He was bleaching the photograph to shades of silver when he heard somebody knocking at his door. He wouldn't even have noticed, except that his house was old enough that speaker tubes ran from the main floor to the basement, where he kept his darkroom, and where in days of old, servants had made their beds in dark, windowless chambers. Sometimes he thought he saw flickers of their ghosts at the corners of his eyes, but working in the darkroom, starting intensely at the prints to check for flaws and then putting them under bright light to expose, made his eyes play tricks on him. His ears should still be reliable, though, even over the noise of the ventilation fan, he thought. He clipped up his photograph to dry and walked out of the darkroom, squinting as he walked up--

Inspiration: "bleach"
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: Just a snippet.