On a rainy day before I saw you for the first time, the fog on Mt. Tam turned trees to silhouettes, sucked details into its gaping, white mouth. I stopped to look across the mountainside at one lone tree that has seen many storms. Still, it grows.
I thought of that tree as I watched your pixelated silhouette for the first time. You were curled, more shape than self, growing.
There’s the heartbeat, said the doctor, and I laughed, delighted by the only detail I needed.
He spent their vacation taking videos of the mountains. He watched his footage in their hotel room in the evenings, while she drank glasses of wine and read her book on the balcony.
She grew impatient by the third day, angry that he was filling up their camera cards with high definition files.
Why not just take a photo? she said. It’s not like they’re moving.
Oh, but they are, he said. It’s just that they move slowly. If you wait long enough, you will see what I mean.
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This story first appeared on 100 Proof Stories+, a new publication I’m curating on Medium. If you want to tell stories in the 100 Proof style and have photos to go along with them, I’m accepting submissions for this new venture.
100 Proof 