I was only going to be gone 
for a couple of days. It was but a matter of hours before I was on the bus, 
hastily packed bag and travel-time light reading beside me. I was leafing lazily 
through Time and Newsweek, with detailed analyses of whether Bush or 
Clinton would win the election, when it happened. Something in Manhattan's 
skyline flashed into the corner of my eye in welcome. I looked up just in time 
to catch the sun dive into shimmering orange and pink behind the World Trade 
Center towers. The bus was moving at just the right speed so I could watch the 
dying autumn sunlight glance off a few more sentinels of the city's opulence.

As I alighted onto the crowded pavement on Hester Street, I rode down the 
wave of smells that engulfed me yet again. Constant. Unmistakable. Which 
neighborhood could be more representative as an introduction to New York 
than the chaotic, yet vibrant, Chinatown? After a delicious, enigmatic dinner at 
a hole in the wall I proceeded to enjoy what I could of the neighborhood in the 
fast dwindling twilight. The pavement was crammed with stalls selling toys, 
clothes, souvenirs and postcards. Several vendors were already putting away 
their wares and taking stock of what had come and gone during the course of 
the day. I passed the occasional customers from out of town, who seemed to 
be locked in bargaining death-matches, which would at least make for an 
entertaining cocktail party conversation back home, if not for a good deal on 
an insignificant trinket. When I passed the twilight zone between two closed 
stalls, I saw a flyer for electronics store offering some goods for eye-catching 
prices. Even later, I recalled being amused by the slogan, "We no sell just State 
of the art Electronics. Our Electronics are herald the future." I Ching. I turned 
around to see the pink neon flash the same name across the street. My eyes 
weren't making a mistake after all. I jaywalked across the street in eager strides, 
mindless of the honking traffic, my mind trained on the many gizmos tempting 
me underneath the pink neon. Video game consoles, camcorders, SLR cameras 
and Walkmans... I took it all in.

"Sir, sir!"

It was an old Chinese man with dark eyes twinkling kindly under his glasses.

"Please come in -- our items are herald the future. They are far ahead of today’s 
time!"
"Uh..."
"We have cameras, camcorders, Walkmans and even CD players!"
"I see that."
"Come in sir! Have a look. You won't be disappointed!"

Before I had a chance to say anything else, I found myself inside the store, 
ushered in by the suddenly enthusiastic old man. Just one look, I said to myself. 
Poor old guy. After all the friendliness he showed me outside. I walked around 
the store, disinterested, mostly because I knew little about making well-advised 
electronics purchases. The exception to this was the camera section. I had 
always been fascinated by these dark chambers which crystallized and 
embellished the light of the outside world, perfect microcosms of a moment, 
revealing even those details about which my eyes were mistaken. Right from 
Dad's hand-me-down point-and-shoot at eight, I always took a great interest 
and pride in cameras. My favorites were Single Lens Reflex, or SLR cameras. 
With them, there were practically an infinite number of ways to capture the 
moment. Angle, focus, composition, filters. Have I missed anything? Every 
moment with an SLR was fun, feeling very close to the shot and to the camera. 
The ecstasy of stick-shift that drivers bred on automatic transmission would 
never know.

"I know what you thinking."
It was him again.
"Huh?"
"This store is first a camera store. Other stuff come later. I love cameras even 
back in China."
He was beaming.
"You have a really fantastic collection!"
Time for the old salesman's old trick.
"I think I might have something just for you."

It was a plain looking black SLR. It didn't have markings of any well-known 
brand.
"This is a camera you might like. It is from China. I show it only to special 
customers."
Of course. Many impressive sounding features later, he moved in for the kill.
"This camera is ahead of its time. Special rate. Only for you. 250 dollar."
Not bad. I fell for it.
After he handed me the packed camera, he laid an avuncular hand on my 
shoulder.
"Remember what I say. This camera is far ahead of its time."
His eyes twinkled again.
I looked at my watch. 9:00 pm! Had I been in a time-warp? As I exited the 
store, I broke into a run.
"15% discount if you develop the pictures here. I remember you!"

