A Mere Observer

Mel the Hermit Crab

Now I couldn't get it out of my head. While I should have been enjoying these last moments I was instead dismaying over how these were last moments. It came so fast.

I couldn't stop watching Trent, either. I would keep thinking that this would be the last I would see him in person and not behind a screen, which came nowhere near the in-person Trent. I watched him just as I did in the Jimmy Johns when he was being greeted by fans. At the convention, they never ended. Just as we walked in through the doors the autographs and pictures and giddy smiles kept coming.

So I surveyed from the side, still the hermit crab, as he and his friends beamed for their fans. You could see Becca eating up all the attention, Riley and Landon close behind. Only Conner didn't look very comfortable, and eventually came to stand beside me to watch.

"Don't like the crowds so much?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Not so much. You?"

"Not so much."

I smiled. "Still like PAX, though?"

"Love it."

I smiled again. For someone of few words he was still witty.

I caught Trent looking over at us with a calculating look. I decided to give him a little wave, to show that yes, Conner and I were getting along just fine and no, he didn't have to worry about exercising his mediating skills while he was surrounded by a circle of people. He gave a curt wave back and a look I didn't quite understand.

"How'd you and Trent meet?"

"We met at this gaming thing Maritime was doing Thursday night."

"Oh, that. I was going to go but I slept instead."

I laughed. "Yeah, probably good you did. It was just another crowd."

Except Trent was there.

"But you guys hit it off?"

I stared at the ground and nodded thoughtfully. "I guess we did."

Becca, with a few people on her tail, invaded our watching-circle along with my thoughts with her loud voice.

"Hey Mel!" she said, "Could you use your camera to take a picture of us?" She smiled at me but it lacked authenticity. Her fans grouped up behind her and waited, watching me.

Take a picture of them with Nico... for what? So I could send them to her later? But why would she want them? So then, send them to her fans. Did she really think I would be willing to do that? The thought of how I handled the camera probably hadn't even crossed any of their minds, either. They just wanted the high resolution. High resolution of themselves.

I didn't like that.

Nico was for capturing what my eyes saw was beautiful. Artful, and meaningful. Sure, pictures of cosplayers weren't always meaningful but they were fun for me to take while I was at PAX. And they weren't for the other people I was photographing, not really. They were for me. Nico was sacred. He was for me, and if I let Becca use him for her own benefit then he would immediately become a part of her world –the community. There was no way she could understand that or if it was rational in any way, but I was okay with maintaining this selfishness.

The group of people stared but I didn't panic. I lied.

"Sorry," I said, "I forgot to charge hi- it last night and it died at the aquarium."

Faces fell but my guilt only lasted half a second. Becca obviously had as little consideration for my photography as she did the first time I met her. Trent never asked me to use my camera for him. Even Markus never –not even once– asked me to use it for him during his entire career because he held a certain respect that I also held for him. Nate and Greg, too. They all understood something that Becca just didn't quite get. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But it still held significance to me.