You never know where a camera and some film might take you.

Walter had sold life insurance for all his adult life. He was good at it. Even made Top of the Million Dollar Round Table a few times during his career. A career he started right out of high school. It was the only life he’d ever known. It wasn’t a bad life either, being married to his high school sweet heart, having three well-adjusted kids, a two car garage (always with a car model within the last five years), a two story house in an upscale, but not ostentatious neighborhood, serving as a deacon at his church, and, of course, a cadre of pets – hamsters, dogs, cats, goldfish, iguanas, and the occasional “rescue turtle.”

It wasn’t a bad life. It was just boring and empty now. His wife had passed away two years ago from cancer, the kids all had their own families and lives. One of his sons was even working for the same life insurance company, making his own way, and putting in those 80 hour weeks. “Gotta sweat to get, right dad?” he’d say whenever Walter called. That was about the depth and length of the conversation.

Without his wife and kids, life was just empty. Pointless. Here he was at 68 and wondering what did he have to show for the life he’d lead. He just didn’t care about anything anymore. A common quandary, his doctor told him. But what concerned Walter even more was how ambivalent he felt about being in such a predicament. He didn’t care that he didn’t care.

Surely there had to be more to life than this?

So he did what a lot of men do when facing such a situation. No, he didn’t start drinking or chasing younger women. One drink and he’d get sick, and he was still in love with his wife. Besides, what would he do with a younger woman except make a damn fool of himself? No, he did something he remembered his dad doing – he went on long rides out in the country.

It was on one of these rides that he came across Crossroads Antiques. At first he slowed down as he thought it was just another abandoned old store, but he watched as an elderly woman, walking with a cane, came from around the back of the shop to the front door. She stopped and purposely turned to Walter, smiled and waved to him. Well, he wasn’t doing anything else, or going anywhere as a destination, so, “Why not?”

He pulled over and into the parking lot. It looked like a house that had been transformed into a small business – not unusual out in the country. The door creaked as he opened it, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimmed lighting.

“Morning,” said a soft voice from behind a counter. It was the elderly woman who had waved to him. She was barely taller than the counter, wore her hair in a schoolmarm bun, and was watching him through thick horn rimmed glasses. She reminded him of the grandmother from that TV show, The Waltons. “Looking fer anything in particular?”

“No, eh, no. Just out for a ride, saw the store, and thought I’d visit,” Walter replied.

“Where you from? I knowed it ain’t from ‘round here,” she inquired with kind of a twinkle in here eye.

“Norfolk.”

“Oh, the big city. Don’t get a lot of folks from the big city, course we don’t get much folks at all no more. When tobacco stopped being a cash crop, the railroad stopped running through here. Now all the boys grow peanuts and soybeans, and they truck it up to Petersburg. Yes, things right quiet ‘round here anymore. Quite quiet it is.”

“Well take your time and look ‘round the store. Mostly all you’ll find is the left behinds from people who moved away and on with their lives. Mainly the stuff the kids didn’t want when their parents died, and couldn’t sell. So they dump it here and I try to scratch out a living from it.”

Walter thought that was kind of sad and then mumbled to himself, “Yeah, but so am I.”

He rambled around the store, looking at clothing that was out of date by at least two decades – lots of plaid and earth tones, record collections from the sixties and seventies (my God, we did wear our hair like that), toasters, dishes, old paintings bought originally from K-Mart to decorate the den, and oddities like walkers and prosthetic limbs. Well, at least it killed some time on a day when he had nothing else to do. He walked up to the counter to say goodbye when something caught his eye.

Behind the counter, on a shelf where the dust was so thick you knew the items hadn’t been touched or moved in years, were several cameras. A No. One Autographic Kodak Jr., a Kodak Retina, with a flashpan flash, a Minute 16 spy camera, and a Yashica Mat 124G. The Yashica brought back a lot of memories. His dad had used one and constantly took pictures of the family with it. When he passed away Walter inherited it, and used it for several years until cell phones replaced photography. He had no idea if he had kept it, and if so, where it would be.

“Old cameras caught your eye, eh?” the woman asked. “You know we still have some film for that one with the two lenses. Even got a local guy who still does darkroom work that can develop and print stuff for you. You take the camera and I’ll kick in some film.”

The proprietress was a savvy salesperson. She knew the camera was the hook and the offer of free film the bait that Walter couldn’t resist. She could see Walter hesitating, so she added, “Tell you what – you give me $20 and I’ll get you the camera, this five pack of black and white film, a leather cover and…I think I’ve got a couple of rolls of color film too.”

Walter couldn’t pull out his wallet fast enough.

As she wrote down the sale in an old ledger, she asked him, “So what you gonna take pictures of? Family?”

Walter’s face saddened a bit as he replied, “No, no family. My wife passed away, and, well, my kids are all grown. Probably just go riding in the country and see what I can find.”

The old woman leaned over the counter and spoke quietly, as if they were in a conspiracy, “A lot of people that stop by here taking pictures, talk of a place out in the country, way out, off the posted roads. They say it’s the most beautiful place. They call it something like Elysium.”

“That’s a funny name but it sounds interesting. Any idea where I’d find it? Directions?”

“There’s lots of places with funny names out here, like Frog Level and Little Hell.”

They both laughed, and she continued, “But how to get there, not fer sure. Just keep going further and further out. Off the asphalt roads. Jest kinda follow your heart.”

And that’s what Walter did, he followed his heart, and occasionally a road map. He found places like old railroad depots, abandoned mansions and farms, and even some ghost towns – places where it looked like the inhabitants had just packed it in, packed it up, and left. He saw beautiful places that he never imagined. Fields white with cotton, amber shoots turned gold by a rising sun, acres of wheat and corn; lavender, sunflowers, and buttercups that went from the road to the horizon.

The more he saw, the more he photographed. The more he photographed, the happier he was. He became a regular at the Crossroads Antiques store, stopping there every week for more film, and to pick up his prints. He was creating quite a portfolio. His kids and former business associates seldom saw him anymore, and when they did, they noticed the passion that possessed him. They all figured it was a new love, some woman who had filled the emptiness, and they were happy for him.

And then, one day, he found Elysium. He wasn’t sure where he was, he was so far off any named or numbered road, but he knew it was paradise. He knew he could spend the rest of his life here photographing, never leaving, and never missing his past life.

So that’s what he did. He never left.

A few weeks later a state trooper found an abandoned car, off a dirt road. Keys still in the ignition, registration in the glove box, and, of all things, an old film camera, a twin lens Yashica, sitting on the dashboard. They contacted Walter’s family and associates but no one had any idea where he could have gone. Just that, he seemed so happy. The car went to an impound lot and one of the deputies dropped the camera off at the local antique store. “Maybe some collector will buy; help out that old gal who runs the place,” he reasoned with his Captain.

About a month later Enda was out driving in the country. She wasn’t sure where she was, how she got there, and frankly didn’t care. Her husband of 32 years had left her for a secretary who was young enough to be his daughter. She was crying so hard, and filled with so much rage, she really couldn’t see to drive.

What she did see was an old antique store, and an elderly woman getting ready to go in. The woman turned and waved for Edna to come on in. When she did they talked for hours, like a mother trying to heal her daughter’s broken heart. As Edna was preparing to leave, the proprietress said, “Honey, you need something to take your mind off your troubles. Do you like photography?” And she showed Edna a twin lens Yashica camera.

“What would I do with that old thing?” Edna asked.

“Go find Elysium, honey. Go find Elysium.”