Log 09 — Ninth Entry: The Forest and The Message

Two attempts. One crossed-out message. Something in her handwriting
 she doesn’t remember writing.

A forest blurred and torn.
The camera said nothing.

New film. Same place. This time,
the message was waiting.

 

Left Page

Primeira tentativa – filme antigo.

A câmara já tinha um cartucho lá dentro. Não sei há quanto tempo.
Foto queimada. Estranha.
Os árvores desfocadas, um rasgo escuro no meio.
Não gostei da sensação. Troquei de filme.
Novo. Voltei ao mesmo sítio.
Não sei porquê. Algo em mim queria tentar outra vez.
First attempt – old film.
The camera already had a cartridge inside. I don’t know how long it had been there.
The photo came out burned. Strange.
Blurred trees, a dark tear in the middle.
I didn’t like the feeling. I changed the film.
New one. I went back to the same place.
I don’t know why. Something in me wanted to try again.

There’s something familiar about this. About trying again.
When I first found the camera, I did the same.
The film that came with it wasn’t mine either. And the first four photos didn’t feel like mine.
She says the image looked burned. Trees blurred, a dark scar running through the center.
She couldn’t explain it. Didn’t like it. So she changed the film and went back. Same spot. New roll.
Same need.
“Algo em mim queria tentar outra vez.”
Something in me wanted to try again.
I know that feeling.
Sometimes you don’t choose to return.
Something chooses you.

Right Page

Segunda tentativa – a mensagem apareceu.

"Procura as alturas onde risos e memórias esquecidos pairam no ar."

Escrita… Na minha letra.
Mas eu não me lembro de a ter escrito.
Não tinha caneta comigo.
Não escrevi.
Ou escrevi?
Fiquei a olhar para a moldura durante minutos.
Não consigo explicar.
Second attempt — the message appeared.
Look for the heights where rivers and memories pass through the air
Written… In my handwriting.
But I don’t remember writing it.
I didn’t have a pen with me.
I didn’t write it.
Or did I?
I stared at the frame for minutes.
I can’t explain it. 

She crosses out the message.
Maybe it didn’t make sense.
Maybe it scared her.

But it was there.
Clear.
In her handwriting.
She insists: she didn’t write it.
She didn’t even have a pen.

I know the feeling: that cold, electric disbelief.
It’s your hand, but not your words.
It’s your voice, but someone else’s breath.

And still…
“Ou escrevi?”
Or did I?

She stares at the frame for minutes, looking for an answer in the blank space that once held her own gaze.
Something shifted here.
This is when she realizes she’s not the only one watching.

A message she doesn’t remember writing. A photo that seemed to know her thoughts. 
A pencil-drawn eye watching from the margin.

Left and Right Pages

"Como se a foto já soubesse o que eu ia tirar.
Como se estivesse à espera.
✶ A letra é minha. Parece minha. Mas não me lembro.
Tenho dormido mal há semanas.
Sonhos confusos… e às vezes não sei se estou a sonhar.
Desde o fim – desde que saí da casa dele – tenho andado num nevoeiro. 
Talvez tenha escrito aquilo e esqueci.
Ou sonhei que tirei a foto e só estou a misturar tudo.
Será que o corpo escreve quando a mente desliga?
Eu pensava que foi a câmara?
A câmara parece… desperta agora.
Como se tivesse estado a testar-me.
E aquela primeira foto, com o filme antigo…
Quem a tirou? Ou o que ficou gravado ali?"
As if the photo already knew what I was going to take.
As if it had been waiting.
✶ The handwriting is mine. Looks like mine. But I don’t remember.
I’ve been sleeping badly for weeks.
Confused dreams… and sometimes I don’t know if I’m dreaming.
Since the end — since I left his house — I’ve been walking through fog.
Maybe I did write it and forgot.
Or dreamed I took the picture and now I’m mixing everything up.
Does the body write when the mind shuts off?
I thought it was the camera?
The camera feels… awake now.
Like it had been testing me.
And that first photo, with the old film…
Who took it? Or what was recorded there?

This is the turning point.
She’s not just questioning memory, now she’s questioning reality.

The way she writes about the photo, as if it were conscious, waiting for her, knowing what she’d see. It chills me.
It mirrors exactly what happened with my first roll.
The film wasn’t mine.
But the camera seemed to know what I’d find.

And then comes the line that sticks:
“A câmara parece… desperta agora.”
The camera feels awake now.

I felt it too.
The moment it stopped being just a tool and became something else.
Observant. Aware. Maybe even… selective.

She doesn’t remember writing the message.
She questions if she wrote it in her sleep, or if it was the camera that “recorded” her somehow.
And then she wonders if that first photo (with the old film) was hers at all.

I remember thinking the same thing, staring at my own first Polaroid.
Trying to recognize my eye behind the lens.
Trying to remember pressing the shutter.

