A few days ago at work, I was commissioned to the crucial stipulation of shredding patient x-rays. To do so took me the better part of four hours; I was left to my undertaking, my thoughts barely audible over a stentorian growl produced by the office paper-eater. Cutfeedshredcutfeeddropfilmpickupshredcutfreedshred… The x-rays and MRI’s of people I’d never know; people who didn’t know that I, Current-Paper-Shredder-Girl-No. 1-of-Copy-Room-No. 2,could see right through them. But,could I really see them? Ribs, lungs, vertebrae, teeth, brain, veins, hearts. I could see their organs, muscles, and bones, but I couldn’t really see them. MRI’s showed me their hearts, but not in the way I wished. I couldn’t see who it was they’d chosen to love, who made their heart skip a beat, and what made their heart break. MRI’s don’t show etches of names who they’d loved and lost or empty spaces of love that’d been taken away from them. CT scan’s didn’t show me the thoughts that ran through their minds; they didn’t show me their fears, memories, or dreams.


These are the lives of the unobserved. Of the days that we walk down the street past strangers. Strangers that secretly hurt, love, and hope, a little bit too familiarly. What if, like x-rays, we could see things that the naked eye couldn’t?