Out of Focus [open]

Arthur Rollei

Arthur enjoyed the Hunger Games.

Not because he liked watching folks kill one another (good heavens, no!). The games meant a rather quiet escape for him from the hubbub of the street and school. A time when the world became that much smaller, easier for him to duck between corners and find his space. He’d been taking photos of the lonely street corners at night. The lights would gleam in the twilight, while apartment lights would reflect across the empty drive. It was best just after dinner, when folks settled down next to their television sets and devoured the replays of tribute escapades. Remarkable that for such a compact district, the streets seemed breathtakingly empty.

He was careful not to let the flash be too much of a hazard. There had been the time it’d gone off when a peacekeeper had been down the block, and he’d be chased for all of five minutes, sweating, red faced and frantic. His cameras were likely on the long list of objects banned by the capitol (then again, anything could be banned by the capitol if a peacekeeper made it so). It hadn’t stopped him, though – the next time he was certain that the flash settings were turned off. His brother would’ve laid a knock on the side of his head had he known.

He’d been much better at the ‘sneaking’ part. It was a skill that paid particular dividends when trying to capture life at its most candid. Being able to spot moments, between people living their lives, or capture places at their ebb and flow. His photos had always developed with a gleam of effortlessness. A sort of world within a world, he liked to think, one that Arthur would have much rather lived in. But now it was all pictures of feet, or odd angles. Poorly developed or overdeveloped pictures that said nothing about life and everything about the boy that took them.

November was kind to him – warm as it was, at the edge of a corner where a diner had shut off its lights to mark the end of an evening. There would be more people milling about soon, but Arthur was willing to take a chance that evening. Something about the way the light of the street lamps reflected off the chrome of the restaurant caught his eye. He loved to see the shadows of folks within the diner, finishing up their business and ending conversations that had stalled to nothingness. How was your food? Are you full? Are you ready for your bill? The mundane fascinated him in a way the games never could. He felt a chill just from considering where the diners would wander that evening.

He knelt down at the corner, and adjusted the zoom of his lens. The focus was cloudy and he had to turn the lens to get it just so. The chirping of a bird had him looking up, and he pressed the thing back to his thigh. Something was amiss, but after a full minute of silence, Arthur pressed onward. He stared at the emptying diner, and pressed the button for a snapshot. Of course, in a flash of white – there was light. Flash. Hadn’t he triple checked that he’d turned it off.

Back against the brick wall on the corner, Arthur slunk down onto the ground, heart racing. Had anyone seen? Was he ready to run off once again? But footsteps didn’t follow – at least, not the sound of marching or whistling from a peacekeeper. Instead, he stared back out at the diner and waited – for perhaps another moment to arrive.