Page 107 of These Tears

He waits. No further instruction follows.

The camera begins to feel heavier in my hands.

Is he actually leaving this to me?

‘Whatever you give me,’ I answer, my voice breaking.

His eyes narrow. A muscle moves once beside his mouth. He’s unhappy with me bouncing it all back to him.

When he stands, it’s slow and almost damning. His shadow streaks the floor, flickering along with the flames of the hearth beyond him.

‘Whatever I give you…’ he reiterates, low and rough.

I can’t see his face. The darkness makes him seem larger somehow.

Every muscle on me locks as I glance at the ink barely visible beneath the long sleeves of his top.

‘Talking helps with the mood. Tell me about the chains,’ I say hurriedly.

His chin lowers as he lifts one of his hands, then the other, studying the lines peering out.

In one breath he stands dauntingly still. In the next, he’s pulling the top over his head.

Startled, I hide my shame behind the lens and watch him.

‘“I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams,”’ he says.

I take three shots as he speaks. The fire gilds the outline of his shoulders as he leaves the garment on the bed.

‘Where’s that from?’ I ask, moving to the side slightly, bending at the knees as he spreads his arms a little.

That makes me stop.

I look over the camera at him.

With his arms like that and the chains exposed, the frame catches two versions of him at once: the threat and whatever survived it; a darkness my lens knows how to hold.

I’m afraid of his size. Afraid of his calm, because I know the violence he holds trapped in it.

But the lens makes me lean closer anyway.

He is offering me the boundaries of himself – where the violence begins, where it stops, and where the bad dreams still keep him bound.

‘Hamlet,’ he says and takes a step forward.

I press the shutter again and sidestep him, keeping the camera between us. ‘What’s the connection to the chains?’

He moves further. One slow step, then another, the amber halo spreading behind him until it eats the edges of his body and leaves only a towering dark shape coming towards me.

My breath labours through my throat, but my camera knows what to do with this sensation.

I sink to my knees with the viewfinder pressed to my face, chasing the angle as if my long-awaited reckoning has grown legs and is crossing the room to meet me.

‘The chains keep me from going too far,’ he murmurs.

Click. Click. Click.

‘They have range. They keep promises the mind can’t.’