The Nice Thing About Strangers
Creative Non-Fiction Short Stories. :) Travel, Oldsters, Love, and Compassion.
The Photog’s Fury
The bus began its journey thanks to several male passengers who got out to push the slow rolling mass out of its parking stall. After that, things went fairly smoothly.
The drive around the Bay of Kotor is a wonder: water resting under the mountains like a mirage. A Russian woman tries and fails to take photos as the bus rounds the canyon.
In the hot weather, people jump from cement piers that line the road, diving into water that would not rank among the world’s clearest, but which had its own glory–the shadows from churches where monks used to hide.
At no point does the woman stop looking through her camera. She doesn’t give up and stare at the water itself, which is tranquil, which won’t be hard to recall with fondness. Rather, she wants a record. Her insistence on taking it home made the water nervous, elusive, stubborn. The camera clicks. She clicks her tongue. She snaps seven, eight photos, then skims through them, groaning quietly, trying again. In most of the pictures, she captures her hazy self scowling into the camera, reflecting in the dust-caked bus window. Sometimes the water seems to break through, but usually alongside a blinding glare of sun against glass.
Determined not to forget, she snaps and clicks, remarkably hopeful, ceaseless, as though the very next shot will be the final thing that she had been waiting to save.
-Near Kotor, Montenegro.
(I took a shot or two myself and seemed to have more luck.)
The Nice Thing About Strangers 
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