In the beginning Claud pedaled newspapers for a living. But wherever he went he took his phone with him, for the camera. On his very first day at the paper he met Bella Delaware. She was a journalist, a beautiful one, and she was a force to be reckoned with, shouting out commands, searching down corridors for the best photographers. That sort of thing, you know?
From the first, for him, it became all about her.
Claud was a bright student, but his family lacked means; he was born on the wrong side of the tracks and those tracks divided the neighborhood with a “red line”; you were, or you simply were not. But Claud had brains and ambition.
…and he worked really hard.
Every day when the stats came in, his sales were the best. He dared himself to corner Bella and show her his art, but he could never summon the gumption. She drifted in and out of his world in neon sweatshirts and trainers. He made it his business to skim past her desk everyday. Any pretext would do...and there she’d be, barking at a video call on one device, while typing, madly, on another. A whirlwind in action. A static volcano.
He used to dream about her. It was so weird, he had never said as much as two words to her.
He dreamt about showing her his photos, how she would react and it was beautiful; his mind was shot through with glitter and sparkle; what she’d say, how she’d demand that he be part of her team.
Then, it happened. Everything! All because of the beach bum.
It was fate, of course. Fate.
The seas around Claud’s beach town had been unusually rough, too rough for surfing. But, Claud made sure to visit everyday, even if the surf wasn’t up. Apart from photography, surfing was his major passion. Every day, he’d leave the beach, newspapers under arm and the bum would be somewhere on his path, with a wave or a grin. He was old, at least forty, he reckoned, weathered and sun-worn, and always just there.
On the day that it happened, the beach bum was at the parking lot apron at the head of the beach, just waiting for him; dancing up and down in an agitated motion, sun glistening on his wavy hair.
“Come!” There are fish, was all he said, leading the way.
Oh, and what fish they were; a magnificent silver shower of luminous fish, rising and diving like a tsunami. Radiance in the air above the water. Millions of agile sardines.
His camera clicked and clicked, until he was spent. Breathing like a washed up old steam train.
But he had them, those fish…
“Go show her, my boy.” The bum said “The one whose fire is in your eyes.”
...and he did. And, of course, that was that.
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