No more 'eye'

Ryan has asked his camera back. I had been using it for more than a year now and it had become a faithful, if not inseparable companion. 

Ryan offered me to have it because he knew I took lots of pictures and he didn't. The other (main) reason was that he was 'in love' with me so wanted to do anything to please me. 

Things changed since he found a new love interest in the name of Wassir. He quickly moved in one month after they met and when I came back from my last trip to Paris, I found two flatmates instead of one, not including Nicolas. 

The more the merrier...? Perhaps. But all the little attentions of which I was the subject naturally changed target. 

"I bought a new and very expensive lens... and I would like to use the camera..."

"Will you use it occasionally or often?" I asked. 

Ryan made a fake sorry grin. "I think it will be often".

I knew that it was just a passing fancy. Ryan had another white Canon camera, maybe of lesser quality than than the one he offered me to use, which had been taking the dust on his shelves for months. Ryan was not interested in taking pictures. The reason behind it was his will to please Wassir. Am I being a tad too self-centered in believing that on hearing Wassir praising my photographs and my music, Ryan felt compelled to show him that he too could be creative. 

This came at the wrong timing. The past months have been meagre in terms of work, my computer was showing heavy signs of exhaustion. I apprehended the day it would bid its final farewell in a sudden and ultimate crash.

"Which means that I will have to buy a new camera...."

"Yes!" Ryan answered with a forced smile.

I returned the prized item with all the gadgets that came with it, which I never used, and resumed our work on To the Sun with Zed. 

"For some people, it's more a matter of buying something fancy than actually using it" Zed said when I sat down again next to him. "My father does the same: he wanted that fancy car. He bought it. It's beautiful car, but we seldom use it, because he's afraid of what people may think he's a show-off if he comes to work driving it."

The big surprise came when some friends offered me to give their camera, because they love my work and think it impossible that I went on too long without taking any picture. I was very moved.

The only trick is that they live very far away!!!

The last picture I took was of my friend Dorian who was leaving after two weeks in Taipei, and these shots of a father and his son, as I was walking out of the Huashan Culture Park.