***

I woke up to an overcast Sunday. The weather had mostly planned my day out 
for me. Aimlessly wandering around downtown Manhattan whilst perchance 
browsing used bookstores and record stores suddenly seemed more appealing 
than spending the day in Central Park at the mercy of the impending storm. 
There still seemed to be enough time before the rain would start -- an hour, I 
estimated. An hour in which I could walk downtown and spend some time 
along the way in those urban canyons where the weather was irrelevant. I 
hurriedly set out to make the best of that precious hour, but not before 
remembering to pack my latest acquisition. Perhaps Mr. I Ching would make 
good on his promise of a discount.

I walked along that pretentious avenue named the Avenue of the Americas. As 
if one America was not enough for the Empire State. I found myself taking 
pictures of entirely ordinary scenes. My taste in picture-taking had never leaned 
towards the quotidian. My ahead-of-its-time camera seemed to draw me to 
vignettes that were somehow worth capturing in its estimation. Food trucks 
with long lines of regular lunchers. Lunchers with that sad longing in their eyes, 
steeped in the realization that weather too cold for them to eat lunch outdoors 
was only weeks away. Snapflash. Limousines stopping to relieve themselves of 
their modern-day royals. Double take. One couple, holding hands and 
obviously in love, looked suspiciously like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. 
Snapflash. Activists waving petitions in my face. Snapflash. Hot dog and nut 
stands providing new leases of life to hordes of other wandering tourists. 
Snapflash. NBC building facade crawling all over with news from the Clinton 
and Bush campaigns. Snapflash. The vexillological feast that made the 
Rockefeller Center skating rink the United Nations of the United States. 
Snapflash. Human aspirations, great but bestial, crystallized into metal and 
concrete sentinels all around me. Ricocheting scraps of sky off each others' 
shiny coats of armor, the skyscrapers played a silent game, above everything 
else, mocking the humdrum of the streets below. Snapflash.

Then came the rain. Watersheets moved curtainlike in nature's undulating 
reminder that it still prevailed, no matter how compelling the artifice. The 
nagging doubt back there about what I had forgotten to bring along resurfaced 
and was annihilated in a flash. My umbrella! I ran to the nearest structure with a 
covering, a bus stop. Realizing that I could afford to exercise my wanderlust, I 
got on to the first bus that came. Luckily, it was headed downtown, with 
Battery Park as its final destination. Once on the bus, I stopped to take stock of 
how many pictures I had left in my camera. None. One morning compressed 
into twenty-four chimeral fetuses born of the union of light and time, until the 
womb sheltering their delicate but resolute selves would deliver them. Maybe 
my camera had willed me into boarding this bus for a reason. I could go to 
Chinatown on that very bus and drop off a roll of pictures.

It didn't take me long to find my way again to I Ching House of Electronics. 
Mr. Avuncular was soliciting business on the sidewalk with the same kindly 
look in his eyes. Recognition mingled into that look when he saw me.

"You return very fast!"
"Oh, you don't know half the story! This roll of film was over so quickly!"
He opened the camera and started to remove its film. He found the camera 
very hard to open. It was a mother refusing to give birth to the 24 babies inside 
her. But he was obviously a loving and patient midwife who showered plenty of 
care on the camera.
"You take pictures fast-fast?"
"Well, no, that's the surprising thing! I usually take pictures of monuments and 
landmarks only. With this camera, I was taking pictures of anything and 
everything."
"I think you like this camera a lot! I am always right about my customer!"
"The camera made me take all these pictures. It's as if it had a mind of its own."
"I tell you the camera is far ahead of its time."
Another customer was waiting to be served by Mr. Master Salesman.
He said "Come back in two hours for your pictures. I give you 15% discount 
for coming back here."

I looked back one last time as I exited his store. He gave me a sidelong glance, 
which, I couldn't help think had a hidden meaning to it.

