To Love a Still World

Ben, an aspiring photographer, contemplates his mature way of life, whilst navigating the societal norms that are teen hood.

The world is basically one flowing image, just waiting for someone with a camera to come by, and seal it in time. Therein lies my fascination with photography. It’s not just a hobby I do sometimes, or something I’m just good at, but don’t make an effort to perfect my craft. Taking pictures at just the right time is something I want to do for the rest of my life. Some people believe there’s no beauty in something that remains still in space. They believe in the moving world, where video dominates. However, I remain a recluse within the past, holding my passion for the still frame close to my heart.

When sitting down, and taking an inventory of your thoughts, you start to consider what is really important to you. Grades? Sure, grades are important to some, but are they really going to make or break you? Doubtful. Sports? Now, me, I’ve never been one for sports. I’ve always found them boring, but to some, they’re the meaning of life. There is nothing better than crushing the opposition on the field of battle, be it a warzone, or a football field. That analogy made, some believe that their calling lies in the military. While I have the utmost respect for those willing to lay down their lives for their country; their home, I have no desire. I wish I did, but I don’t.

I once considered a career in law enforcement, but I determined that I didn’t have the stomach for it, nor do I have the mental capacity to solve a case. I find that things move way too fast for me sometimes, and with the ever changing hypothesis and theories within a crime-solving situation, I would find myself dumbfounded for sure. Thus, I remain steadfast in the pursuit of my dreams. Without a doubt, I want to become a photographer.

Though, when I tell people, they always assume that I mean I want to take wedding pictures for the rest of my mortal existence. On the contrary, I hate taking wedding pictures for the sole reason that to a bride, no picture captures them just right. It’s all wrong, and it’s all my fault. Where the woman gets that logic, I have yet to understand, but alas, that is the conclusion they all come to. They make an ugly face right before the camera snaps their picture? It’s somehow my fault that the muscles in her face shifted in such a way that made her look like an ape in a veil. Sure, bridezillas, that’s how it works.

On the crisp, fall morning of November fifteenth, I found myself lounging on my platform bed, Imagine Dragons blasting from my speakers, my gaze turned towards my album wall. Where some might paint their wall, and call it an accent wall, I’ve take so many pictures that I decided to take a copy of every single one and pin it to my wall. Let’s just say that it took a ton of thumb tacks. Singing along to the song, I hardly heard the knock at my door. I rolled off my bed, landed on the floor, did have a push-up before falling on my face, and then stood the rest of the way to open the door. As I began to crack it ajar, it burst open and my friend Margot emerged from the darkness of the hall, a flurry of multi-colored hair and vanilla perfume. “Slow down, Tazz, you’ll shake the shingles from the roof.”

“Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, you’ll never believe what happened while I was at work. Don’t bother guessing, I’ll just tell you.”

As I moved over to my bed and took a seat on the edge, Margot began pacing my room, her words seeming like the buzzing of a worker bee, busily bustling about. “Margot, you’re gonna’ have to slow down. My ears can only contain so many words at once. Do I need to get you a glass of water?”

“No, shut up and listen,” she said, sitting at my desk. “I heard from Josh, who heard it from Nelly, who heard it from Megan, who heard it from Drake, who eavesdropped on Dylan, who was talking to-”

“For the love of all things that are holy, stop with the he-said she-said and tell me what you’re goin’ on about.”

She took a deep breath, and launched out of the chair, her long hair flowing elegantly after her, a wave of red, purple and black. “Liam Connery is planning on asking you out. You will say yes and you will become boyfriend and boyfriend.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“What do you mean that’s not how it works? Of course it is. He asks you out, you say yes, and boom,” she emphasized, “you’re boyfriend and boyfriend. Easy as pie.”

“Pie is actually a very complex thing to make,” I said, reveling in her aggravated facial expressions.

I often wondered if it was because she was so awkwardly dramatic that she never found a guy for herself. She always seemed to be sticking her nose into other people's business, rather than trying to work out her own. If not that, then perhaps it was her ‘type’. Pale, lanky band-geeks were a dime a dozen, but she also needed someone who was decently skilled in social interaction. Her words, not mine. Margot Santiago was, and still is, a social butterfly perfectly constructed, mentally, to rival that of every other person in the world. She is friends, at least on the surface, with everyone, and only hates people in secret. It’s a skill I have yet to master in my own right.

