MAN AND MACHINE

How can this be? “This is not possible,” he said, still looking at the photos. “It is not possible,” he repeated again and again, walked around the whole room, grabbed his hair, touched his forehead, “it cannot be!” The digital camera showed him photographs which it couldn’t possibly have registered, instead of those which it should have registered, those for which it was designed. “But how is it possible,” repeated the man: the camera had registered photos of moments before the actual taking of any photo. He had realized something strange going on, he suspected already; his camera had registered pictures of a little over 60 seconds before he had pressed the button. It couldn’t be, there was no explanation. As far as he knew technology had not advanced enough to be able to turn back time. It was not possible that when he pressed the button to take the picture of the current moment, the camera had gone back in time and photographed as present the past, the same with or without a flash. “It is not possible in any way,” said the man. But this fact undermined his confidence in himself, in his perception of time. He wondered if he was getting ahead of the facts, if he was jumping ahead to the future moment, if he was going crazy. He was sure of one thing: only one could be right, the camera or him. “What is more likely,” wondered the man, “that a machine so faithful to reality as a camera fails or that a poor mortal like me fails.” He was unable to give one step in safety again.

2008