3A/N: I had an especially inspiring and artistic day and this just sort of happened - my favorite way to write, spontaneously. Lots of pretty photographs can really brighten a day. Feedback is lovely. And super duper appreciated.
La Vie est Belle.
Your camera is the only friend you have. A busted, knotted block of hardware slung low across your heart.
Flash. You trek down a Mediterranean beach, flip flops slapping on wet sand, skin warmed by the dying rays of pink-orange and aqua blue cast by the setting sun. Your camera captures a little girl cartwheeling into the surf, a small boy with yellow-framed sunglasses perched crookedly on his nose collecting sea shells by the dunes, two newly weds building a sand castle, perfecting the turrets between seawater-salty summer kisses. Up rickety, crumbling wooden steps you walk, strolling down the pier, snapping a photo of a carousel spinning against the vista of a yellow lemondrop of sun and rippling, violet waters. A bundle of birthday balloons is swept away in the breeze.
Flash. In Paris, you steal lazy images of a city whose beauty is worth only the finest paints and charcoals, but your camera lens will try. You waltz down the Alexander bridge, snatching photos of an iron wrought lamppost and a golden cupid's bow and arrow, posing atop the columns. You keep the Eiffel tower near at all times, capturing Her from every angle imaginable, every colour, black and white, sepia-beige, the faded dewdrop and grey colour of morning, the dazzling pastels of day, and the glittering fluorescent clash of gold and midnight in the evening. You take pictures of the nightlife, of fine merlot spilt on lace tablecloths, of a ballerina in a pale pink frock spinning pirouettes on a theatre stage, of violins coaxing the city to sleep.
Flash. In the English countryside, you skip down the stone pathway of a park in the rain, haunted swings dancing in a faint wind, spindly trees like spiders in a cold, storming sky. When the sun peaks between the clouds, you traipse into a sunflower field but find a dandelion instead, and blow its feathers away to sing in the wind. A porcelain tray of delicate tea cups rattling in the rain on your hotel balcony awaits you when you return, and tiny pink petals plaster to your window, soaked to the stem. Through the raindrops sparkling on your window pane, you watch a Ferris wheel spinning alone, its rocking seats splashing water on unsuspecting passerby, huddled beneath dark umbrellas.
Flash. In London, you meet a boy. All your photos of carousels and French architecture and tulips in the countryside pale in comparison to your boy. A dark fan of eyelashes that curl against milky skin and freckles sprinkled on his nose and teeth like piano keys, and all his beauty is captured in hundreds upon hundreds of photographs. A photo of the two of you; a bow tie and top hat at a ball, your arm tossed low around his waist, a corner of a frilly lavender and tulle dress, the side of his face so you can see the wishbone birthmark he has just below his ear. A photo of the morning, when the sunrise is the pink colour of a mouth after all the lipstick has been kissed away, as you cradle hot mugs of coffee at an outdoor café, stealing kisses when no one is looking. A photo of midnight as you sit together, wonder-eyed and in love whilst the stars spell out your names.
August passes but it never ends in the infinite stretch of a photographer's lens.