"Shhhhh don't make noise, you'll startle it." Josh scolded his younger brother as he steadied his camera to take the shot.
John stopped playing with the ball and crept down to look at what his elder brother was doing.
Josh became really quiet, creeping slowly with his legs while keeping his arms holding the camera very still.
The camera was pointing at the wall—at plain nothing.
"There's nothing there..."
"Shhhhhh" Josh shushed him again, creeping ever slowly to the wall..
"Don't shush me when you're taking a picture of a wall." John grumbled before walking back to his ball.
Josh paid him no mind, not even sparing a glance to see which way he was going.
His whole focus was on the being that was slowly coming into focus on his lenses.
Slowly he could see the colours become less blurred and every ridge began to stand out. Still he wanted more.
The subject of the picture was asleep, it was just before dawn so it's still cool out, yet as the day gets hotter, his body temperature rises and then he'd be out and about.
Josh didn't know how he'd get closer without disturbing the leaves, making noises and then waking the sleeping subject.
He looked at his camera, he was probably a few inches away, still he wanted to get closer.
In his many tries in getting insect pictures he discovered that a definite clean step is better than tiptoeing and shuffling.
So with a deep breath Josh took one more step forward and paused with his breath held.
The dragonfly fluttered his wings, aware of the being next to him, yet after a few seconds of silence, it settled back down.
Josh held his breath for a minute more before exhaling, fear that his twenty five minutes or more of creeping had gone up in a poof.
He retook his pose, steadied the camera and took the picture.
Immediately he stood up, a ball flew past hitting the wall and then the exact spot where the dragonfly was.
"Sorry!" John called out, running from where he had kicked the ball.
"I was trying a new skill and I kicked the ball way too hard."
Josh moved the ball away and looked at the spot, expecting to see a squished dragonfly at the spot the ball hit, there was nothing there.
"Ohh a dragon fly!" John said, pointing at the ground at a dragon fly lying on the floor.
It's body wasn't squished, but it wasn't responsive, even when poked by a stick.
"Is it dead?" John asked.
"Did I kill it?" His eyes were already tearing up at the thought that he had killed the dragon fly.
Josh sighed at the thought of John crying. His little brother was always so emotional towards death and his tears and screams would have been tiresome in their afternoon together.
"No you didn't kill it." Josh lied, comforting his brother.
"Actually, you can't kill a dragon fly."
"You can't?" John asked, buying into his big brother's lie.
"Why do you think they're called dragon flies?"
"They may not breathe fire but they are as magical as regular dragons, and one of their magic is that they don't die, they always find a way to come back and start again. Make a new beginning." Josh explained.
"So this dragonfly isn't dead?"
"No it isn't." Josh said lying through his teeth.
"We'll leave and come back tomorrow and see that the dragon fly has already woken up and flown away."
"Okay." John replies, sniffling and using his sleeve to wipe his tears.
At that they left the park.
A decade later, John came into the park, the same park he and his brother used to come to spend their weekend afternoons.
He was in his late teens, about to go start college, about to leave this simple city.
His brother died 3 years ago, John just found the confidence to look in his camera last month and the memories drew him back to the park.
The same camera hung around his neck, he didn't plan on using it, he didn't even know how to use it.
Yet here he was, slowly moving along the grass, just looking around.
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw something buzz past and land on the white wall.
A dragon fly landed in the exact same wall where Josh was staring at so many years ago.
Slowly he creeped with the camera in his eyes trying to get the picture. He mistakenly stepped on a twig and the dragonfly took off startled.
John managed to take a picture.
It was blurry, out of focus and only the upper half of the dragon fly was in frame, yet it was taken.
He went home and checked his brother's storage, looking through photos upon photos, looking for the picture of that day.
He looked at it for a long time, memories flowing in of the story his brother told him as he looked at the clear image of the dragonfly, on his system screen, and the unclear image of the identical looking dragonfly on the camera.
Then, the tears came.
Header Image was taken by me.
My Instagram page.