“So, are you going to say yes?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, running a hand through my hair. I hadn’t gelled it today, so it was loose and soft.

“What do you mean you don’t think so?! You have to! You just have to, so you can tell me all about your cute, adorable dates, and the heavy and hot-”

“Even if I did say yes, I would not tell you about any of that, because it is no concern to you.”

“I was just going to say to say… I can’t think of anything that would even remotely be similar to what I was going to say.”

“I know, Margot. I know,” I said, glancing out the window of my room.

Or, should I say, the french doors which lead out to the balcony. My dad is the head of a large coffee franchise, and so we have a lot of money to waste, if we wanted to. However, my family aren’t your typical rich people. We built our nice house from the ground up, and then we put the rest into an emergency fund. My parents don’t give me any money either, unless I ask for it, give an exact reason for it, and do something for it. That often means mowing the grass or cleaning the pool in the back.

“Now I’m sad.”

“Margot, why are you sad? I just said that I didn’t think so. That’s not a definite no.”

“But it’s in no way a yes, is it Benjamin Yance?”

She had me there. To be fair, I hadn’t even given the idea a single thought. The truth was, I didn’t feel attracted to Liam Connery. I mean, he was physically attractive, sure, but he was one of those cliche gays who only hang out with women and have a lot of sex. I spend a lot of time with my friends, who most of which are female, but there’s quite a substantial list of men in that category too. I just didn’t want to be put into a relationship in which I know I will be cheated on. There’s no denying that Liam is a s**t, in all aspects of the term. The modern connotation, anyway.

“Why not?” Margot asked me.

“Because I want a boyfriend who knows how to keep it in his pants, that’s why.”

“Liam really likes you, though.”

“No, Liam thinks I’ll give him a good time for a few weeks, and then he’ll go looking for the next piece of a*s that comes into the school. Trust me, Margot, he’s a pig.”

She sighed, and moved to sit next to me. Her breathless pacing had subsided, and she had devolved into what my other, Grant, and I would call the Santiago Sulk. It was a trait that Margot carried, as well as her mother and her three brothers. Whenever they were in a bad mood, they all got the same face, which was like the ugly halfway house between resting b***h face, and a depressed puppy.

In the blissful, but for Margot, mournful silence, a ping came from the mint-green iPhone that lied on my desk. She stood, a sigh escaping her lungs, and shuffled over to her phone. She flipped it over on the desk with an audible thwap and pressed the home button. Her shoulders, which were for a minute hunched forward, now shut up to her ears. Her arms raised, and her hands began to tremble. Most would think that she was having a seizure, but I knew better. She was having a diva moment.

“O.M.G.”

“Oh, wow. We’re only speaking in letters know. W.H.A.T.I.S.I.T.?”

“O.M.G. I have to go now, Ben. I’ll talk to you later, ‘kay?”

“Don’t you mean: ‘T.T.Y.L. Ben, K.?” I asked as she hurried out the door.

She retorted something as she thundered down the stairs, but it was lost in transmission. In the back of my mind, I wondered what it was that had shocked her into a hasty departure, but in forethought, I was actually glad that something came up. Lifting the Santiago Sulk was no easy feat. Usually it took food, movies and humor. All things which I didn’t specialize in. That was Grant’s specialty. Well, like most teens, I can put away some food, but I sure as hell can’t make it. I can find a way to screw up ramen noodles. I take pride in that fact.

In her haste, Margot had left my door standing wide open. I stood to close it, and as I turned around, as I usually did, I stopped to admire the room I had. It was simple, to most. It was also larger, to most. I had six pieces of wooden furniture. My platform bed, with two matching side tables were both a dark oak color. My father, a carpenter in his spare time, had hand crafted the three items to be a matching set. Resting within was a soft mattress, queen-sized, covered in red, orange and black plaid sheets, and a black comforter, all tucked neatly into the woodwork. Along the sides of the bed were intricate designs which my brother had carved into the oak for me. I had to pay him some of my paycheck, but it didn’t bother me. I commissioned, as my brother liked to say, images of rolling plains, at the edge of which rested a cottage. This was on the side facing the door, and inner wall of the house. On the front, my family surname. Yance was intricately carved into the wood to depict a dragon, the head which was the E, spewing flames, and a forked tail, which was subsequently the ‘Y’ at the beginning of the name. On the side facing the balcony, a battle raged on a flatland, the fury of which lied before a stalwart castle, resting on a hill. The bed was crafted in such a way that it would hold up to the testaments of time.

