Part 10

        The following Monday night, as I unloaded some more used film from my pocket, I realized I had a pretty large pile of film canisters growing. There had to be close to a dozen...and I was going to have to develop them all. I sighed heavily, and threw a half-dozen into a backpack (along with myy developing supplies) to take with me to campus the next day. I'd been told the dark room would be accessible starting a week after the semester ended, since a summer class would be using it during the day. There were a few other students who would be doing independent studies over the summer as well, so the card swipe on the door would be active from 9am to 9pm every weekday for us. (We could stay later than that, but the door wouldn't open from the outside after nine. We just had to let the cleaning people know we were there, if they came in and we were still working.) I wouldn't have to have any prints ready until my class started in a few weeks, but at the rate I was taking pictures, I knew I'd better start developing them now, maybe start making the contact prints too, or I'd be totally overwhelmed. I didn't dare take any of the rolls to be professionally developed, since I knew there were good shots on every roll, and anything that I didn't develop myself, I wouldn't be able to use for the class.
        When I left for work the next day, I told Mrs. Mayhew not to expect me for dinner - I had a bagged lunch with me, and there were vending machines on campus if I needed anything more than that. I was determined to get all six rolls done that night. My lightproof canister would hold two rolls at a time, so I'd only have to go through the process three times. As long as I didn't get tied up too long, trying to wind the film onto the reels in the dark, I shouldn't be there too long. The developing process, apart from the winding onto the reels, took half an hour at the most, and I'd have the place to myself, so I wouldn't have to worry about sneaking between six other people to move my things into the next batch of chemicals.

        As I'd feared, it was incredibly creepy being down in the dark room by myself. Even the lit rooms felt like something out of a horror movie. The photography department was located in the basement of one of the dorms, and though it wasn't bad with people around, it was pretty forbidding being down there alone. I had my iPod with me, but I felt uneasy turning it up too loud - I wanted to be able to hear any and every sound nearby, just in case another student came in, or something weird happened, or... I had no idea. It was creepy. I'd have to get a small set of speakers to play my music through, it would feel more like company then. (There was an ancient cassette player/radio in the print-making area, but the radio couldn't get much of a signal down here, and who still had cassette tapes around??)
        While classes were in session, everyone left their backpacks and things out by the small, cubby-sized lockers near the door leading outside, but I was going to need everything in my bag, so I unpacked it on a tabletop in the developing room. I took out a scrap piece of paper and wrote a quick note, just in case anyone came in, so neither or us would scare the bejesus out of the other. I left it on top of my bag, which I figured anyone looking around for traces of another person would spot.
        I felt like I was leaving one of those horror-movie notes, "In case I don't make it through the night, John Doe probably killed me." God it was creepy down here! I started my iPod on a playlist of nice cozy '90s alternative, music from my childhood, reassuring and comfortable. I only put in one headphone, so I could still hear any peripheral noises. I pulled out two rolls of film, got together everything I'd need, and went over to the real dark room.
        I remembered again just how confusing the doors into this kind of room had been to me in my first photography class, back in high school - it was the exact same kind of entryway here as it had been there. A big plastic column was fitted snugly into the doorway, with an opening into the rooms on either side. Set inside the column was a smaller column, with only one opening, which could be spun around. This way, no light could possibly leak into the smaller room, and undeveloped film could be handled safely. The opening was already facing the room I was currently in, so I stepped in, and spun the inside around myself, until the opening was on the other side.
        "Anyone in here?" I asked automatically. No answer, but I waited a moment out of paranoia, making sure there weren't any breathing noises. "Okay, turning on the light..." This was a convenience I hardly ever had during a regular class, there were always people in here fighting with their film. Small bits of glow-in-the-dark tape were placed on the edges of the counters that lined the walls of the room, to help you keep from bumping into things - so it was possible to move around and set up entirely in the dark, but I took advantage of being able to have the light on a minute, lining up everything I'd need, and taking a moment to memorize where it all was. I held a roll of film in my hand, and lined up the can opener to bend back the metal which sealed the film into it, then reached over and turned off the light.

