And now for Matthew’s WRITE HERE, WRITE NOW entry ...

No Filter.

“Is the flash on?” A pause. Her mother lowered the phone to reveal a hesitant expression. “How can I tell?” Sophie exhaled dramatically. “There’s a symbol at the top of the screen. Make sure it’s off. The flash washes me out.” She composed herself, placed a hand on her hip as was the trend, and forced out a breathy laugh so that her smile would seem natural.

“Click,” said her mother. She always said click when taking a photograph, even in public. She really could be impossible. “How does it look?” Sophie asked, her hand already extended. Her mother told her she looked beautiful as she passed the phone. It slipped snugly into the contours of Sophie’s palm. “Oh, no.” Her smile was too big, her eyes too scrunched up, and the hand on her hip, rather than seeming carefree as it was supposed to, made her look silly and childish. “It looks like I’m posing. We’ll have to do it again.”

Her mother took the phone slowly. “Aren’t you supposed to pose when you have your picture taken?” “No, mum. It’s…” Sophie fumbled around for the words. “It’s just not right. We have to do it again.” Sophie focussed her eyes this time on some imaginary friend standing to the left of the camera and smiled more measuredly, careful not to let any toothless gaps show. It was all she could do not to flinch when her mother said, “Click. This is the one, Soph.” Sophie took the phone. It was a better photo. She looked more mature, more like the girls in the other photos she’d seen at school. Her smile could have been a smidge more effortless though…

She was roused from her scrutiny of the picture by the sensation of her mother’s gaze having settled on her. “What?” “Why do you need this picture again?” Sophie closed her eyes and rolled them behind the lids. “I need it to set up my Facebook account.” Her mother’s face knitted into her usual expression of concern. “Do you really need a picture of yourself up on the internet for everyone to see?” “Mum!” Sophie said incredulously. “It’s Facebook. So, yeah, I need a photograph.” When it came to her mother, things had to be spelled out sometimes.

Unconvinced, she hummed a stern, motherly note. “I’ve heard stories on the radio, Soph. There are evil old men who pretend to be children and” – “I know about paedophiles, Mum. I’m not stupid. I think I can tell when someone is pretending to be something they’re not.” She left the room before she could be subjected to any more textbook parenting. She had already opened the application while her mother had been speaking and now, after some tweaking with the photo editor she had downloaded for this specific purpose, she uploaded the picture. She had planned the caption: “No filter on this. Just something a friend snapped at a party last week.”


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