***

Time moves faster in New York even if you have nothing particular to do. I 
walked downtown on Broadway from Chinatown to Battery Park while the 
skyscrapers played their parts in an ethereal Western, well above me. By this 
time, the camera had convinced me to feed it another roll of film. A homeless 
man waved his Dunkin' Donuts Styrofoam cup at me hopefully. No money 
changed hands but the snapflash of the camera took him by surprise. An idle 
demonstration protesting Bush's candidacy for president. The placards were 
screaming -- some competing and some working with each other. In a subtle 
stab at the political correctness of liberals one yelled "Bushmen can't be 
President!". Snapflash. I almost ran into a protestor standing right before me 
with a sandwiched sign berating any Republican passers-by, "It's the economy, 
stupid!". Snapflash. The majestic metallic Wall Street bull, seemingly ready to 
charge. Snapflash.

I was in Battery Park and the sky had cleared up by now. Across acres of 
shimmering water, I saw her colossal form standing. Was she green because she 
was seasick or was it because too much greed and evil had transpired under her 
watchful eyes? Or perhaps I was letting my malaise color everything I saw. A 
hopeful sunbeam glanced off her shiny torch. Snapflash. Tranquil from a 
distance. Even a little awe-inspiring. I turned around and they shoved 
themselves into my view. It was very hard to miss them. Two tall, dark and 
handsome brothers tanning in the evening sun. They had winked at me in 
welcome when my bus was riding into New York. My eyes were instantly 
drawn to how tall they stood. The skyscrapers all around them seemed to look 
grateful that they could be so close to the kings of all skyscrapers -- the World 
Trade Center towers. Skyscrapers in other parts of Manhattan formed little 
local cliques to play their sky scraping games. Not here. The only game played 
here was by the kings themselves, as mere courtiers beheld them in shock and 
awe. Were they perhaps the High and Holy Emperors to whom everybody else 
paid obeisance? The overall effect was more imposing than an Ascension 
fresco. Snap ... flash. Even the camera wanted to take as much in as possible 
before closing its aperture.

Before I knew it, I was standing at their feet. I knew not what brought me there 
-- the towers, the camera or my own awestruck feet. The twin Emperors ruled 
the Empire State from a beautiful spot with an ocean view! It was one thing to 
view royalty on pictures and postcards. It was quite another to stand in their 
presence. Snapflash.

***

The World Trade Center Towers and all the other skyscrapers of downtown 
Manhattan had filled me with profound awe. My pictures of them, however, 
weren’t going to be that great, because I took them at such close range. I had 
heard from a friend of mine about the stunning views of the Manhattan skyline 
from New Jersey. I had nearly three hours left in the city before I caught a bus 
from Chinatown back to Boston. In a matter of minutes, I was hurtling in a 
PATH train along with hundreds of rush hour commuters towards Hoboken, 
right into the armpit of the United States, New Jersey.

It was nearing sunset on the boardwalk. As the sun set behind me, the serene 
and cerulean eastern sky beckoned me to gaze through it into the soul of the 
universe. I brought my eyes down from the zenith and beheld the Twin Towers 
again. This shot was easily going to be my best on this trip, possibly one of the 
best ever. Just as I was taking my camera out of its case, a novice skateboarder, 
who had seen no more than ten summers, collided head-on with me. I teetered 
on one foot as I desperately tried to regain my balance and protect my camera 
from taking a strong blow. Resistance was futile. My lone standing knee 
buckled under me and heads turned as both our bodies slammed on the wood. 
My camera was on my chest. Several heads crowded my vision, peering at my 
spread-eagled limbs and bewildered face that hadn't yet fathomed what had just 
hit me. 

One pretty teenage head with beautiful curly blond tresses framing a blue eyed 
face writ large with concern screamed, "Are you okay?" 
"I'll be sure after you help me up", said I. 
With uncharacteristic grace for those awkward teenage years, she helped me up. 
I thanked her. The crowd dispersed quickly once it saw that no bodily harm 
was done. I limped to a bench. 
The girl who helped me up followed me and asked, "Are you sure you're 
okay?" 
I smiled and said, "Now I am sure."

