[ WP ] Your family photo sits on the wall , except today you notice something is different about it

The photograph had been on the wall so long that its details were as familiar and unremarkable as the pattern on the wallpaper around it. Me, my brother, my mother and father, on holiday at Disney World, standing outside the magic kingdom in the blazing sun, all smiles. I had been four years old at the time, and had only the haziest recollection of the trip. My mother told me the photograph was taken by Goofy, but that did n't entirely chime with my memory. I remembered meeting Goofy that day, but there was also someone else, a strange old man with a gray hat and a toothy smile. I could n't say why, but for some reason I thought he had taken it. 
 
 When we returned from the holiday, my father had got the roll developed and it had been the only photograph where we were all smiling and nobody was blinking, picking their nose, or otherwise spoiling the shot. My mother had gotten it blown-up to double size, put into a smart white frame, and hung it on the wall. And there it stayed. All throughout my childhood, it had been a fixture of the room and of the house. Just a small part of the comforting familiarity of the family home, like the Monet print in the hall, the bronze statue over the fireplace, and the beat-up beanbag in the den. 
 
 Twenty-five years later, my brother and me were stood in the hallway of our parent's house. The funeral had finished a couple of hours ago, and we had just said goodbye to the last of the mourners. In the sudden silence, we both leaned against opposite walls, lost in our thoughts. Finally my brother said, `` I only have a couple of hours before my flight. I think we should take a look through Dad's files before we leave.'' I nodded. `` They'll be in his office.'' I said. `` I'll go get them. Pour us a couple of whiskeys, will you?'' 
 
 I made up the drinks and went into the front room. I stood listening to the faint noises my brother made as he moved around upstairs, remembering the sounds my parents used to make as they bustled about the place. I could almost hear my mother's voice calling me from the kitchen. Outside the street was very quiet, and the sky was a sunless void of gray. I looked around the room, my eyes drifting over its familiar contents: The sofa, the television, the ornaments, the photographs -- I stopped. Something caught my eye, something different. It was in the Disney photograph. 
 
 Trembling, I inched closer to the wall. As I did, the details resolved themselves. There was me, and my brother, and my mother, and my father. Smiling in the sun, as we had done for years. But now there was something else. In front of the camera, partly obscuring us, with his arm outstretched towards the lens, as if grasping the camera in an unseen paw, was Goofy. And something else had changed. The sunny yellow hue of the shot had shifted, to a lo-fi haze of purple of green, and a dark vignette had mysteriously appeared around the edges. 
 
 There was something more. Underneath the photograph, on the edge of the white frame, something was written in a tiny hand, inked in what might well be blood. My heart pounding, and my breath held, I leaned in close to read it. 
 
 # dogselfie # condolences # magickingdom # deadparents # yrpalgoofy
