Hiraeth | A JENLISA AU | On Going

Ms. Park

"Ow, that hurts," she said while massaging her side.

"Stop moving so that it wouldn't," I frowned upon seeing her open the window again to take pictures of anything she saw.

"I can't. Ow!" She glared at me while grimacing when I passed by a bump without breaking or slowing down.

I tried to hide my smile but I broke out in a grin, when she tried to punch my arm but the sudden movement made her cringe once again.

"Slow down, will you? There's an injured person here," she hissed.

I shrugged and while looking at her squirming just to get a decent picture. "Doesn't seem like it."

"You're putting more salt on the wound," she mumbled but took out her camera again to take pictures.

"Those will all be blurry."

"Probably but I adjusted the f stop and the aperture so that it'll come out somewhat decent."

"It'll look plain."

"Probably. But to some, it'll be beautiful." She glanced at me and smiled. "It will depend on the person's perspective to interpret the picture and what it means."

We were stuck in traffic again so I glanced at her and saw that she was smiling a little. "So you mean that some people could see it as just doves or a plain street and some could see it with rainbows and unicorns?"

She gave me an incredulous look and the sound of her laughter soon filled the space of my car before it turned to small whimpers of, "Ow. Ow. Ow."

The traffic's moving and so I slowly let go of the clutch, and said, "Good for you."

From my peripheral vision, I saw her cross her arms and she pouted. "Meanie. Anyway, that could happen," she giggled, "If they smoked pot before looking at my photographs, but usually, no."

She slowly turned to me, "Have you ever looked at a viewfinder of a camera, ma'am?"

I rolled my eyes at her way of addressing me but nodded, nonetheless. "I have."

"And what did you see?"

"What I see when I'm not looking at the viewfinder. Isn't it just the same as what we see with our eyes?"

She nodded slowly but there was a glint in her eyes. "It is but there's something magical in capturing a moment, no matter how mundane it is."

"Why's that?" I asked, intrigued.

"Because," she inhaled slowly and from my peripheral vision, I saw her smile turn into a grin. "Because we capture the slightest shift of emotion of one person or the tilt of the earth by the change of light, or the exact feeling of an experience."

Another red light so I stopped to see her smile evolve into something brighter.

Something magical.

"A perfect representation or copy of a passing time, captured and kept forever. And we made that possible by inventing cameras."

I shrugged since I couldn't really relate to her.  "Yeah. Probably. You're very enthusiastic about this."

She chuckled, "I'm sorry. I just really really like to take pictures."

"It's okay. We're here." I parked my car outside the hospital and unbuckled my seatbelt to assist her.

I opened the car door and I saw her struggling to remove her seatbelt. "You okay?"

She shyly shook her head and averted her eyes from me.