We got to talking. The words flowed effortlessly. Her name was Rowena and 
she lived in Newark. She was six, maybe seven years younger than me. She 
opened up to me unexpectedly and hoped I didn't mind because she needed 
someone mature to talk to. She was at the Hoboken boardwalk because she 
wanted to avoid running into her boyfriend. Their relationship was on the 
rocks because he had a bad anger management problem. He was hassling her in 
ways that made her feel unsafe. I suggested she inform the police, so that if 
they thought the situation was really bad, she could take out a restraining order 
against him. She said she hadn't even thought of going down that path, but that 
it seemed like a good idea, especially after our conversation had cleared her 
head.

We both got up and went to the railing, where the Hudson was sparkling 
gleefully. The lilting breeze blew her hair into my face. She laughed, as though 
in empathy with the river. "I feel much better now. I am so glad I ran into 
you." Just having a frank conversation with another human being made me feel 
a lot better too. An opportune meeting of two strangers. An instantaneous, 
ethereal oasis of human contact in the bleak urban wilderness. I was sure I 
would never see Rowena again, but she ignited a flash of inspiration in me. 
This was a moment I definitely wanted to capture with my camera. I asked 
Rowena if she wouldn't mind being photographed gazing at the New York 
skyline. She agreed gladly on the condition that I would send her a copy of the 
picture. It was a fair deal. Snapflash. Her serene, smiling face and lovely golden 
hair were now consigned to eternity on film. Next to their easy grace was the 
scintillating majesty of the World Trade Center Towers that reflected the sun 
setting behind us. It was a fine exercise in photo composition, if I did say so 
myself.

It was 7:30. I had a bus to catch at 9:00 and I still had to pick up my pictures. I 
reminded myself why I was on the boardwalk. Photo composition be damned. 
Hurriedly, I asked Rowena to take a picture of me against the Twin Towers. I 
broke into a run towards the PATH station when the breeze carried her voice 
to my ears, "Hey wait! You forgot to take my address! Remember our deal?" 

I ran back to her and scribbled her address in my pocketbook. "Good luck with 
the boyfriend!"

We parted with a smile.

Back at the World Trade Center PATH station, I cast a last longing gaze at the 
Twin Towers before I hopped into a taxi towards Chinatown. Gridlock. I was 
anxious I would miss my bus. The horns blaring around me announced the 
somewhat jarring conclusion to my lovely evening. Finally, with just fifteen 
minutes left before my scheduled departure, I was at I Ching House of 
Electronics. The old man looked like he was expecting me. "Your pictures are 
waiting for long time now." 

I yelled, "Sorry, I don't have time. I have to catch a bus in fifteen minutes. How 
much do I owe you?"

He smiled darkly. A distant eeriness glanced on his kindly smile. "Four dollar."

I could almost hear Lincoln wince as I slammed him face down on the counter. 
"Keep the change. And thanks for the camera!", I said, as I ran out to catch my 
bus.

***

I looked at the pictures in the dim fluctuating light of the reading lamp above 
my seat. I had taken those pictures just that morning, when it was overcast. The 
pictures, however, seemed to have been taken on a clear, sunny day. My heart 
sank. Had I Ching mistakenly given me somebody else's pictures? Upon closer 
inspection though, they seemed okay because they were all of the same places I 
had been that morning. I scanned the pictures again, looking for an anchor. 
The picture of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. They had looked like they 
were very much in love that morning. Cruise and the redheaded Kidman had 
been married for just under a year. The man in the picture was clearly Tom 
Cruise. I could see only the woman's hair. It was dark brown, almost black. I 
was furious. Maybe it was something in the process I Ching had used to 
develop the pictures that turned Nicole's hair dark and the day sunny. Or 
maybe I Ching had sold me a defective camera. An SLR from a no-name 
Chinese manufacturer for just 250 dollars was definitely suspicious. Or maybe I 
was merely seeing things in the poor light. I put away the pictures, shut off the 
light and leaned back in my seat, trying to distract myself from thinking too 
much about the lemon I had just purchased.

