A moment in time, captured in pixels…lost forever!
Echoes of the Grand Prix in Melbourne had faded, and I found myself alone in Albert Park, the smell of burning rubber and high-octane fuel still lingering in the autumn air. The park was serene; a complete contrast to the cheering crowds from days earlier. I wandered, lost in solitude, feeling older with every step, and stumbled upon the last remaining steel frames used to fence off the racing track. Under the frames, I decided, would be the perfect spot for a selfie. I opened the camera app, flipped it to portrait mode, and, holding my iPhone out in front, posed in my sunglasses! Suddenly, my iPhone buzzed, and a Wikipedia page flashed repeatedly on my home screen – ‘Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.’ A story about the search for eternal youth and the dark price of vanity. “Oh, shit. How peculiar,” I thought, and tried desperately to flick the wiki page away, but the screen appeared to have frozen. Beneath the steel fence, clutching my iPhone, I felt a gentleman’s hand rest on my left shoulder.
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it,” the gentleman smirked. “Resist it, and your soul grows sick for longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.”
“Who are you? What are you talking about?”
“No matter who I am, dear sir. I am just a young frivolous man. A man who is jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. Even this park and that lake. I’m jealous of their beauty. Aren’t you?”
I could not say that I was jealous of the park and the lake, but I was of the young man facing me. He appeared pristine and radiantly handsome as if he’d leapt straight out of the pages of Oscar Wilde’s famous novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Compelled by a whimsical urge, I positioned myself carefully beside him, rested my head on his shoulder, and lifted my iPhone. His beauty was too unbearable not to capture. In the light of the afternoon sun, he appeared corruption-free and worth recording. “Intellect destroys the harmony of any face. Lose that expression, my dear,” the gentleman instructed. I promptly did, adjusting my expression to that of a lost soul. “That’s much better,” he said. “The artist that you are is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. Now, take the picture if you must. Before the daylight dulls.”
With a click, I took a selfie under the steel fencing, surrounded by the lush greenery of Albert Park. At that moment, I became Dorian Gray, and the park was my canvas. I would be an artist who devotes his life to temptation. Like Dorian Gray, I would know the price of everything, yet I would value nothing. And I would commit sins others would never even think about. “But alas, I was not Dorian Gray,” I concurred, shaking myself free from my wicked daydream and looking down at the picture I’d just snapped. Unlike Oscar Wilde’s beloved character, I sought not to preserve my youth but instead embraced the passing of time. A selfie was not a wish for immortality but a snapshot of a life lived well up until that moment, a life that keeps moving forward. “Experience is merely the name men give to their mistakes,” the gentleman scolded loudly, while I deleted the picture of us from my iPhone.
With the smell of fast cars lingering forever, I left the park with no memento. It was as if the day (and the encounter) had never been…and the gentleman, strikingly like I’d imagined Dorian Gray would look, didn’t exist! A moment in time captured in pixels under the steel frames of a bygone race lost forever. No one any the wiser. Not even me. Does beauty still hold a place in my heart, I wondered as I turned the corner into my street. Once again, my iPhone buzzed and a message flashed repeatedly on my home screen. ‘Have faith. It’s not a race to the end. The tragedy of getting older is not that one is old, but that one is young…and still Prince Charming.’ Yours fondly, Dorian Gray.
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Harlequin ink 
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