Photography as Narrative

IMG_9967Perhaps I had had too much to drink, I’m not entirely sure, don’t remember what drove me out to the cold streets, into the block of time unmeasured by the hands of my unobserved watch, but instead by the steps of my long-since-numb feet. Direction, destination, endgame: all unknown, not just for that night’s walk, but they seemed obscured from me for all the nights to come. Where was I going?

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I did not realize that I was looking down, do not know how many hours my eyes were cast toward the unseen center of the earth, but when my eyes focused on the match I had tossed after lighting the last cigarette in my pack, well then, I saw the it, reflected from below reminding of a world above. I smiled as I looked up, seeing the light.

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The light lead me, then, gave me a direction to follow. I went from one,

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to another,

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to another …

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Lead me out of the cold, to the stairs leading down towards the center of the earth.

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But then, I was looking up, around, at the potential, possibility, opportunity offered so easily by the world, and I wondered that I had not seen it for so long.

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My smile turned to laughter, and the stunted and uncomprehending silence that had weighed so heavily in my mind slipped away just as I slipped between the closing doors.

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Now, knowing where I was …

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… and where I was going …

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… at least for that night. Just then, it was enough.