The bus had an incessant, yet strangely comforting drone. My eyes had nothing 
to focus on in the darkness around me. Both of these must have pushed me 
into some sort of a trance state. I got to thinking about Julia. It was a lovely 
afternoon, also in September, three years ago, that we had met at a graduate 
student luncheon. We had been drawn to each other instantly. She had been 
intrigued by Prof Eisenstein's research, just like me. She ended up working for 
another professor in the same general area, however. After a number of 
fortunate and engineered coincidences, we finally admitted to each other that 
we should defuse the tension between us and go out on a date. That first date 
went much better than a pleasant dream. In just six weeks I could honestly 
convince myself I was in love with her. I told her this on an early March 
afternoon, when the trees were just beginning to bloom. She gave a shy but 
knowing nod and said she was in love with me too. 

For the first six months of our relationship, we were inseparable. Then the 
ugliness began. Julia had had a troubled past. She came from a broken home. 
The relationship between her parents, which she would use as a template for 
her own future relationships, was far from ideal. She had had a string of failed 
relationships through college. She kept saying how our relationship was the 
best thing that had ever happened to her. She said she was able to trust me with 
an ease she had never encountered before. It was not to be. The fights began 
occurring with an alarming regularity. She was extremely suspicious of any girl I 
spoke with. I balked at how little space she gave me. We decided to call it quits 
when the strained silences that filled the astronomical vacuum between us 
started to take an emotional toll on us. In two weeks, she came back, begging 
for forgiveness. Tearfully, she continued that she had an unfortunate tendency 
to sabotage her own relationships just as they were starting to be good for her. 
I agreed to take her back, hoping it would be better this time. We had another 
lovely four months together before we broke up again, for the same reasons. 
After a six month hiatus, Julia came back to me and asked me for one more 
chance. She consciously kept her temper under control and invested her jealous 
and suspicious energies into her research. We had been together since then 
until now, when the fights were starting to pick up again. When she suspected 
me of having an affair with Prof Eisenstein, I decided we both needed some 
time away from each other. I thought taking a weekend off in New York would 
clear my head, but I was still confused. Despite our checkered history, I was 
sure I was still in love with Julia. However, to be sure our relationship would 
have a future, she would have to undergo some professional counseling to 
reconcile herself with her failed past relationships. 

Nothing surpassed the glow in her face after we made love. Or her look of 
yearning every time we parted. Or the patience and support she would show 
when work was stressing me out. My life without her would be a gaping void 
battered by the elements of a cruel, bleak world. She was always there for me 
when I needed her. I wanted to be there for her too. The droning bus was 
taking me back to her. My longing for her grew. I would see her tomorrow 
morning. I was awakened with a jolt as the bus pulled into Boston's Chinatown 
and exhaled loudly. Groggily, I hailed a cab home. Before I knew it, my feet 
had guided me to my bed. My introspective and inspiring weekend concluded 
with a view of the backs of my eyelids.

***

The soft northern light filtered into my room through the blinds. Another 
warm body silently crept into my bed. I felt her hair fall over my face and her 
lips brush against mine. I was still reluctant to open my eyes. She ran her 
caressing fingers down my body. Just as she reached the exact point where I am 
the most ticklish, she dug her fingers in. I jolted myself out of my pretend-sleep 
with a yelp that startled her too. We collapsed in a heap of giggles and tickles. 
Insidious Julia had decided to pay me a surprise visit. She had let herself into 
my apartment with her spare key and made breakfast while I slept. On the 
nightstand lay our breakfast tray. A plate was heaped with French toast, topped 
with Nutella. Two cups of steaming coffee with which we would wash it down.

