Something made the whole point of the spectacle escape her comprehension. It was a language so foreign, so abstract, yet so ethereal to her. She didn't understand it at all, no matter how long she stared, no matter how long she stood trying to get the best shots of it, but she felt like she was part of it. She hadn't even imagined something like it, not even when she was under and hallucinating.
The first thing she did after getting home was plug her camera into her computer.
She flipped through the one thousand ninety eight photos she had taken that day. She had almost forgotten that other people were with her till she saw the pictures. There were some they took of her too.
She finally reached the pictures she took of the sky. She was disappointed. There was a connection between her eyes and the strokes of nature during that sunset that had been severed by the one thing that usually strengthened her bond with the world - her lens.
She closed the picture preview. She closed the windows on her screen. She plugged her mp3 player into the speakers, and played the Ólafur Arnalds album "...And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness".
With the pianist on repeat, she fell asleep curled up in the warmth of her blanket and prayed that she saw that sunset again in her dream, for tomorrow she'd have to go back to being just another actress, just another movie star.
The first thing she did after getting home was plug her camera into her computer.
She flipped through the one thousand ninety eight photos she had taken that day. She had almost forgotten that other people were with her till she saw the pictures. There were some they took of her too.
She finally reached the pictures she took of the sky. She was disappointed. There was a connection between her eyes and the strokes of nature during that sunset that had been severed by the one thing that usually strengthened her bond with the world - her lens.
She closed the picture preview. She closed the windows on her screen. She plugged her mp3 player into the speakers, and played the Ólafur Arnalds album "...And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness".
With the pianist on repeat, she fell asleep curled up in the warmth of her blanket and prayed that she saw that sunset again in her dream, for tomorrow she'd have to go back to being just another actress, just another movie star.
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| Photos courtesy Chandni Sareen. |
*Special thanks to Chandni for letting me use her pictures for this short story, and Nuzha Embrahim for being an unsuspecting participant and having nice frames!*
Beautiful stories, Niyati!
ReplyDeleteThe words, and the pictures, so beautiful....
ReplyDeleteI as a photographer thought it could've been me.....but then again, it isn't..
@Tangerine: Thank you! It's a bit of everyone, right? There's always something that we do that's not part of our daily lives, and we wish we could hold on to it instead of slipping back into that daily spiral.
ReplyDelete@Vinay: Thanks for reading! :) have just written a new poem, see it when you can.
http://pastthe90s.blogspot.in/2012/04/lies-silence-violence-and-other-such.html
Fantastic Niyati, I was so smitten by your 'Heroine', that I actually tried to create my own 'Heroine'. I just love the way you perceive these analogies... Way to go Girl! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, thank you!
ReplyDeleteIf you managed to create another vivid character, please post here or on my page: http://www.facebook.com/niyatiwrites
I'd love to read.