Table for One: Tina
Tina, 9pm, 11th Nov 2009, Soup Spoon ION Orchard
On nights, when I lay my head onto my pillow and close my eyes, I see you.
Your face will have the sharpness of an engraving, delicately cut onto the surface of my mind's eye. You'd be looking back at me, with a gaze that acknowledges my presence, as if telling me that I am a real. And for a moment, that vacuous space of our random past and the distance of our indefinite future will be drawn into proximity. In your gaze, your face will just in front of mine. On nights, I'll part my lips to receive that vacant kiss. In no time, sleep comes to me.
I can never differentiate whether it is in a dream I'm photographing someone or whether it is in someone I am photographing a dream. Every time when I look through my viewfinder, my consciousness drifts between reality and dreamscape. The only sense I have left will be of my forefinger and thumb as they gently pinch the focusing ring of my lens and my eyes that watch the world breathe in and out of focus.
Many evenings ago, I found Tina dining alone. She was stunning when I saw her by the dining table. When I approached her, she briefly agreed to my request to photograph her and hastily pick up her phone as soon as I withdrew afar to begin my work. For the span of an entire meal, Tina was absorbed in her conversation over the phone. Without any doubt, she was talking to somebody really special to her. Her face glowed in the abandonment and her sentences were punctuated with a giggles. For as long her fingers clutched intimately at her handset, mine waited and rested the release button of my camera with reticence. I couldn't bring myself to make any picture because I recognized that joy she had. It is the same joy you'd bring me when you'd call every night, just right before we'd go to sleep. Until now.
Finally, the conversation ended. Tina let out a sweet sigh and I released my shutter. Finally, I had made my picture.
I know we always seem eccentric to some people, but comforts me that the both of us never like our pictures taken, not even of us when we were together. All that was needed that kept me close to you was our shared knowledge: that photographs are merely attempts to make continuously present a moment that was soon to be absent. And for that, all that I have kept is that image of you in my mind.
When day breaks and I awake, you'll disappear.