Barcelona Red Metallic by Christine Cosack

Author:Christine Cosack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Second Story Press
Published: 2024-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

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The next day, she gets the shot she’s dreamed of. She’s in the bowl, her head and camera just half a meter below the water’s surface. Close to the cascade’s infall is a large, partially submerged boulder and in its lee rests a particularly gorgeous steelhead with a dark blue back, silvery belly and a wide, crimson band spanning the entire length of its body, which is as long as her arm and thrice as thick. The fish is resting, likely in anticipation of the mighty upsurge required to ascend the rocky staircase. If she times her own muscle responses just right, she’ll capture its leap from the water with her lens just below the surface, or she may even breach to catch both worlds in one shot. In anticipation, she begins to shoot: her finger presses the shutter release button rhythmically, every sixth heartbeat. Her feet, leg, and back muscles move to bring her into position inches behind the steelhead, while her chest, shoulders, arms, and hands work to keep the camera perfectly stable.

A hint of a shadow above and a wolf’s snout angles into the water. The steelhead explodes away. Luci can barely suppress the instinct to follow but stays utterly still instead, only her shutter finger speeding up. The wolf’s face becomes larger; soon the entire wedge-shaped head is submerged. She recognizes the blended beige and yellow colors on both sides of the muzzle as belonging to a male teen, an inquisitive and playful fellow she had first photographed as a three-month-old pup two years ago. His distinctive ocher, almond-shaped eyes are wide open, and he seems to stare right into the camera, from half an arm’s length away. The water’s resistance pushes his lips back and reveals his canines so he appears to be grinning. She keeps shooting and resists the instinct to paddle backwards. The wolf is curious; he must have looked at her strobe lights for a while and finally decided to investigate. He pulls his head out of the water and then thrusts it back—his large, black, well-textured nose almost touching the lens. As a means of examination, he would bite the camera, but Luci knows wolves cannot hold their breath and therefore don’t dive, and so she holds her position. She keeps shooting while changing the camera’s angle in minuscule ways, careful not to make sudden or excessive movements. She is wholly mesmerized by the wolf’s oh-so-close face and focuses on capturing light, water movement, oxygen floaters, and the tenacious fish on the perimeter but marvels, in the recesses of her awareness, at the fortune of this moment. Her finger keeps tapping the shutter, her heartbeat too fast to provide rhythm, her feet sway to maroon her in place, and the wolf’s thirty-second air supply seems to last forever.

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