WriteFridays 8: Human passion

This seems to become a trend- here is my contribution to last week’s WriteFridays challenge. I struggled to get inspiration, until, last night at midnight, I saw this tweet. I therefore need to post this disclaimer: this story is entirely fictional!

Exercise the Eighth: Everyone has a passion – something that they enjoy, whether it’s yoga, obscure vinyl, or search engine optimization. (Or even coaching & mentoring new writers!) In other words, there is something out there that causes your character to wax passionate in the face of glazed eyeballs, awkward coughing, or even straight out door dashing. Let us know what that is.

Human passion

Two photos. He had taken only two photos. Both of them were bad, virtually useless.

He loved photography but at this pace, he would never be able to make a living out of it.

Sighing, he put down the lens he was cleaning and leaned back. Something needed to change. He used to love the careful composition of a picture, the search for the right angle, the considerations regarding lighting, the effects he could achieve. He used to spend hours out in nature, taking pictures. Whenever a picture came out especially nice, he printed it and put it on display in his tiny apartment.

The owner of the photo studio let him print them for only the cost of material. He even let him use some of the cameras they had on display. With what the man paid him for the work as his assistant, he wouldn’t be able to afford his hobby otherwise. But one day, he would be able to take over, become a real photographer with his own shop. He had dreamed of being a photographer ever since he had held his first camera and taken his first photograph.

For the umpteenth time he looked at the picture he had taken on his phone last week. The memories of that afternoon came flooding back.

He had taken a trip into New York to meet an old friend who was visiting. Then he got a text that the friend would be late. He sat on a park bench and waited, despite the cool fall weather.

The old lady walked up to the same bench. She could hardly walk even with her cane. Her coat was spotless but worn thin in places. Yet, she wore a string of pearls around her neck and held her head high, with some carefully coiffed ringlets of silver-gray hair peeking out from under an old-fashioned hat.

„Sir, may I trouble you with my company and take the spot next to you?“ she asked when she stood in front of him.

„No trouble, please sit“ he replied.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, then she spoke again.

„I love New York at any time of year, but on days like these it is especially precious to me. It always reminds me of my Richard. We got married almost 63 years ago on a day just like this. But he has been dead for nearly 20 years now.“

„I am sorry to hear that. Do you still miss him?“

„Every day! On our wedding day, he promised he would take care of me, and he did. He was a good husband. You see, his family was from old money, they did not agree with his choice in a wife. But he insisted on marrying me. They disowned him. He still kept his promise to me and he made it on his own. He worked so hard. It was my duty to provide him with a good home and to help him, represent, you know. At first, we did not have many social obligations, of course, with him disregarding the wishes of his family. They made sure that nobody in society was even conversing with us.

Well, we slowly made our way into the circle again, mainly because he was such a charismatic man, my Richard. Everybody loved him. When he died, so many people came to the funeral. They all promised to help me, and at the beginning they did. But it became clear quickly that our social standing was all thanks to him- and he was gone.“

She took a heavy breath and looked down.

„He took care of me, even after his death. If I had not been so stupid, he would still take care of me now, but I ruined everything.“

„What happened?“ he asked.

„Well, I was lonely. Most of our friends had turned their backs. It happened slowly, of course. They stopped inviting me and when I invited them, they made excuses. I slowly realized that our position in society entirely depended on Richard.

Then, one day, out of the blue, Bernie and his wife invited me. Bernie had just started his own investment firm. When they asked if I wanted to invest with them, I did. Only a little at first, you never know, right? But I was literally eating up all my savings, so I thought it would be a good idea to make the money work for a bit before I used it. The returns looked very promising and I invested more, until all our savings were in his firm. Then, Bernie got arrested. I had given all the money my Richard had earned for me to Bernie Madoff!“

„Oh no! That’s terrible. I am so sorry to hear that.“

„Don’t be. It was my own fault. I should have been smarter. I should have asked around, spread the money more."

"Yes, but you could not have known what he was doing!"

"Still, I made a lot of mistakes there and I learned from this. You can never have only one plan, especially when you take a risk. You need a Plan B for when things go wrong. Don’t rely on one person or one plan alone.“

For a moment, they sat in silence, then he asked:

„This might sound very unusual, but may I take a picture of you? I am a photographer and remember things by looking at pictures. I want to remember your story.“

„Of course! But you don’t have a camera!“ she replied.

„I will take the picture on my phone. It won’t be the greatest picture ever taken, but it will do.“

As soon as he had taken the picture, his friend showed up. He said goodbye to the woman and spent the day with his friend.

But he could not stop thinking about her story. Also, he loved the picture on his phone- poor quality and all. He had managed to capture her. It was one of the best pictures he had ever taken.

What was his plan B? What if he could not take over the store one day? Was that really what he wanted to do? He wanted to feel the rush again that he had felt when the old lady trusted him with the story of her life.  He was bored of nature photography and of stilted studio pictures. He wanted to take photos that captured the essence of a person.

Suddenly, he knew what he wanted his plan B to look like. After a few minutes, he had created a new blog. When he was prompted to type in the name, he wrote: „Humans of New York.“