On Camera, On Paper
Her camera was always on before she was in the frame. Always the same place, always the same background, the same wall. He studied it microscopically when she wasn’t there to see him. He memorized all of it, the way he memorized the turn of her chin, the flick of her fingers through her hair when she leaned over and it got in her eye. The corner of a bright blue painting, cut off enough from his view that he couldn’t decide if it was the ocean or the sky, in its sturdy and rustic wooden frame. The long table behind her chair, dotted with candles and decorative bottles that were sometimes filled with colorful flowers, dandelions or cheap carnations. As the week went along, he’d watch each morning as they drooped a little more than the morning before. There was a stack of leathery books between the candles and bottles, like an Altar to Learning: Dostoevsky, with a title blocked by the faceted glass of the crystal salt and pepper shakers in front of it that seemed like antiques. And two heavy Brittanica Language reference books that looked rough at the corners and like they probably had that distinctive old book smell, that scent that feels like a dusty old trunk in the back of an attic. He wondered if its cover felt like the stories of the people who had held them and pored over the text.