Resting on either side of the bed were two identical nightstands, each crafted with the utmost care. My brother also carved images of various things in these pieces. On the stand nearest the door, a vine of roses ascended up the right side of blank wood which faced the wall. These particular elements were painted a deep red, and brilliant shade of forest green, for the leaves, thorns and stems which accompanied the roses. Engraved within the other night stand, on the left side of the blank wood, which faced the balcony, was intricate design of an inferno, the flames of which appeared to climb the wood, and spread as it rose. It extended just to what could be considered halfway through before it appears to erupt into a plume of thick, black smoke. The flames were painted in shades of orange, red and yellow, while the smoke was just as I said: black as the night sky.

In addition to the bed pieces, I have a dresser, which my father made when he was just perfecting his skills as a carpenter. It, along with my desk and bookshelf, seemed to pale in comparison to the extravagant woodwork of the bed and two nightstands. They were standard, by all means, with minor artistry. However, they served their purpose. They held the same dark oak stain which the other three pieces had, but they lacked intricate carvings and masterful woodwork. Regardless, I appreciated them all the same. On my desk rested a quiet apple computer, lying dormant from a lack of use, as of late. I often find myself beset by various tasks and urges to take pictures that I rarely use it to play video games, which was the original intention for the device. Now it is simply a storage place for the pictures I don’t want to print.

On the bookshelf laid my pride my pride and joy. My collection of photo albums is so large that it takes up three of the seven shelves that rest within the frame. The other four shelves are filled with my second passion: books. Unlike most people of my generation, I believe in the written word on paper, rather than on an illuminated tablet screen. There’s something about feeling the pages between my fingers that gives off such a satisfactory feeling. The titles which reside within the shelves range from Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, to Velocity and Odd Thomas, by Dean Koontz. In my love of literature, there is no limit. I will read anything, be it a nonfiction retelling of an event, or a fictional tale spun by an masterful storyteller.

Once upon a time, I attempted to take up the art of writing, but I fell short of a few poems and then gave up. In addition to my photo wall, my room was decorated with various posters of rock bands, like AC-DC, Led Zeppelin and Journey to those of more modern musicians like Fall Out Boy and Imagine Dragons. The wall not accompanied by images of any sort was my accent wall, a bright, bursting red. I may have said that I had a photo wall, which was just above the head of my bed, but I also have an accent wall, which was before the foot of my bed. To the right, the posters. To the left, the balcony and two windows on either side of the french doors.

Concluding the admiration of my living space, I proceeded to move back to my bed. At some point in time, between Margot’s arrival and then subsequent departure, my music had turned off. Margot was likely the cause. I got up, for a third time now, and moved to my computer. Contrary to what I had said before, I do use my computer for more than just photo storage; I use it for music too. I clicked the “I’m still listening” button on pandora, and the ballad Don’t Stop Believin’ flooded through my speakers. I flopped back onto my bed and drifted on the notes masterfully strung together by Steve Perry and Journey before the initial breakup of the band.

At some point, the song shifted from Journey to Imagine Dragons, then to Bon Jovi… Twice. In the time, I can’t remember if I thought about anything in particular, or if I just lied there in silence. Regardless, a knock at my door roused me from my internal solitude. For this to have happened twice in one day was unusual. I rolled off my bed and moved to the door. Surely it wasn’t Margot this time. She was probably off with a gaggle of giggling girls, talking about the latest guy gossip. I opened the door, and Grant was standing in the doorway. As usual, I took a brief second to admire his stunning beauty. His hair was cut short, and pushed to the side; a very modern hairstyle. However, unlike most boys who tried to pull it off, myself included, Grant had mastered it with ease. His face was angular, with rounded edges. His eyes were a brilliant blue. If you stared in them, you could the sense that you were drowning in the ocean. Sometimes, I would be so caught off guard by his beauty that I would find myself breathless. “Hey, Ben. You mind if I come in to your humble abode?”

