An old photo from before I had words for any of it, and the waterfall that kept running anyway.
The oldest thing in my Photos dump right now is a file called lasvegas 031.JPG. Its date stamp says January 2007. The number in the name means there were at least thirty others from that trip once. This is the one that survived the migrations, the dead laptops, the backups of backups.
We stand in front of an indoor waterfall. Fake rock, real water. Palm fronds and tropical leaves crowding in from every side, red flowers spilling out of bronze bowls on stone pillars, a wooden railing at our knees. Above us, a sweep of glass-and-steel ceiling fins, the kind of casino atrium that tries very hard to convince you the desert outside does not exist.
The Costume Before the Character
I am the one in the ball cap — open plaid snap-shirt over a white tee, a chain at the throat, a studded black wristband, and ink already curling up the forearm. Beside me is Zeb, The Singer — navy tee, green zip jacket, beard, easy grin.
I am not going to invent the trip around this photo. I do not know from the file who paid, what we played, or what we lost. [JOEY: check] What I can see is a younger version of the same instinct I still have: build a little armor out of what you wear, stand next to someone you trust, and smile for the camera like the moment is fine.
Simulated Paradise
There is something very me about this location, looking back. A casino atrium is a simulation. Climate-controlled jungle. A waterfall plumbed into a wall. No clocks, no windows, everything tuned so your nervous system forgets what time it is.
Later in life I would build my own controlled environments on purpose — homelab racks humming in the dark, dashboards glowing at 3 AM, a sanctuary that was mine instead of the house’s. In 2007 I was just a tourist inside someone else’s engineered dream, and I did not yet know that I was autistic, or that a lot of my life would be spent trying to make the world’s settings less loud. [JOEY: check — confirm framing; diagnosis came much later.]
Why Keep This One
Because it is evidence of a before. Not a better before or a worse before. Just me in a ball cap with a wristband, and Zeb beside me, inside a glass-and-water illusion, with no idea that almost twenty years later I would be writing about it as a glitch in the archive.
We are the glitch. Sometimes the glitch is just an old JPEG that refused to get deleted.