Lost focus

With a thunderous crack, the soccer ball was launched in his direction. The boys watched him, their feet poised to trap the ball the moment he kicked it back. He swung his leg to the ball — but the ball soared right past his foot. It landed in the grass a short distance away, rolling lazily until it came to a rest within a small cluster of daisies. The muffled shouts of the boys reached him from a distance. With a half-hearted toss, he threw the ball back toward the group. His eyes were fixed only on the daisies: a slender green stem, a tiny sun crowned with white rays. Sunlight filtered through the delicate petals, revealing their intricate cellular structure, the play of light, and the soft depth of the shadows. He reached for the vintage camera his father had given him and began to shoot. By the time he stood back up, the sun was already painting the sky in hues of pink and orange. He felt the chill of the evening air grazing his bare skin through his thin summer clothes. Just a few more of that beautiful sky, he thought. Then straight home—his father would surely love these shots. They had looked at them together, scrolling through all the photos of the daisies in the sun. His father pointed out the settings, showing him where they could have been just a bit sharper. The shot he’d taken from below, where the daisy looked like a tiny white parasol, was their favorite. His father printed it out for him, and he carefully pinned it among the other photos above his bed. The daisy parasol was the last thing he saw before drifting off to sleep that night. He dreamed of enormous, carnivorous flowers devouring entire cows. Their hungry blooms swayed back and forth, searching through a dark forest. And he was there. Alone. He captured it all. His photos were spectacular; he became world-famous, and the President himself personally opened his very first exhibition. The daisy parasol was looking him right in the eye when he woke up. He felt a flutter in his stomach—restless, yet wonderful. He had dreamed of his future again. He slung the camera from his nightstand around his neck. Still in his pajamas patterned with blue dinosaurs, he used his fingers like a pair of scissors to snip an imaginary ribbon. “I hereby declare the exhibition of Miles Cooper, world-class photographer, officially open.” He bowed to the left and then to the right, basking in the applause of his future audience. In the days that followed, he could be found in the strangest of poses: among the flowers, by the water’s edge, deep in the woods. Whenever a ball happened to fly his way, one of his friends would simply come and retrieve it themselves. Miles didn't even notice. By autumn, he spent hours wandering through the forest in his raincoat. He crawled through the spicy-scented, withered leaves, searching for the most handsome mushroom in the woods. He would return home with soaked socks, mud in his hair, and hands numb from the cold. But he saw only the images he had captured — the ones he had carried home inside his camera. The wall above his bed was full. The sea of photographs had now spilled over onto the adjacent wall. He grew older, and his interests gradually shifted: portraits of women in artistic poses, still lifes of peculiar objects. One of the women, who had posed for him with an apple balanced on her head when he was about eighteen, had lingered long after the shoot was over. She seemed fascinated by the craft, and with burning passion, he explained everything—focal lengths, fill-flash, and bokeh. She hung on his every word. During a brief breathing space in his explanation, she quickly asked if she could come by more often. After that, she was there almost every day. She helped style the models. She scavenged for bags of trash or tubes of toothpaste for his artistic still lifes. She set up the lights and hurled tomatoes, eggs, and water balloons past the lens so Miles could capture the exact moment they relentlessly splattered apart. One day, while adjusting the lighting, they tripped over a tangle of cables and collided. In the split second of silence and stillness that followed—like a flashbulb firing in the dark—he felt her lips against his. From that moment on, they were official. Miles and Cleo. Together, they dreamed up the most bizarre still lifes. They wandered for hours through the wilderness. Lying in the damp grass, Miles held the camera while she wielded a pipette, placing exactly the right drop of water in exactly the right spot. His imagery grew more powerful. His father often asked if he needed any advice. Sometimes they would look at the photos together, but his father couldn’t quite grasp the concept behind the bizarre still lifes. Whenever he tried to suggest technical improvements, Miles would keep his lips pressed firmly together. His work became increasingly experimental. Cleo posed patiently with a rubber band stretched around her head, a fish head in a bowl balanced on her back, or crawling on all fours through a ball pit. After a year spent within the walls of the studio, Cleo suggested they go on vacation together. “To unwind,” she had said, adding with a wink, “and for once, I’m not talking about the camera!” Miles had agreed; he saw opportunities to capture new subjects for his growing portfolio. His work had migrated from his bedroom wall into a sleek professional folder, with Miles & Cleo: Experimental Photography embossed in gold letters on the cover. Cleo slammed her suitcase shut, a feat she only managed by sitting on top of it. Miles peered around the