And it’s not just the camera anymore.
She draws an eye in the corner of the page, almost an afterthought.
Simple, made in pencil. But it feels deliberate.
As if something was watching her while she wrote all this down.

That moment when the line between dream and waking blurs?
She’s deep in it now.
And so am I.

A pressed flower blooms across the ink: delicate, dried, and 
still full of questions.

Left Page

Há algo na floresta. E talvez… na câmara também.

??????*
*Não confio na minha memória*
??????

Tirei mais quatro fotos hoje. Nada.
Mudei de lugar. Nova rua. A luz estava bonita. Nada.

There’s something in the forest. And maybe… in the camera too.

??????
*I don’t trust my memory*
??????

I took four more photos today. Nothing.
Changed locations. A new street. The light was beautiful. Nothing.

She doesn’t just question her memory, she draws a line through it. That red ink is a rupture. A flare.

The forest is no longer just a setting.
And the camera… maybe it never was just an object.

??????
I don’t trust my memory
??????

Those marks feel like a code. Or maybe a breakdown.
Either way, something’s cracking open.

She tries again. She changes streets. She waits for the light.
But all she gets is silence.

I know that silence.
Not emptiness, refusal.

Like the camera is choosing when to speak.
And today, it said nothing.

Right Page

"Talvez tenha sido mesmo eu que escrevi aquilo. E só não me lembro.
A letra parece minha. Eu ando a dormir pouco. Será que é isso?
Tentei de manhã. À tarde. Uma à noite, mesmo antes de deitar.
Tudo normal. A câmara está... muda."
Maybe it really was me who wrote it. And I just don’t remember.
The handwriting looks like mine. I haven’t been sleeping much. Maybe that’s it?
I tried in the morning. In the afternoon. One at night, just before bed.
Everything normal. The camera is… silent.

She’s walking in circles now. Questioning what’s real, what’s hers.

“Talvez tenha sido mesmo eu que escrevi aquilo.”
Maybe it really was me who wrote it.
But if she doesn’t remember, does it matter?

The handwriting looks like hers.
But so does sleepwalking.
So do dreams.

She tries again: morning, afternoon, night.
Three quiet attempts. Same result.

That final line lingers:
A câmara está… muda.
The camera is silent.

Not broken.
Not jammed.
Just… withholding.

Like whatever’s on the other side of the lens, it’s watching her decide whether she’s ready.

And maybe it’s not.

There’s a small drawing near the middle of the page, a question mark orbiting a sun.
Uncertainty clinging to clarity.
It feels like a question she doesn’t want the answer to.

And across the page, a dried flower quietly bursts outward,
as if trying to speak in place of the camera.

These pages are fragments left behind by Isabel S., no more and no less. © I.S.

Log 08 — Eighth Entry: New Module

New neighborhood. Old fears. A camera she hasn’t touched yet. A spiral
 glued between the eyes, still watching.

Left Page

“Este bairro é novo para mim. Ruas velhas, mas eu ainda não pertenço. Talvez isso seja bom. Uma página em branco.”
This neighborhood is new to me. Old streets, but I don’t belong yet. Maybe that’s good. A blank page.

She calls it a blank page, but it’s already filling with tension. Her body is alert, cautious, almost like it’s waiting for something to go wrong or for something to finally begin.

“Tenho medo de que, se parar de trabalhar com as mãos, perca o fio. O corpo sabe mais do que eu.”
I’m afraid that if I stop working with my hands, I’ll lose the thread. The body knows more than I do.

This line stayed with me. The way she says the body knows more, as if it’s the one leaving breadcrumbs, and she’s just following behind, hoping the trail doesn’t vanish. I know that fear. Of losing momentum. Of letting something fall quiet and never finding your way back in.

In red, two words repeat like a heartbeat at the bottom of the page:
“Meus olhos. Seus olhos.”
My eyes. Your eyes.

Right Page 

“O próximo módulo vai ser difícil. Não tenho vontade de estar ali. Mas os alunos não precisam de saber.”
The next module will be hard. I don’t feel like being there. But the students don’t need to know.

Her voice softens here. She doesn’t want to be in that room, but she’s still going. Still showing up for them.
There’s something human in that, the weight you carry quietly so others won’t feel it.

A single phrase in red ink stands out, almost like it doesn’t belong to the rest of the text:
“eu te vejo”
I see you.
Feels less like a note and more like a breach. A line crossed. A presence felt.

“Amanhã levo a Polaroid comigo. Comprei novos rolos hoje, talvez me inspire.”
Tomorrow I’ll take the Polaroid with me. Bought new film today, maybe it’ll inspire me.

So many of her entries orbit this: the camera, the images she hasn’t taken yet, the eyes that might appear again.
The collage at the bottom of the page is almost a whisper: green, grainy, an iris behind prison bars, or is it trees? It’s hard to tell. The spiral is glued right between the eyes.

She’s still searching for a new way to see.
And still afraid of what she might find when she does.

These pages are fragments left behind by Isabel S., no more and no less. © I.S.