Paula was fascinated with the camera. It had changed her best friend into her twin sister and nobody was the wiser. The possibilities might be endless! There was no way she was going to class.
She slipped out of the school and scanned the area. The school was in a residential area not far from the city center. The kind of neighborhood with stately old houses and upscale shops and trendy restaurants.
It wouldn’t take long at all to walk downtown. She headed out. Soon, she had to pass a vacant lot where many homeless people had set up tents and were trying to survive. The lot was overgrown and the tents were shabby and run down. Seven or eight men milled around, filthy with shaggy hair and unkempt beards. Paula pondered what the camera might do. She raised it and snapped a picture. She grabbed the photo it spit out and started shaking it.
When it developed it showed a community garden full of sunflowers and tomato plants. Paula gasped and looked up. Sure enough, the camp was gone and instead there was a well tended garden. A middle aged black woman with two small children was tending to a row of pepper plants. Nearby, a couple of labradoodles lazed in the sun, panting. Had the family and the dogs been the men in the camp? That was only five people though. She scanned around and couldn’t figure out where the others went. She looked back at the photo and noticed a couple birds flying away in the picture. Was that them?
She waved at the family and continued walking. Soon she passed a classy condo building. In front of it stood a doorman dressed in fancy clothing. A couple middle aged men in suits were exiting the building and a pair of women in exercise class holding yoga mats were entering. Paula raised the camera and let it do its work.
As the picture developed the condo was gone. Instead there was a gloomy brick building with a sign over the door proclaiming that this was Downtown Drug Addiction Diversion Court.
At the door, a busty police officer with wide hips was checking ids at the door. Her tight pants showed off a camel toe. Waiting to get in were two looking men dressed like gangsters. Behind them was an angry middle aged woman and a teenager with a mowhawk. Paula guesses this was a mother taking her juvenile delinquent spawn to a hearing.
That was incredible. She smiled broadly and kept walking, wondering what else she could change.