Camera Log 06 — First Notes From The Moleskine

No message. Just her eye, open forever.

Lisbon. Late afternoon. Still light, dusty and quiet, like it’s trying not to wake anything up.

I keep looking at that first message the camera gave me. Now I see you.
I keep asking myself: See who? Or what?
Am I crazy? Did it really happen? Can I find an answer in the notebook?

I decided to start reading her Moleskine to find an answer.
A notebook is just paper until you open it. But this one felt like it was already breathing.

I’ve had Isabel’s Moleskine for days, tucked inside my bag, like I could pretend it wasn’t there. I kept telling myself I’d open it when I was ready. But “ready” doesn’t mean much when you’re chasing someone else’s ghosts.

There were five photos. A small black notebook. A book with a few marked pages. All of it packed carefully away, waiting.

That’s how I first found her name.

On the first page of the notebook — a Moleskine — there’s that printed line: “In case of loss, please return to:”
Written there, in pen: Isabel S.
No full surname. No address. Just that.

The cover is hard under my fingers, edges still sharp. Inside, a pressed flower slips loose. I’m not sure if it’s decoration or a memory she wanted to keep alive.

Her notes, her words, all in Portuguese, of course.
It’s not a problem, I’m Brazilian. The language is familiar. But even so… sometimes I wonder if I’m reading her the way she meant. The tone, the rhythms here… they feel different.

She wrote about leaving someone — a boyfriend, fiancé, husband — it’s never clear. About moving into a new apartment, still echoing with someone else’s silence. About being a teacher, maybe. An artist too. She mentions sketches, charcoal under her nails, the weight of unfinished sculptures. Some days she couldn’t sleep, and some nights she pressed flowers into these pages as if to keep them alive for her.

And then, in the middle of all that, she writes about finding the camera.

“Ontem encontrei essa câmara numa gaveta. Escondida, atrás de velhas toalhas. Não sei de quem era. Perguntei ao senhorio, disse que não sabia. Talvez tenha ficado de algum inquilino antigo. Disse-me para ficar com ela.”

“Yesterday I found this camera in a drawer. Hidden behind old towels. I don’t know who it belonged to. I asked the landlord, he said he didn’t know. Maybe it was from an old tenant. He told me to keep it.”

A leftover from someone else’s life, waiting in the dark for who knows how long. Or maybe it was waiting for her, just like it feels like it was waiting for me.

Some lines repeat, like she was trying to hold herself together one sentence at a time.

I keep coming back to this first page. The eye she drew, wide open, lashes precise, staring straight through.
Next to it: a spiral, a small triangle, and what looks like a tiny Polaroid frame with “????” scratched inside.
At the top, one question in pencil: “Por que?” (Why?)

The first pages feel like someone whispering half-formed confessions. Words that loop back on themselves:

“Não confio na minha memória.”
I don’t trust my memory.

“A câmara está… muda.”
The camera is… silent.

Little drawings scatter the margins, spirals, triangles, a circle with a dot in the middle. Tiny symbols that feel like they’re trying to contain something that keeps slipping out. Sometimes she just trails off into question marks, like she’s asking the same thing again and again.

It feels like she was trying to catch something in the margins, a thought that kept slipping away.

I wanted to see how it looked through the lens. So I took a Polaroid of that first page, just the eye, the marks, the unanswered question. The film developed clear. No hidden message this time. Just graphite and shadows, staring back.

Sometimes the camera stays silent. Maybe that’s part of it: you don’t get to choose when it wants to speak.

I think Isabel knew that. And maybe she started writing it all down because she didn’t trust herself to remember what was hers — and what wasn’t.

I haven’t read every page yet. But there’s something here that feels like it’s still awake.

And I think the silence is beginning to crack.

Camera Log 05 - It Wrote Back

It used my hand to write the message. But the words weren’t mine.

Lisbon. Late afternoon. The light flat and gray, like it hadn’t made up its mind.

I changed the film.

Four photos in, the pack ran out — quiet, uneventful.
So I loaded a new one.
A fresh strip. My own.

The next photo looked normal.
A quiet Lisbon street, slightly overexposed. Nothing unusual.
But when I looked down, I saw it.