I got my teenage urges settled when I was able to spend time and gossip with Margot, but Grant was more mature, and I was often allowed to express my feelings in more ways than just emoticons with him. Like me, he found men attractive, and has been with more than a few. However, unlike me, he also found attraction in women. I don’t think I understood the concept when I first met him, but as we both aged, I realized that it wasn’t so much a preference, that it was an openness. He didn’t claim to be Bisexual. He just said he loved to love. It didn’t matter if that person was male or female. “Not at all, Grant. You’re always welcome, you know that.”

“If I’m always welcome, does that mean Margot is only sometimes welcome, or does she have the all access pass too?”

“I can only handle so much Santiago Sulk,” I said, moving back to my bed.

Unlike Margot, Grant closed the door behind him. I lied on my back, facing the wall of pictures. There were a lot of pictures of Grant on that wall.

“Don’t tell me you put her in a mood. You know how hard it is to get her out of the sulk.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that I don’t want to be Liam Connery’s newest monkey, to sleep with him at his beck and call. I won’t do it, and she can sulk as she wants. I mean, what’s the deal anyway? Maybe I just want to be alone forever.”

“I’ve had enough late-night conversations with you to know that that is the farthest thing away from what you want,” Grant said, setting his leather jacket on the back of my desk chair.

I took a brief glance at what he was wearing. Seeing as how it was November, and we’re in Massachusetts, he was dressed for the weather. He wore long jeans that were just loose enough that they hugged his legs, but the couldn’t be called skinny jeans because they had baggy spells. His shoes, brown and swede, looked like they would be worn by someone with a lot more money than both him and I. “Nice shoes,” I said.

“Thanks,” he shrugged, kicking them off to reveal black socks.

He and I had similar taste in a lot of things. We liked a lot of the same jeans, wore a lot of the same shirts, and were pretty much similar in size. We borrowed each others clothes a lot, much like Margot and her gaggle of gossiping girlfriends. He was wearing a Bon Jovi concert shirt today. We’d gone to Boston together to catch the show.

Grant slid onto the bed next to me, our arms pressed into each others. I could feel his skin. It was warm and soft. “So,” he started to say. “What’s the word with the Sulking Santiago. Where’d she run off to?”

“I’m not sure. She got a text, emerged from the sulk, and bolted.”

“Wow, she got out of this one quick, huh? Remember that one time she was in the sulk for like, three weeks? Even the teachers at school were concerned,” he said, ending in a chuckle.

I couldn’t but laugh too. I remembered it all too well. I’d told her that I was pretty sure her boyfriend at the time beat the s**t out of a freshman, and when she found that to be true, she divulged into the darkest recesses of the sulk. It took weeks to bring her out of it.

“Grant?”

“Yes, Ben?”

“How’re things with Gwen?”

“We broke up.”

I rolled over, propping myself up with my left arm. “What happened?”

“I caught her with some guy on the football team. Their pants were around their ankles, and that was all I saw before I walked away.”

“Damn,” I said.

I was never good at expressing feelings of pity towards people. It wasn’t one of my few talents. I could congratulate people to the end of the earth, but if you place someone in need of pity before me, I come up blank.

“Ah, well. I don’t think she was the one anyway.”

“That’s what you said about Damon.”

“Damon was a twat.”

I found myself laughing again. The sudden bursts of wit that came from Grant’s constant maturity complex helped me realize that, like me, he was still a teenager. He still had feelings, and uncontrollable outbursts in which the raging hormones got the better of him. He rolled over as well, and propped himself up with his right arm. I could see his American flag tattoo clearly now. The ink gave the appearance of a flag wrapped around his forearm.

“How do you do it?”

The question came out of nowhere. There was no other way to feel, but then to be perplexed to the point of silence. How do I do what? Speak? Breathe? Find the meaning of life? I knew the answers to two of those questions, but surely he wouldn’t attempt to ask me the third. “How do I do what, Grant?”

He flopped back onto his back and placed his hands behind his head, his neck craning so he could see the expanse of photos on my wall. “How do you know when to press the button? How do you take these perfect pictures?”

