[ WP ] Everything ever photographed gradually disappears

`` Did I ever tell you how I met your grandmother?'' 
 
 `` Yes grandpa you did. You told us lots of times.'' 
 
 `` Grampa, tell us again how everything disappeared!'' 
 
 `` Yeah, I wan na hear it too!'' 
 
 `` Alright alright. What part do you want me to start at? The beginning happened so long ago, let's see... The time when everyone was taking selfies, that's when the evil monster appeared. It consumed all souls good or bad, as long as you were in a picture it did n't matter. Everyday was...'' 
 
 `` Grandpa!! You're going to scare Amy!'' 
 
 `` A monster??'' 
 
 `` Hahaha! I'm just kidding Amy. There was no monster. But I think Ash was getting a bit scared himself.'' 
 
 `` WAS NOT!'' 
 
 `` Alright alright tough guy. I'll finish the story quickly so you can go to sleep. Hmm let's see... The time when everyone was taking selfies, thing started to disappear. At first it was small things like clothes, household items, money. Nothing too important. This went on for a while, until then everyone thought their stuff was stolen or plain missing. Do you remember when you lost some toys? You thought it disappeared but we found them.'' 
 
 `` I cried when my doll was lost..'' 
 
 `` But we found her did n't we? No, we made sure new things wo n't disappear anymore. All your toys are safe.'' 
 
 `` Grandpa, bigger things went missing too right?'' 
 
 `` That's right. People are good at making connections, eventually we realized the items in our own pictures went missing! It was an incredible and crazy idea. I remember testing it out myself for the first time. I cut up some paper into really tiny pieces and spread them out over the table. The smaller the pieces, the faster it disappeared of course. And then I took a picture of half of all the paper I put down. Well, guess what happened. The next day half of the paper disappeared!'' 
 
 `` Wow the next day?!'' 
 
 `` Did you get your paper back grampa?'' 
 
 `` I did not get it back, but back then we had lots and lots of paper so I was n't sad. But after I lost my paper I thought really hard about all the things I had taken a picture of. I did n't want to lose important things like money or my car or even my computer. Eventually we figured out something complex like a car or computer will take a long time to disappear.'' 
 
 `` How long?'' 
 
 `` Many years. Sometimes it felt like those things would never go away... but they did eventually. People adapt to everything. After it was confirmed the photographs were the source of the problem, many governments and companies worked together to mass produce different technologies. The scariest thing would be living in the stone age with no electricity or running water. And we all realized that.'' 
 
 `` Did any people disappear too?'' 
 
 `` Well, yes in fact, one person went missing because of the photographs. Do you want to know who it was?'' 
 
 `` Yeah'' 
 
 `` Who was it?'' 
 
 `` Well... that person..was me.'' 
 
 `` Huh?'' 
 
 `` Grampa no! You're not missing you're here!'' 
 
 `` Hahaha, I'm sorry Amy. And no, Ash, no people disappeared because of all this. And the reason is is because of your cells. You're probably too young to understand so I'll try to make it really simple. Think about when you eat food, it goes into your stomach, and then you're not hungry anymore. Your body absorbs all those vitamins and nutrients. Those then get absorbed into your cells and they grow more cells. It's like your hair, you have to get a haircut because it keeps growing. And so your body is the same way, you keep growing and someday you'll get bigger like me. A long time ago somebody was thinking of this same idea, and they wondered if photographed objects could last longer if they would `` grow'' too. Since a metal pipe can not grow, the only other thing to do is melt it down with other pipes and turn it into something else. Recycling. It turns out to have worked pretty well. Did you understand any of that?'' 
 
 `` Yes? I guess... That guy must have been pretty smart to come up with that.'' 
 
 `` Smart guy.'' 
 
 `` Ahaha thanks.'' 
 
 
 
 `` Ash, Amy. Are you two still awake? Is grandpa telling you more stories?'' 
 
 ``'' Yes!'''' 
 
 `` Hey... it seems like your grandma is getting tired too. How about I tell more stories tomorrow. Let's go to sleep for now.'' 
 
 `` Okay good night grandpa.'' 
 
 `` Gnight grampa.'' 
 
 
 -- -- 
 
 
 `` You have to work tomorrow do n't you?'' 
 
 `` I do, I'll leave before the kids get up.'' 
 
 `` I wish you would n't tell them those stories. Do n't you think they're too young to hear all that?'' 
 
 `` Too young? No way. I think it should be one of the first things they learn about, it's more important than any history or math books we have now. Do you remember what it was like back then? It does n't seem much different from today besides our phones not having any cameras.'' 
 
 `` I agree with you. But right now it's peaceful, sometimes it feels like you're just looking for something to fight against. You should let all the younger people deal with it, they have plenty of time as you said. Stay home and relax and spend time with your grandchildren.'' 
 
 `` I know and I want to. I really do but just thinking about it... ugh I really feel old at times like this. When I look at the younger generation and how naive they are, or how they ignore the truth. Did everyone forget? Or did we, do we, keep them in ignorance. Did everyone forget all those pictures we took of galaxies and nebula. We have plenty of books about asteroids and comets and more galaxies. And before all that. Saturn and Jupiter. Mars and our moon. We have pictures of the Sun. And of course most importantly we have our very own picture of the Earth. We can not recycle the Earth.'' 
 
 
 
 
 