        Almost an hour later, I blinked my way back into the light. The first roll of film had been a breeze, but the second one I'd nearly thrown across the room, it must have taken me fifteen tries to get it to roll evenly into the spiraling wires of the reel, and even then I was pretty sure the film had bubbled out somewhere, and one section was touching another section. I'd reached the point where I no longer cared if I lost a few frames, I just had to get out of that room. As soon as my eyes had adjusted to the light, I had to start blinking again, as the fumes from the developing chemicals assaulted my poor eyeballs. I wasn't used to them being that strong, usually they had diluted after having been used by swarms of students. I'd set out fresh chemicals a few times before, I was in the rooms enough and the professors trusted me enough to give me the go-ahead to refresh the chemicals when needed, but ugh, it wasn't something you could ever really get used to. I tried not to pour out more than absolutely necessary to soak the film - the photography department was a pretty small one, and I didn't know how much supply there was left after the previous academic year.
        I set the timer, and shook the canister holding the two reels of film gently back and forth, like shaking a can of soda to potential explosion, only in slow-motion. Singing softly to myself along with the music playing into my ear, I let my gaze fall idly around the room, thinking again how medical it looked, with its white walls and white counters, tiled floor, and oversized metal basin running along one wall. Maybe more like a restaurant kitchen. I poured the developer out of the canister and back into the small brown bottle I kept my allotted portion in (since the stuff could be reused). I brought my canister over to one of the two giant plastic tanks, which were shaped like water coolers, only larger. And filled with poison. I put some chemical stop into my canister, and went back over to the sink to gently slosh it back and forth, then let it sit for a minute. I pulled my iPod out of my pocket and set it to shuffle everything on there, since I was about at the end of the playlist I'd had on. I poured the chemicals out into the sink, leaving the tap running to wash it all down, and refilled the container with fixer. Back to shaking, then letting it sit, then shaking for a few seconds, then letting it sit... I double-checked the length of time I should do this for with the chart posted on the wall, and sighed. It was so agonizing, having to wait so long, and all the time not having any idea if the negatives were developing right or not. "...Late nights with no-one real, no-one real to say that... This night feels like a dre-am, the kind where you wake up smi-ling, the kind that you wish were real, and I don't wanna e-ver wa-ke up..." Shake, wait, shake, wait... Finally! I poured the fixer back into its giant container (the chemicals inside were still pretty darkly colored, apparently no-one had replaced it after the end of the last semester), holding my breath as I did so.
        I unscrewed the lid of my lightproof canister, and set it under the tap, letting the water fill it and run over. "...filtered water and pictures of you, I'm not coming out until this is all over..." I sang along under my breath, grinning wryly. "And we become silhouettes when our bodies finally go..." I checked the clock and plopped down into a chair, letting my head fall back to stare at the patternless holes in the tiled ceiling. What were those tiles made of, anyway? They had the consistency of cardboard, basically, I remembered poking at one back in high school, they'd been rewiring something in the ceiling once and taken a few of the tiles down. I thought about going in and started to get the next rolls of film ready, but decided I'd rather finish these two first, so I had something accomplished for sure tonight. I skipped the rest of the song playing, I'd heard it a million times. Skipped the next one. Let it play Coldplay's "Talk". I smiled wryly to myself as I thought back, a friend of mine had been really into Coldplay early on, when they were only getting a bit of airplay, mostly on college radio stations. I felt like such a poseur next to that, I'd listened to them a bit back then, but it wasn't until "Clocks" that I really fell in love with them, and that was when everyone and their mom did too. Oh well.
        Checked the clock, and it was close enough, I got up and dumped the water out of my film canister. I poured a bit of wetting agent in, put the lid back on and swished it around a little. Finally, I poured that out, took off the lid, and pulled out the first reel of film. I made a face - I could see it touching in two places already, those frames were lost to me, the chemicals weren't likely to have been able to run over the film right in those spots. Oh well, I'd known this roll was probably messed up anyway... I unrolled it carefully, holding it up to the light and taking a first look at the images, in eerie inverted areas of light and dark. I sighed in relief - it was only some of the first shots I'd taken around the house, there weren't many of them I was really attached to, most were pretty generic pictures of the house as a whole, the barn, the surroundings. A few had potential though, some of the flower shots were nice. I opened the dust-proof metal cabinet, and clipped the roll of film into place, letting it hang down, and put another clip on the bottom to hold it straight. I closed the door back up, and went to take care of the second roll.


        8:30, I was done for the day - I didn't want to walk back to the house when it was too dark, there weren't a whole lot of streetlights once you left the campus. My negatives wouldn't be dry for hours, so I wrote my name on a bit of masking tape and stuck it on the clips holding up my film. Photo kids were pretty good about being respectful of other people's things, I wasn't all that worried about it. I gathered up my supplies and turned off the lights behind me (probably not necessary, but why not, save a few bucks in the budget for fresh chemicals). I followed the twisting halls out to the lobby, and stared a moment at the bank of lockers...then just took the one I'd used last semester, it would be easier to remember that way. I put all my supplies inside, dug my combination lock out of my now mostly-empty backpack, and snapped it into place. I didn't see any other locks there, guess I was the first one back in here since the end of semester cleaning. I shouldered my backpack, cranked up my iPod, and headed out into the cool dusky air.