Twice a day, I see his image again. Day and day again, the sillouete is always there.

First, by the trees.

A fine oak tree, standing tall between other trees, standing out for his beauty and elegance. Every day at morning, I walk pass this tree, and I see him. Against the trunk of tree is the sun, casting a shadow behind him, and early enough, this shadow goes for as long as the eye can see. I see him there, standing and looking down, the leaves of the tree mimicking his hair flutter in the mild breeze, beckoning as it once did me.

I remember the day as if i was to live it for the rest of my life in some curse, or some blessing forever remembered.

It was a cold morining, and I was walking around the park attempting to capture something truly incredible. Most people had decided to go for something more direct: a complex machine, a forever-going line of cars in the street, or simply the inner mechanisms of a broken TV. I remember seeing people photographing those things again and again, until they saw what they wanted, and I never undestood it. It didn’t change, not at all, but the camera acted as some weird object that translated mere insignificance into something you could stare at for hours. I remember experiencing that twice, once with a picture of the sea, and another with a picture of an aurora borealis. The amazement was truly inexplicable, how could something so simple as the sea be so grasping? As for the night lights in the pole, how could something so magnificent reveal itself to a machine? These were the two questions that encouraged me to find something so incredible, so stunning, that it would change life. But I never expected to see it twice.

As I walked towards the hill that housed the maginificent tree, I saw a shape unlike others. I saw a boy, roughly my age, sitting by the tree, looking into the rising sun on the horizon. Once, I stopped and looked. Could this be it? I walked fowards, preparing the camera for what I wanted, and snapped the picture. Once again, I aimed, and as I was going to capture what had already been, he turned.

The second time was at the Museum. I had already been here once before, but saw no image worth the capture. I didn’t enjoy the post-modern art, it lacked structure. The outlier, however, would be the painting that someone else had already taken. A marvelous painting of a Gogh-style sunset, rising as the shadows overtook the valley filled with wild beasts. Once, I stayed looking at it for hours, but now, I almost skipped it. I remember perfectly what had stopped me, it was him again.

The time before when we met, he had given me the shot of a lifetime. I had kept that picture by my side ever since, as a reminder that magic still exists. But for all that was called magic, a true intent of making someone happy came along.

That day in the morning. when I had taken the picture without his knowing, he turned and came to me. He wasn’t angry, rather impressed. He never thought that he could be the object of art, and was impressed that I had seen him as one. I encouraged him to not give up, to see himself as he truly was. A beautiful magnificence, with eyes as dark as the night sky, and hair as brown as the young trees surrounding the rest. With sharp and impresive features that you’d have to look at twice to truly admire, as the painting he stood in front. And dare I say, with skin as soft as the most perfect silk. And I could swear, I saw him blush?

As my hopes rose, he invited me to a walk, said he enjoyed my ideas so, that he would not wait to hear more. He found me interesting, a rare specimen of my type. He knew what I was looking for the entire time, and sure that he did I am, but why hide it?

Once, he said, to not lose my attention. To see whether I was as gifted as I claimed to be. To see if I could see past the limitations of the physic, and into the metaphysics underneath. To understand intentions, to understand the person, to truly understand.

The second time, he said it had been out of fear. He thought I had began to find him boring as the months that we spent together went by. He thought I had come for a picture to fame, and was still trying to get it, but I wasn’t! I had found what I needed those many days ago, when I say the sillouete of the person I didn’t know I could share feelings for. After all, what were the chances of me finding love in a walk in the park? I tried to assure him, over and over that I needed that no more, that I had found it way before.

But his fear blinded him. I loved him, I wanted him, but his fear got the better of him.

Slowly but surely, we began to see each other less, until a day where I saw him no more. I went to the park, I went to the Museum, only to find remenants of a letter he had once wrote.

“I’m sorry for this, but you deserve more. I was an idiot to drive you away, I see that as I walk away. But I don’t regret what we had, for that was an experience I am sure to remember for the rest of my life. The time we had was the best I ever had. Maybe, in the future, or another life, we’ll walk together again.”

As my tears filled my eyes, I went to the tree where we had once become more than friends. I dropped my head as the sun hid behind the trees, letting my emotions take over. As memories of what we had had flooded me, I heard footsteps that were just like his’. I turned around, red in my eyes, to find to find a last note against the trunk.

It simply read,

“Maybe, we get to do all this twice.”