Conversations; All In Blue

Seven

Morning broke slow and easy over the sparkling water. The sun cracked the surface of the horizon, rising cold and white and small, the rays of it's light just a promise of what would come as it rose. It was Wonwoo's favourite part of the day; that fine line between night and day, the perfection of dawn and an unspoilt day.

He sipped coffee as he sat on the beach across the road from his antique store and watched the sky throw pink and yellow and gold across the tiny little town. He'd left the little kittens sleeping in their crate and taken his coffee down the stairs from his apartment over the store to enjoy the world still empty and still and silent. A world where, for one brief moment, it wasn't too loud or too bright or too busy. A world where he felt somewhat normal.

Wonwoo just couldn't bend. The winds of the world left him feeling stiff and stoic, inflexible, always wishing the world would just mould around him instead. He didn't understand most of the things normal people took for granted and struggled with articulating even the most simple concepts of human nature. His mind was a minefield of questions; what's happening here, am I doing it wrong, is this the way it's supposed to be? All questions he was scared to ask because he usually didn't like the answer.

He drained the mug in his hands just as the sun fully broke free; round and perfect and constant. Never wavering in its appearance or schedule; comforting and predictable. Every morning the sun rose and every evening it set and everything was right.

He climbed the stairs and opened the door to his apartment and flicked some lights on. The kittens began to mewl when the realised he was awake and moving around and he boiled some water to make up their milk before he let them out of the crate. They mewled and meowed and climbed over each other, mouthing at his hands and fingers, pushing each other out of the way to try and get to their breakfast.

Wonwoo shifted them around in the towel spread over his lap and handled the three little bottles easily. He was getting good at this and animals were never a problem. They were predictable like the sun and gave out affection or withheld it with no need to read between the lines. When he talked they always listened no matter how long he wanted to go on and on about a new camera lens or a rare book he'd sourced.

Once they'd suckled and used the litter box he crated them again for a nap. He cleaned up the towel and the bottles straight away, always straight away, and packed the things away for next time. He walked over to his desk and flicked his desktop computer on and it flooded into life instantly. He'd stayed up later than he wanted to the night before but once he started looking at them he just couldn't stop.

They were addictive, flawless and special, Wonwoo had looked at a lot of photos in his life but never anything like this. He'd never taken anything like this and he'd never had a subject so beautiful, so captivating, so all consuming.

Once, a few years ago, Wonwoo had tried astrophotography. He purchased an expensive telescope and the right attachment for his camera and spent every single night of a whole month photographing the moon. The glow of it was incredible, her light waxing and waning, the colours cycling through golden orange to bright blue white. He loved staring down the lens of the camera and capturing every single phase she showed him, her face shrinking and growing over the span of a month.