ALONE WITH SEAGULLS [OPEN]

[maggie]

There was something about late afternoon light that was completely untouchable – the way the sun was not as bright and harsh as it was earlier in the day , not as dark as twilight and making the use of the flash unnecessary. This was also Niall’s favourite time of the day to shoot and it being a Saturday he had some time to himself. It was an ideal set up – he had moved through the city with his digital filming as much of the small town’s bustle as he could until he had ended up at the docks. He had been coming out to the docks to shoot since he and Cera, his ex girlfriend, had found the dilapidated and abandoned structure while they had been out one day.

He had loved filming her here – she had been so beautiful amongst the decrepit nature of the place. She had always been beautiful and the docks felt empty without her. The whole place felt abandoned and stirred a hopeless feeling in his gut. He missed her at times like these and he knew he would possibly stop in at some dodge liquor store to buy some whiskey in order to forget her later in his dorm room. Unfortunately, on occasion, the liquor did not help him forget her as much as remember her either and, really, he did not want to spend too much time thinking about her tonight. Maybe he would go out. He felt the sense of helplessness rising in his stomach and began to wander around the docks.

Not knowing what to do with himself he began to shoot the emptiness of the place and the water beyond it. He stopped only for a moment to plug his iPod into his ears and blast his current top played songs – Curse of the Currents by Said the Whale –and mused at the irony of his music choice and the setting. Slowly he began to start shooting again, wishing desperately that he had somebody to shoot to fill up the lonely spaces when a couple of seagulls started diving into the water only to come back up and bob on top of the water like ducks. Turning his attention to the two birds he escaped into to the snapping sound his camera made as their images were transferred into immortal memory.

[emily1]

Di didn't really know why she was out here. She wasn't really fond of being out of town, but she did like water. Of course, she was more of a beach babe than a dock girl, but well she might as well mix it up. Sticking her hands in the pockets of her short jean shorts, Di wandered out to the docks.

She was surprised to find Niall there. She knew him vaguely; they were in the same grade, and they had English together. Smirking, she waved at the boy. He was taking pictures ... but, then again it seemed like everybody else at Lux Lucis was an artist. She was the scientist of the group. Everyone else wanted to be a rockstar or an actor. Di wanted to be a doctor.

Otherwise ignoring her classmate, Di wandered down to the end of the dock and stepped out of her sandals. Then she sat down beside them, dangling her bare feet just above the surface of the water. "These had better be for personal use," she joked lightly. Her fingers curled around the end of the dock, and she enjoyed the feel of the cool air and the old wood under her hands.

[maggie]

The seagulls were quite serene, even beautiful, floating on the water and Niall was snapping at them mercilessly. He had been so focused on the water and birds and the music in his ears that he had hardly heard a person approach and it was not until she was seated at the jetty to his left. Slowly lowering his camera to hand around his neck he pulled out his earphones and put The Whale on pause and placed his iPod back into his camera bag.

It took him a few seconds to put a name to a face of the girl sitting above him. It was Di; they were in the same year, and they had been at Lux Lucis together since the beginning of their high school careers. He didn’t know an awful lot about her except that she wasn’t one of the artistic types and that she had never been in many of his classes. Niall began to realize that he actually barely knew the girl at all which was quite a shame. How many of his class mates did he really know?

“Hi, Di,” he said as he tried to think of things to say to her, he had never been one for many words, “What are you doing all the way out here? And I don’t know if you know this but that wood is probably not safe to sit on. Heaven alone knows when last anybody used them.” This was not strictly true, Niall had been standing on that very jetty before he had spotted the ducks and climbed down to his current platform to see them.

There was something about Di sitting there that was almost as peaceful as the birds on the ocean and instinctively he lifted his camera and snapped a shot. Niall tended to do this a lot without giving the situation a second thought- he considered life itself to be his model. He was about to lift the camera for a second time when he stopped himself.

“You don’t mind if I take a few shots, do you?” he asked, trying his best to remember his manner and be polite about the situation.