The Photographer (Ignazio Boschetto Fanfiction)

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

          The next place we visited after Costa Rica was El Salvador, which, unfortunately for me, sported beaches, mountains, national parks, blooming flowers, forests, and volcanoes!

          “They have EVERYTHING!” I cried in uncontained fury as I threw down a pamphlet upon our arrival to the El SalvadorAirport.

          Michele heard me and laughed, but I turned away so he couldn’t see my unadulterated frustration.

          I ran a hand through my hair and took in a deep breath as I avoided the beckoning landscape outside the airport windows. I clenched my fists and glowered intensely at the pamphlet on the floor as someone came up beside me and nudged me.

          “What!?” I asked impatiently, turning and immediately quieting as Ignazio held out my suitcase to me. I took it from him and ignored his raised eyebrows and inquiring eyes.

          “What’s wrong, Tamzin?”

          “Nothing…” I sighed, failing to be convincing as I rolled my eyes impatiently.

          Ignazio bent down and picked up my pamphlet from the floor, unfolding it and smiling as he turned it toward me.

          “This stop is going to be so much fun! Isn’t this place beautiful, Tamzin?”

          I was shaking in frustration, and I glowered at the picture.

          “Gorgeous.” I growled, yanking up the handle of my suitcase and plodding away, leaving Ignazio staring after me.

*****

          I restrained myself from going out with my camera, though the scene outside the hotel window was enough to reduce me to frustrated tears. There was a constant longing burning in my chest, and an intense desire to capture the environment.

          Break the chain, I repeated again and again as I pulled the curtains shut over the window and pledged not to photograph this location on the tour.

          I hoped to sleep through my usual photography time and wake when I had work to distract me, but to my distress, I woke at my usual early time, as my schedule had conditioned me to do. I repressed the impulse to get up and go outside, and instead lay in the hotel bed shaking with a determined disposition to refrain myself from getting up until it was time to get ready for work.

          Every moment we spent in El Salvador was agony to me, especially painful when Ignazio invited me to tour a volcano or go hiking with him and the other two boys. I was in constant battle, and on the day we left I had a weary sense of accomplishment coupled with panic that the cycle was about to be broken.

          On the plane to the next stop, Nicaragua, I was exhausted and grateful for a ceasefire while we were in the air. Though I had broken the chain, I knew I couldn’t return to my landscape photography quite yet. If I went out, I’d want to stay out, and I’d slip back immediately into my old ways. I was still sleep deprived, and I needed some more time to focus entirely on Il Volo before I considered returning to my landscapes. I felt so disheartened that I could cry, and I hid my face from Ignazio, who was sitting beside me. I let my weariness overtake me, which I regretted when I woke with my head resting on Ignazio’s shoulder. He was asleep, too, but I wondered with embarrassment who’d fallen asleep first.

I decided through a solemn meditation on the plane to go two weeks without my landscapes, reasoning that that would be enough time to restore myself to health and refocus my life around my job before I accepted back my landscapes. I looked out the window as we flew over Central America and bore the longing that engulfed me as I imagined and wanted to duplicate the National Geographic photos of the Nicaragua beaches.

          As Il Volo traveled and I struggled with my longings for outdoor photography, I worked with a perpetual irritability that arose when Ignazio came around to speak and joke with me, and sometimes to ask if I was okay when he observed my frustration. I had to consciously restrain myself from responding to him with sarcastic remarks, and I constantly had to reprimand myself for glaring. I reminded myself that it wasn’t Ignazio’s fault I had to separate myself from my photography.

          After more than enough tour stops filled with repressed ambition and continuous moodiness, my attitude shifted to a continuous listlessness that I had never before experienced. I worked as I always did, but didn’t think much of anything. It had been about a week since my last landscape endeavor, and I questioned if the listlessness wasn’t better than the irritable longings. It was a defense from the internal battle, an uncaring disposition that successfully subdued the longings that I couldn’t entertain until the end of the two weeks. I felt somber, and I endured everything that was asked of me with a pressing mundaneness.

          I was quiet and expressionless, and I gradually adjusted to Ignazio’s increased presence beside me. Though I attempted to be cheerful around Piero, Gianluca, Michele, and Barbara, I allowed myself to be somber around Ignazio, since he was by my side so often.

He seemed to be strangely observant of me, and I knew he was aware of my new listlessness when he fervently tried to cheer me up and engage me in our surroundings.

          “Isn’t this a beautiful country!?” he’d ask at every tour stop, which he couldn’t have known the pain the question caused. I declined to go exploring with him and the other two boys, partially fearful that going out would reawaken my longings, which I’d prefer to keep controlled until the end of my two weeks of desolation.

          Ignazio was very silly sometimes, prone to adopt dramatic poses and silly voices and do funny dances to entertain me. A small smile from me would appease him for a while, until he returned to re-analyzing my solemn disposition. I think he wanted to somehow restore me to the happiness he had witnessed on the porch when I came in laughing with my landscape photography. Though now I was surrounded by lush green forests and golden sunshine, my days were pretty bleak.

          Every so often Ignazio would take me by the arm and ask me why I was upset, but the secret was mine to keep. I would shy away from his touch and tell him that I was just tired, and he would look somberly at me and tell me then to get some rest. Then he’d let me remorselessly escape the question, until the next time he’d present it again and receive my desolate silence in return.