the Photographer

I hate the tonal harmonics.1

They’re a freakin’ earsore. I hate not being able to walk down the street without this ridiculous cacophony of noise welling up in my ears, interspersed with product names, barely audible over the out welling of their simultaneous jingles and tag notes as they struggle to out-volume each other. I hate the one for Boomashave shaving cream, because it has too much bass and you can always hear it. I hate the one for Rotgut whiskey because it sounds like a bunch of women moaning and not only is it tacky, but instead of imagining sex, as they’re trying to simulate, I imagine a bunch of broads who just drank Rotgut whiskey, doubled-over and moaning with their hair soaking in a puddle of their own vomit. A couple of my friends are actually into the ‘Tonies. Like, that is what they’ll do on a Saturday night:2

“Yo, let’s get plastered and walk town, listenin’ to ‘Tonies.”3

They’re lame as hell, I know. Even if they weren’t such an earsore, who’d want to go ‘round listening to a bunch of advertisements all night?4

I went, one time, just because of the ‘plastered’ part. If I drink a lot, I find their incessant, discordant chatter a bit more tolerable, but it has to be A LOT. Like, more than I can afford, so I down my bottle and finished both of theirs. I smell like whiskey. Walking is difficult. I remember falling down, but after that all I can recall is the dream….5

At least I think it was a dream….6

It was quiet. Perfectly silent, as most of my dreams are. I was in a meadow, on a hill, and everything was gray, the wind was blowing, and as the grass moved, the world expressed that motion in frames; so that it divided itself into a series of stills instead of anything moving at all.7

I turned, frame by frame, and there was a tree, and suspended from that tree in mid-fall was a leaf. Frame by frame, the wind rustled the grass, and softly backlit clouds crawled across the sky, but the leaf never moved. Frame by frame, it stayed, still, silent, and simple.8

I awoke the next morning in my bed, gasping. My head felt like I’d been drinking too much and listening to ‘Tonies all night, and I spent the next hour before school lying in bed and wishing for my own death.9

Poetry class was my first of the day. I hated it. I never could get the concept of ‘beat’. Like, I could figure out all the syllables and it would sometimes sound right, or whatever, but I couldn’t just rattle off lines to a beat. A couple of my friends could do it without even having to write it down. They make up short poems to ‘Tonies sometimes. My poems typically sounded like the one I wrote that day:10

A leaf,11

f12

a13

l14

l15

i16

n17

g18

from a tree.19

I was thinking of rhyming the word “be” or something with it for the next line, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t even want to write a next line. I wanted that to be the whole poem, and for the life of me I couldn’t bring myself to write any more.20

The monochrome of the overcast world, the silence, the stillness…. I could not take my mind off the dream… It was perfect. It was what heaven would be: just a leaf falling from a tree, quietly, forever.21

“Raleigh,” said the Poetry professor.22

That’s my name. I picked my head up off the desk and followed his beckoning finger to his desk at the front of the room.23

“You have got to be the most uncreative, lazy student I’ve ever had, and I’m not saying that to hurt your feelings,” he lowered his voice, “I am saying that because I know you can do better.”24

“I really can’t,” I said. “I don’t think that poem could get any better than that.”25

“Well, that’s why I’m the teacher, and that’s why you’re not getting credit for this class, it would seem.”26

“I don’t really give a damn,” I said.27

We both shrugged, and I walked back to my seat, where I continued to sit with my head on my desk and try, desperately, to find again in my mind that moment, in that place I had never been…. The only moment in which I have ever known peace….28

Melodramatic, you say?29

If I were a person who had been at war their entire life, having never known peace would be a matter of fact. If I’d come from the battle-stricken deserts of the Middle East, raised in a place of perpetual civil war, I could say I’ve never known peace and it would be irrefutable.30

Well, I have been at war my whole life. In a world of ‘Tonies, Opera museums and designer voice modifiers, I have always wanted to see things.31

That’s the main reason I found the streets of downtown such a dull earsore: they don’t care how anything looks. The walls of buildings are gray or blue, because that’s the color of the steel they’re sided with. The sidewalk is a dull, grayish burgundy because that’s the color of the rubber they’re made of. The city is so concerned with dampening the noise of everything so that everyone can hear the ‘Tonies that anyone who’d pay attention to how it looks, like me, would be mortified.32

I’ve grown to hate noise, in this world that revolves around it. This is what I thought about as I walked home from school on the day I was guaranteed I’d fail poetry, with ads for Plankton Bars and Slippery Condoms moaning and shouting and beeping in my ears all through town. I will never buy a product that I’ve heard in a ‘Tonie.33

Tonight, I dreamed of the meadow again. I dreamed that I walked to it; just outside of town, not too terribly far from my house. I dreamed that I brought some paper and a pencil with me, and that I was going to draw it, but only once. It would not be a cartoon, just a single drawing. I wouldn’t embellish it in any way. I’d simply attempt to draw it as well and realistically as I could.34

“Why?” I knew they would ask me, “why just that? Why not cartoon it, make something happen? I mean, it’s just a leaf? Why doesn’t it do anything?”35

And I planned on saying: “It’s not about doing anything, its just about being something. Its about the scene, and everything in the scene, and the leaf, and the air and blank space around it, and the tree, and the startling gray turbulence of the clouds mirroring the startling gray turbulence of the meadow grass. It’s about the leaf’s slow descent in contrast to all that. The wind blows stalwartly, the grass slithers and shifts, but the leaf calmly drifts and never alters its course directly down to the ground, quietly, purposefully, peacefully.36

A leaf falling from a tree…37

And so as I sat and waited, I realized: this wasn’t a dream.38

The night sky was a tortured expanse of flat gray-on-gray, a swirling maelstrom of monochrome, overcast but softly backlit by the muffled brilliance of the full moon. I’d drawn the tree, as it stood: the slender curve of the nearly bare branches, bled almost dry by autumn. It stood precariously on the edge of the cliff that borders town. Fog hung across its vast expanse, making the looming bulk of the opposing side barely visible. I could see my one leaf, still clinging to an overhanging branch. It was the only part of the scene I hadn’t etched yet. I sat, with pencil poised, and waited for it to fall.39

I couldn’t have imagined it falling. I’d have to see it, and I’d have to draw it as quickly as I could.40

I hadn’t waited long before the breeze kicked up, and my eyes widened as the leaf dropped from the branch.41

I didn’t even realize that I was running towards it, as if being near it could prolong the moment. I was trying to draw as I ran, but I knew there was no hope in me sketching it out before it dropped from sight. I’d never been very good at drawing, or picturing things in my head, and I knew that once that leaf was no longer in my view, the dream would be over, and the only thing I’d ever felt was perfect would be gone from me.42

So when I got to the edge of the cliff, I jumped.43

The leaf is next to me. We are both suspended: hanging in the air, in a still, silent world of flat gray. Neither of us will ever see the bottom of this cliff.44

Meanwhile, I’m buried, I’m sure. Perhaps they’ll play horrible music at my funeral, or read beat poetry. They’ll be snippets of my voice, recorded into mnemonic ‘tonies next to my casket, and it’d basically be something I’d hate to be a part of, so I’m glad I’m not there.45

The tombstone, however, will be silent. My parents will have enough good sense to do that. They’ll have to put it in some far corner of the graveyard, away from the normally trod paths, since a quiet tombstone is fairly upsetting to some people, but those who do dare to venture near it will read the best poem I’ve ever written, about the only thing I’ve ever seen fit to write about:46

A leaf,47

f48

a49

l50

l51

i52

n53

g54

from a tree.55