In 2018, I work in the dark room, a makeshift antechamber entered through the wall of a regular classroom, at my son Ben’s middle school once a week. I watch earnest eighth graders who could otherwise be instantly gratified by digital images patiently agitate paper enlargements of flowers, of siblings in torn jeans, of grandparents, bikes, and balls, and of the Golden Gate Bridge, in various chemicals in a sulfur-tanged space.
By now, two months into the semester, the kids are skilled at the process. The chemicals are mildly toxic and the equipment is expensive, so I have to be there in case of a spill or something, but I don’t need to help them much anymore. They’ve learned how to develop the photos on their own. I’ve known most of them since Kindergarten, and we chat a bit, but there are only six enlargement stations, and most of the time my own son isn’t in the group of six I’m slated to help with. He’s on the other side of the wall, working quietly with the other twelve students in the class, and their teacher. Mostly, I try to stay out of the kids’ way, and I try not to think about whom to save and how, when the shooter arrives. The dark room is small. We stand close.
We enter the dark room through a cylinder-shaped door covered in blackout paper. One third of the cylinder is cut out in a slice, making a door we can bend into and then rotate to arrive in the dim “safe” light of the other side…