I’d never considered it before. Taking pictures was like second nature. It was just something I knew how to do. The point when something has maximum beauty is something that no one can ever comprehend. I found myself quoting my uncle, and mentor. “To love a still world is to have a basic understanding of the world which is in constant motion, and to have a deep respect for that which remains frozen in time, effected only by the waves of time. To understand the beauty of that which stands still is to forsake a life of movement.”

“Who said that?”

“My uncle, Jason Keith.”

“Oh. He’s the one that passed away in the car accident, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, our conversation dropping into silence.

Jason Keith had been on his way to Chicago, on a job to photograph the sights and monuments in the city. He’d been hit by a drunk driver on the interstate. He was in a coma for months before his wife, Elaine, decided that it was time for him to move on. At the funeral last year, he had asked that I say something to everyone before he died. I could find no words but those he gave me, and which I just recited to Grant.We still see Elaine at every holiday. She brings my two cousins, Jason Jr. and Michelle. Michelle and I share our exploits in photography, as she was the oldest of the two, and remembers her father vividly. Jason was several years younger, and found taking pictures boring. He’d rather play video games.

“That’s beautiful,” Grant said, ending the silence between us.

“Yeah,” I said again.

The silence grew again. I looked at him, and he looked at me. There was a silent understanding between us, and also a silent desire which both of us had not known existed. We grew closer, slowly. At first, our lips just brushed, but as we continued, we were wrapped up in each other’s arms, our lips pressed together. As we drew a part, we were breathless. “How long?” I asked.

“Since the first day we met,” he said.

To think, we had gone through three years of junior high, and three and a half more of high school before either us confront our feelings. I had never connected the dots, really. The breathless feelings I got when he walked into a room. The quickening of my pulse when he said my name. The lingering looks we gave each other. The time I spent staring at the various pictures of him on my wall. I’d never connected the dots.

“Grant…”

He silenced me with another kiss, and then drew back, smiling. “How do you do it?”

Again, he’s sent me into a field of confusion. “How do I do what?”

“How do you find the little things in life so easily?”

“I wouldn’t call a six and half year wait easy,” I said, taking my hand and brushing the back of it across his face, the stubble of his chin scratching at my skin.

He shrugged, moving out of my embrace, his eyes averting back to the wall of pictures. A fleeting thought crossed the front of my mind. Was that it? A kiss? Two, at the most? Are we just going to go back to normal now, like none of this happened? A small part in me roared in outrage. How dare he use me like that, a quick arousal and then he’s down with me. It’s like I had said yes to Liam Connery after all. Then there was the rest of me which felt a brief pang of agonizing despair. Was this really the limitations of our relationship? Were we really not meant to be more than what we already were?

Then I noticed he was looking at me again, his eyes filled with emotions I didn’t recognize. Adoration? No, that would make it seem like he idolized me. Respect? That had been there all along, whether I had seen it or not. No, this was something more primal in essence. Lust? Maybe, to an extent, but that was quite right. I dared not think, let alone say it. But he did.

“I think I’m in love with you, Ben.”

The words I wanted to say, to scream, fell flat in my throat, a knot forming where there was once an open passage. I felt as if it was visible from the outside, the pain I felt within. The inability I was feeling, due to a cowardice of which I had never known until now. Was it really that difficult to say three small words? Words which are said way too much, and now have almost little to no meaning in the grand scheme of things?

That wasn’t what this was, though. This meant something. Saying it now would mean changing the world I knew forever. Was it worth it? Was risking everything worth these three words? Grant must have sensed the growing silence, because his eyes scanned my face for some answer; for some response. He lifted a brow curiously. He must’ve known how fast my brain was working to think this through. He knew me like that.

That was it. That’s why I never noticed these feelings before. I’d had them all along, and I showed them; flaunted them like a flag strapped to my back. I never noticed because all the while, he knew. He was waiting for me, and I didn’t know it. The little things I did, like lie my head on his shoulder during a movie which near bored me to tears. The laugh no one ever heard but him, because he was the only who could draw it from me. The emotions which I kept buried and locked away behind doors upon doors. The doors only he could open.

“I know I’m in love with you, Grant.”

I’d said it, and the only thing I could hear, save for my own thundering heartbeat as Grant brought me in for a third kiss, was my uncle's final words of wisdom to me. “To love a still world is one thing, but to find love in the world of motion is another feat on it’s own. Strive to find that love, Ben, for that is the most beautiful picture of all.”