doorframe and asked if she might have room for “a few of his things.” He pulled a bag overflowing with camera accessories from behind his back. Cleo felt a strange pang in the pit of her stomach. “Uh, Miles, we’re going on vacation, remember? Not to the studio.” She tried to force a smile, but she felt her throat tightening, closing up like an aperture in the glaring sun. There they were again: Miles’s lips, pressed firmly together. In the end, he packed an extra bag himself, for which he had to pay a hefty oversized-luggage fee. On the plane, he had said very little. He was too busy mapping out excursions. No sun-drenched beaches—too much harsh light. No cozy terraces with cocktails—too many people. Actually, he noted, their apartment seemed quite suitable for a few shoots. Cleo turned away from him and spent the rest of the flight with her eyes closed. Upon arriving on the Greek island, Miles had announced that he absolutely had to go out to check the light and take some test shots. Four hours later, he stumbled back inside, flushed and overheated. Cleo felt a cold, heavy stone in her gut, like she’d swallowed a river pebble. She toyed with the hem of the beautiful dress she’d put on, brushing a carefully styled curl away from her face. "I'm not hungry," Miles said, his eyes fixed on the screen as he flicked through the afternoon’s shots. "Let’s just grab something quick and eat it here. That way, I can get straight to editing." Cleo was already in a deep sleep by the time he finally climbed into bed beside her that night. His camera sat on the nightstand between them. He didn't wake until eleven the next morning. Squinting against the harsh glare of the sun, he read the note Cleo had left. She asked him to choose her today—to choose a day together over a day with his camera. If he felt he could do that, he would find her in the botanical gardens next to the complex. If not, she wished him the best of luck with his career. He had truly intended to go to Cleo, to spend the day by her side. But on his way to the gardens, he ran into him: Xavier. The curator of the New York Museum of Photography. Xavier had seen Miles at work the day before; he’d looked like a professional. Did he perhaps have some work to show? “The portfolio,” Miles managed to stammer. “I'll get it.” In his mind, the shutter button had been pressed, the lens pulled into sharp focus—this was the moment he had been waiting for. If he didn’t take the shot now, he would miss the photograph of a lifetime. Cleo would understand. Xavier was impressed. The experimental still lifes reflected in his eyes as his fingers glided across the pages. "Miles," he said finally, "if you can deliver ten more photos in this style, there’s a very good chance you’ll have a spot in our upcoming exhibition." Click. Flash. The shot was taken. Miles saw the image before him, vivid and sharp: his own exhibition, his photographs in New York. But immediately following that thought, he felt as if a lens cap had been snapped onto his new vision of the future. Cleo. From this moment on, he would be consumed by the exhibition alone. Yet, his lips could form no other word but yes when Xavier asked him if he was ready. He raced to the botanical gardens to share the incredible news with Cleo. Heart pounding, he reached the bench where she was supposed to be waiting. An old woman looked up at him, her expression questioning. Back in the apartment, Cleo had told him she was genuinely happy for him. But her smile was watery. He ignored it and focused on the exhibition. The tension hanging in the apartment was enough to power a city's lights. Cleo began venturing out on her own more and more, while Miles remained behind, tethered to the apartment, buried in his experiments. At the airport she said she’d call. She didn’t think she’d be coming back to the studio anytime soon. She looked back one last time, her hands forming a heart. Miles had nodded in silence. Those lips, pressed together once again. Back at the studio, his father had called. Did he need any help, now that Cleo was gone? He said he’d love to help Miles make his dream a reality. But his father wouldn't understand his vision. He was going to do this entirely on his own. Whenever his father’s name lit up his phone screen, he swiped it away—until eventually, even that was no longer necessary. The photographs had turned out magnificent. His models were now part of the still lifes; they were visible only if you looked very closely. Xavier had tears in his eyes as he held the portfolio. On the cover, a small gold-colored card—exactly the size of the words ‘& Cleo’—now covered her name: Miles Cooper: Experimental Photography. It had all happened so fast. His photos had been blown up to the scale of his childhood dreams, artfully arranged throughout the museum's galleries. The invitations had been sent. The moment was now. It wasn't the President, but Xavier who cut the ribbon. It was almost the same thing. Miles squinted against the barrage of flashing cameras. He turned around, reaching for Cleo to pull her close and capture this moment in his memory. But Cleo wasn't there. The strobe of the cameras illuminated a part of his brain he hadn't used in weeks. In his pocket, his phone vibrated. His father. He’d decided it was better if he didn't attend the opening. Miles stared straight ahead. He stepped into his dream. For the first time in his life, he kicked the ball, straight into the goal. But oh, how he longed for that single daisy in the sun. If only he had just kicked the ball back then.