Red Salmon

Harry said we couldn’t go to Edinburgh and not visit The Camera Obscura. As soon as we walked inside, the flashing lights gave me vertigo. I had to take long blinks before my brain stopped fizzing and I could train my eyes to see straight. Harry rushed to my side and said we leave it, not worth me falling over and making a tit out of myself. His humour calmed me, as he knew it would, and my eyes focused on his until my legs felt sturdy enough to carry me to the next room.

          The illusion of a dark, narrow corridor transformed into a kaleidoscope of colour as we walked through. Everywhere I looked there were infinite streams of light beaming in all directions. Other tourists snapped photos while I hurried through to the other side.

          The next room was more my style. Interactive games even small children could enjoy. With softer lights and more open space, I held Harry’s hand as we explored the maze of attractions. He guided me to a wall with a massive canvas, and I needed to relax my eyes to see the image of a baby within the dots, who was crying from one angle but content from another. We then poked our heads inside a box and prisms of mirrors stretched to eternity on either side. Tubes of sour light wiggled through the glass and illuminated Harry’s face an alien green. His giddiness made me smile with my teeth, something I often concealed. It was our second date when he said he preferred my open smile. For the past few months I’d found myself showing it more. 

          Around a corner we discovered an infrared screen. Standing in front of it, our bodies lit up like Christmas trees. Our faces burnt red; hot stripes of yellow flashed around our chins and elbows; and my hair highlighted green. Harry made a joke about dying it. A queue formed beside us. A couple just a little older than us were pointing to the heat detection screen, awaiting their turn. The woman gave me a warm smile. "How exciting," she said, beaming as she looked from the screen then back to me. I stepped away to allow her a chance to try it out.

          We climbed higher. The staircase then opened onto the roof. A man handing out bits of paper said our time slot for The Camera Obscura was in ten minutes. "I thought that’s what we’d been doing all along," I said. He told me we’d been through the illusions, and that The Camera Obscura was the camera on top of the building, which we would be shown in our allocated time slot, which was in ten minutes. He would call out our number. We were ushered onto the terrace as he handed out more tickets. 

          The wind whipped my hair around my neck, and Harry clasped his hands around my ears so they wouldn’t freeze. More tourists were pumped out onto the terrace until we were sardines squeezed up against strangers. We shuffled past to get to the edge. The view stretched out for miles. Gothic structures and old brick formed the Old Town. We asked someone to take our picture. I considered posting it, the first picture of Harry on my feed. Our number was then called, and we pushed through the wave back inside. 

          The man from before hurried us into a small room where we had to mind our heads. He locked the door. It was almost pitch black. I held Harry’s hand. The man began the script he recited every day, four times an hour, to the eight of us who were crammed in a circle all looking at a dome. Pictures appeared of people outside, and the man rotated a stick which guided the lens, navigating through the Royal Mile. A gust of wind blew a woman’s skirt up to her waist, and I felt sorry for her. The intrusive eye zoomed in further, and someone beside me chuckled at how a man had mustard on his beard outside a tourist shop, which I saw sold figurines of the Loch Ness monster. Our time was shortly up. We all ducked our heads to leave. 

          On our way back down the stairs, Harry insisted we do it all again. We had no other plans for the day. We went back to his favourite illusion, which made it look like he’d disappeared with just his head on a platter. He had to crawl through a gap in the wall and when he stood up his whole body had vanished but his head. I took some photos.

          There was no queue for the infrared screen. We made different shapes out of our water-coloured bodies. A sea of cooling blues and greens rippled around Harry’s middle. But when I glanced at my stomach, there was a warm splodge in the centre. The woman from before had looked me down, and her eyes momentarily rested there. I didn’t think anything of it before. I glance back to the screen.           "What’s that?" I asked Harry and he pointed to the squirming shades of red in my stomach. 

          "Looks like a fish," he said. With closer inspection, I could make out the vague impression of a fin coming away from the red blob. 

          "A red salmon," he said and smiled.