A message. Written on the white frame.
In my handwriting.

Only… I don’t remember writing it.

I know how that sounds. But I didn’t.

The words didn’t feel wrong because of what they said, but because they were already there.
Like the camera had been waiting for me to take the photo,
just so it could hand me something it had already decided.

"Now I see you."

I stared at it for a long time. Told myself I must’ve blacked out.
Must’ve written it without noticing.

But the ink looked aged. Faded at the edges.
Like it had been waiting there before I even touched the shutter.

And that’s when it hit me.

The first four photos I took…
They weren’t mine.
They were hers.

The damage, the distortion, it wasn’t just expired film.
It was residue.

I didn’t take those pictures.
The camera gave them to me.

And now that I’ve fed it something new,
it’s starting to speak in my voice.
Using my hand.

I hadn’t looked inside the bag until now.
But tonight, I opened it.

Five photos. A notebook.
A book with passages underlined in frantic ink.

All of it hers.

And I think it’s time I started listening.

Camera Log 04 – It Watched Back

Some things don’t need eyes to see you.

Lisbon. Evening. A low sky, the kind that presses down on rooftops and thoughts.

I don’t know why I took one more.
Maybe I thought the last one was a fluke. A glitch.

But this one…
This one felt different.
Decisive.

It made a sound I hadn’t heard before — low, drawn out.
Almost reluctant.
Like the camera was holding its breath.

The photo came out darker.
Thicker, somehow. And the air around it smelled faintly metallic, like something overheated.

There’s a burn mark at the top, perfectly round.
And inside it, a pattern. Sharp, small… like teeth.

And the shape in the center, it’s not the sculpture anymore.
Not really.

It looks like a figure.
Turning away.
Or maybe turning toward.

And that’s when I felt it:
the image watching me.

Not metaphorically.
Not emotionally.
It felt aware.

I kept staring at it, waiting for it to move.
It didn’t. But the silence around it thickened.

And somewhere in that stillness, between the photo and the hum of the film,
a thought surfaced, quiet but insistent:

I don’t think these were the first photos I took.
I think they were the first the camera gave me.

Camera Log 03 - It Split Down the Middle

 

It split down the middle, like something tried to break through the frame but got stuck between worlds.

 

Lisbon. Early evening. Still air. The light gone dull, like breath held too long. 

I took the third one without thinking.
Same object. Same silence.

Then came the sound.
A soft, dry crack, like pressure against something fragile.
It came from inside the camera.

The photo developed like it had been torn before it even existed.
Not the paper. The image.

One side went pale, the other sank into black.
A jagged line cuts between them, like something tried to push through but didn’t make it.

I told myself it was the film. Expired. Damaged.
But I wasn’t sure anymore.

I checked the camera. No cracks. No loose parts.
Still, I didn’t like the way it felt in my hands.
Warmer. Heavier.
Like it had swallowed something.

The picture just sat there on the table, and I couldn’t stop looking at it.

It reminded me of something split wide open — a mouth, maybe.
Or a wound that hasn’t started bleeding yet.

At some point, I whispered:
“Are you broken?”
But part of me already knew.

Not broken.
Changing.

Camera Log 02 - It Didn’t Sit Still

 

Second shot. Something beneath the surface.

Lisbon. Late afternoon. The kind of light that doesn’t cast shadows, just softens them. 

I took the second one just a few minutes after the first.  
Same spot. Same light. Same angle.  
But something felt… off.

The photo developed normally. Still nothing terribly wrong with it.  
But when I placed it next to the first, I noticed the shift.  
The colors were warmer. Orange bleeding into the shadows.  
Like the light had changed — or like the picture had moved while developing.

Not a blur. Not damage. Just repositioned itself, slightly.  
Like it had shifted in time, not space.

They’re nearly identical. I checked.  
But the second one doesn’t sit still. It vibrates. Quietly.  
Like it’s leaning toward something I’m not supposed to see.

I didn’t say anything out loud, but I remember thinking:  

“Are you trying to show me something?”

And for a second, I swear the light in the photo flickered.

At the time, I blamed the lighting. My eyes.  
But now, looking back, I think that was the moment it started watching me.