*buzzzz - click!*
The sound of the camera lens extending and then capturing the picture was all Alicia could seem to hear these days. She looked down at the screen of her camera to preview the picture.
"Not quite perfect, maybe if I rotate the camera a bit to create a better focus," she thought aloud.
Alicia kneeled down closer to the flowers she was trying to take a picture of, rotated the camera a bit, and then snapped her final shot. She then stood back up to preview the final picture.
"Oh god no!" She shouted as she saw the final product. The lighting looked better from a lower angle but tilting the camera made the flowers look horrendously misshapen. She quickly deleted the picture, and retook her crouched pose to find the perfect shot. This process had been going on for nearly two months now. One of Alicia's idols started a photography contest on their blog awhile back, and Alicia, being the competitive, determined 22 year old that she is knew she had to win. The winner gets a sponsorship by a photography company in Los Santos, and a one way plane ticket that was fully paid for. Alicia had started taking pictures when she was just 11 years old. She had won tons of awards from the competitions held in her area, but her personality was too big for this small town in northern Maryland. She had big dreams, she wanted to be successful more than anything.
She needed to leave this town. Alicia sighed and switched off her camera. She could feel the stabbing pain in her chest as she realized today was the last day to enter. She walked out of the public garden where she took most of her pictures and began to slowly walk home. It was sunset, the golden hour to take photos, but there was no inspiration left in her. She stared off into the pastel sky as flocks of birds flew off into the distance. Alicia was always envious of them. They could fly out of this miserable town whenever they wanted to. Even though there was no motivation left in her, Alicia's photography instincts eventually got the best of her and she stopped to take a quick picture of the birds streaking across the bronze sky. She didn't much care how it turned out, she knew she was going to lose the contest anyway, so she switched her camera off and slid it back into its bulky carrying bag. Before she knew it, she was back at her front door. Well, it wasn't exactly her front door. Her and her sister had shared the house on university lane for nearly 5 years now. It wasn't much, but it was a roof over their heads plus located directly next to the college which made it easier to get to class. Alicia opened the door.
"I'm home!" She shouted, as usual. Except this time her voice was more dim and tired than usual. The house was relatively small. When you opened the door, you were greeted by a staircase to your left, and a hallway that led to the rest of the house. Down the hallway was their living room, that was also connected to their kitchen. Usually, when Alicia would walk in at this time she was able to smell her sister cooking, but this time the smell was faint. She walked down the hall and peeked her head around the corner to see a bowl of food her sister had left out for her.
"That's strange..." Alicia mumbled to herself. She was slightly hoping her sister would have been in the kitchen because she needed someone to cheer her up, but her sister had been acting different lately, so maybe it was for the best that she wasn't here. She grabbed her slightly old bowl of pasta and went up to her room to eat it.
Alicia sat at her desk, quietly eating her bowl of noodles and casually scrolling through stuff on LifeInvader. She kept scrolling past updates about the competition she planned on entering and it was starting to drive her insane. Every time she would see a post about it she would glance between her laptop and her camera, wondering if maybe she should at least give it a try. But every time this thought crossed her mind she would frantically push it away. After the 15th post she scrolled past about the competition she threw her hands in the air and let out an irritated groan. She leaned back and stared at the ceiling for awhile.
"There's no point in entering if you're not going to win," she said to herself. She continued to stare at the ceiling and it finally hit her just how dumb she was being. She realized that there was no reason to pout just because her pictures didn't turn out perfect. She was being a baby.
"My pictures aren't that bad, it's worth a shot, and if I lose? So what! At least I tried!" She said enthusiastically. She rolled her computer chair over to over to get her camera bag and returned to her desk to start uploading her recent pictures to her computer. After they were all uploaded she scrolled through her recent pictures to see if any of them were contest worthy. The first picture she saw immediately caught her eye. It was the picture she quickly took of the birds as she was walking home. She enlarged the picture to see it in detail and she was amazed. The birds were beautiful black silhouettes dotted among the orangish pink sunset sky.
"I guess I'll submit this one," she said casually as she opened the contest website.
After submitting the picture she lay back and began to watch a movie. Even though she didn't do much today, the day still felt like it lasted a decade. Halfway through the movie Alicia felt herself start to doze off so she migrated towards her bed. She plugged her phone into its charger beside her bed and rolled over to stare at the ceiling. Glow in the dark animal stickers dotted her ceiling, the kind intended for toddlers but she didn't care. She thought they looked cool so she got them, even though her sister teased her about them daily. The sticker directly above her was the eagle. She stared into it for a few seconds before finally drifting into sleep.