I told Julia about my weekend as we ate breakfast. She thought it was a bit of a 
let down that instead of catching a Broadway show and hitting the bars in New 
York, all I did was schlep around with a camera. I told her about how I spotted 
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. I told her about my brief encounter with 
Rowena. I didn't dwell on it too much when I saw the jealousy beginning to 
tinge her cheeks crimson. After breakfast, I got dressed and we were getting 
ready to leave for work. I spotted the camera on the coffee table in the living 
room. I must have dumped it there unceremoniously on my way to bed. I 
picked it up and saw that there were only three pictures left. I couldn't wait to 
get my pictures of the World Trade Center Towers developed. Julia was getting 
impatient because she had a lot of work she had to get to. I pleaded with her to 
stay for just a few more minutes, so we could take the three pictures and finish 
the roll before we left for work. 

I took a picture of Julia. Snapflash. She took a picture of me. Snapflash. Then 
using the camera's self-timer, we completed the roll with a picture of us with 
my arm around her shoulder. Snapflash.
We dropped off the pictures at the drugstore near our office. I was sure they 
would have them ready for me by the time I was leaving work for the day.

***

Julia and I left work together in the evening. I walked into the drugstore with 
her to pick up my pictures. The pimply teenager behind the counter, whose 
nametag read Shaniqua, gave me a dirty look as she picked out my envelope of 
pictures from a large box of them. Someone had scribbled a large X with a 
thick red marker on my envelope and circled it. I asked what that was all about. 
Shaniqua said the developing company put those marks on envelopes it 
thought had bad pictures in them. That was the first sign something was 
wrong. 

I took out the pictures from the envelope just to make sure the top one was 
okay. It was the picture Julia took of me. I had a weird discoloration on the left 
side of my forehead, like a scar. Surely something was wrong with the camera. 
Something else was wrong. Julia said that I looked considerably older than I 
was in that picture. I put the pictures back into the envelope. I brushed off her 
comment and we set out from the drugstore towards my apartment.

We got to my place just as it was getting dark. I left Julia in the living room 
with the pictures as I went into my bedroom to change clothes. I heard her 
scream. I rushed into the living room, half-clothed, to find her swooned on the 
sofa. She had dropped all the pictures on the floor. I opened all the windows to 
let in some fresh air and rushed to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. She 
came to when I sprinkled some water on her suddenly ashen face. She sipped 
some water from the glass and looked at me. There was an inferno of fear 
raging in her eyes. I had never seen her so frightened before. She gestured 
weakly at a stack of pictures that was lying separately from the rest.

The top picture was the picture of me alone with the scar on the left side of my 
forehead. I thought it was a freak discoloration from the development process 
or because of a grain of dust in the camera's lens. 

Next was Julia's picture. I recalled the sprightly smile on her face when I took 
that picture. The picture showed a gray-faced Julia lying in state in a coffin. My 
heart leapt into my mouth. 

The next picture was the picture Julia and I took with the camera's self-timer. I 
still had the scar on the left side of my forehead. I was wearing a smart looking 
tuxedo and the girl in the picture was wearing a fabulous wedding dress. She 
held a bouquet in her left hand. My eyes went up to her face. Julia did not have 
beautiful blond curls! It was Rowena. I felt a sudden tug behind my navel. I was 
starting to get sick in the pit of my stomach.

After that picture was Rowena looking the New York skyline. She looked like 
she was in her late 20s. She was obviously exerting considerable effort just to 
stand. She was very pregnant and had a look of deep terror in her eyes. She was 
pointing a finger urgently at something. It was when I followed her finger 
across the picture that I noticed the airplane. It looked like it was just about to 
fly into the north tower of the World Trade Center. My eyes were surely 
playing tricks with me. Nonetheless, a fine exercise in photo composition, if I 
do say so myself. Except, what was a plane doing so near the World Trade 
Center Towers?

My answer lay in the next picture. It was the picture Rowena took of me with 
the World Trade Center Towers behind me. Except I wasn't there. The Towers 
were enveloped by a gigantic fireball. Massive clouds of thick black smoke filled 
the sky. 

The camera was far ahead of its time.

I couldn't take it anymore. I retched. I started to feel faint. I fell down from the 
sofa and impaled the left side of my forehead against the sharp corner of the 
coffee table. The last sensation I felt was warm blood gushing out of the deep 
gash on to my cheek.

Darkness.