Chapter Two: The Dragonfly
River Quinn
Meanwhile in Toronto, Canada…
There it was.
The rare arrowhead spike tail dragonfly was perched on a scrubby bush about four feet away from me. I couldn’t believe I was standing this close to the creature that had been the object of my interest for weeks. Camping out in Dahl Forest for three days was finally paying off. I hurriedly turned on my camera and lined up the shot. I took a deep breath of the clean forest air and cautiously approached the dragonfly, praying that it wouldn’t decide to take flight before I snapped a couple of shots. Ever since I had read about this rare species of dragonfly on the internet I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to see it and photograph it for myself.
At the age of seven I had discovered I had a strange fascination with these fast-flying predatory insects. Some kids find bugs disgusting while other kids find bugs interesting but as they grow older the fascination usually dies out. Apparently my fascination had only increased as I grew up.
I slowly inched closer to where the dragonfly was hovering and stopped when I was so close I could see the single line of yellow arrowhead shaped markings on its long body. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I zoomed in on the target. And just as I was about to click the button that would capture the image forever, the unthinkable happened. My damn cell phone started ringing. The song ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana was playing from my phone disturbing the peaceful quietness of the forest. The sound must have alerted the creature because it was flying away in a matter of seconds. I managed to snap several pictures in a rush but I doubted they were any good. I dug my phone out of my pocket and groaned in frustration when I saw the caller ID; it read Mom.
“Yeah?” I asked agitatedly as I absently kicked a random rock. I didn’t usually have an attitude with my mother like most teenagers do but right now I was seriously annoyed with her. I had been so close to getting the perfect shot of the dragonfly when she had to decide to call me at that precise moment.
“Is that any way to answer the phone River?” she patronized me. I rolled my eyes at her even though she couldn’t see me. I was already 18 years old and my mother still treated me like a little kid.
“Why didn’t I put it on airplane mode” I muttered to myself but of course she heard me.
“Now what’s that supposed to mean?” she questioned and even though I wasn’t looking at her I was willing to bet anything that she had her hand on her hip right now.
“Nothing mom. So why did you call?” I asked her.
“I was just checking up on you and reminding you that you have to be back no later than today. The moving truck is going to be here early tomorrow morning and you still have some things to pack and I’m not packing them for you River you’re 18 years old” she ranted on and on. The way she said my age sounded as though she felt the need to remind me that I was legally a grown up now but in reality she needed the reminder more than I did.
Ever since my dad had walked out on us ten years ago, my mother had become an overprotective parent. Since she had become a single parent she had to play the role of dad and mom in my life and she had done an excellent job as a parent, but having the fear that I would leave her like dad did she tended to be overprotective at times. Still, I loved her nonetheless. Even now when she was dragging me to another country where we would start a new life. I did wish she could have waited until I was done with high school but it wasn’t her fault. Being a journalist required her to travel frequently and I was pretty used to it by now. Still it would have been so much better if I could have finished my last year of school in Canada.
“Are you even listening to a word I’m saying?” she interrupted my thoughts.
“’Course mom, I’ll be home tonight don’t worry” I reassured her.
“Okay good. Oh River did you find the insect you were looking for?” she said suddenly as if she had just remembered the reason why I was out here in the first place.
“Sure did” I told her not wanting to go into the details that would keep me on the phone for another ten minutes.
“That’s great honey! Well I’ll see you later. The freshly baked eggplant parmesan and I will be here waiting when you get back. Don’t get back to late or I might just have to eat it myself” she teased and my mouth instantly started to water as I pictured the hot steaming pan of eggplant parm sitting in the oven all alone. She knew my weak point.
“K mom I’ll see you later. Bye” I said to her before we hung up. I put the phone away and turned on the camera with crossed fingers. Once I located the pictures I held my breath as I waited for it to pop up full size on the screen. What I saw on the screen literally shocked me. There on my camera was the rare arrowhead dragonfly caught flying in mid air with the forest green trees as the background. Gazing at it I had to admit it wasn’t half bad. Heck it was actually pretty good. I had managed to catch the dragonfly in action. Not bad for a mediocre photographer, I thought as a wide smile broke out on my face.
But as if by magic the smile had disappeared in an instant as soon as I spotted the huge lightning bolt that light up the sky like the fireworks on the 4th of July in America.
In a matter of minutes the sky began to rapidly turn grey making me put my camera away and start looking for the raincoat mom had forced me to bring. And even though I hated admitting it, I was king of glad I had listened to her. I also began to count the seconds it took the thunder to rumble loudly across the sky and then used the old trick my granddad had thought me about counting and dividing the seconds to get the approximation of the distance of the thunder. I roughly counted 10 seconds which meant the lightning had struck about two miles away from here.
I don’t know if it was the fact that it was about to pour soon or the fact that my favorite dish was waiting for me at home but I was suddenly very eager to get my ass back home so after putting on the bright yellow raincoat I started jogging to the car. It was about a fifteen minute jog and I was panting and out of breath when I reached the car. Damn I needed to start working out more often. I had a pretty nice body from when I used to work out if I do say so and I had the start of a six pack forming in my abdomen. But I had started to get lazy and laid back this summer and had completely forgotten about my work out routine. Well I would definitely have enough time to work out once we moved to the small town in Jacksonville, Florida since I probably wouldn’t have much to do anyways.
Driving in the rain for an hour is not fun. About halfway through the car ride my stomach started grumbling almost as loudly as the thunder so I decided to turn on the radio to drown out the sound. I had to distract myself from the hunger somehow. By the time I got home it was 8:00 pm and the sun was going down. After parking the car I quickly got out and ran towards the front door of my lime green house. This would be the last night I would gaze at the green paint peeling from the walls, the evenly cut green grass with the patches of brown or the trees that surrounded our little house.
As soon as I opened the front door, the smell of the eggplant attacked my nose which caused my stomach to growl again.
“Honey is that you?” my mom called out from the living room where she was finishing packing. Who else would it be? I asked myself.
“Yep” I replied as I rushed to the kitchen and cut myself a piece of the delicious smelling eggplant. Once it was served I dug into it like there was no tomorrow.
“Remember to chew before you swallow” mom said as she came into the kitchen carrying a box of old family photo frames. I rolled my eyes and murmured an unintelligible ‘mhm’ through a mouth full. After I was down I set the dishes in the sink and grabbed a ginger ale from the fridge.
“Not that I’m complaining but what’s up with you baking? You only do that on special occasion” I asked before taking a long swig of the can.
“Well it is a special occasion. It’s our last night in Ontario” she said cheerfully making me grimace. I decided not to say anything since my comment would be negative and most likely bring her down a bit.
She was sorting out the pictures we would take and the ones we would leave behind. I watched her grab a picture of my father holding a smaller version of myself on his lap. He had a carefree smile plastered on his face and laugh lines wrinkled the corner of his grey eyes. The same eyes I was forced to look at every damn day. I hated to admit that I was physically a spitting image of my father.
She gazed at it lovingly until a small, sad smile plagued her pretty face. I knew she still loved him and it pissed me off that she did this to herself. Why couldn’t she just forget about him?
“Are you taking that too?” I questioned her.
“Yes” she answered before storing the picture back in the box.
“Why? Just throw it away, isn’t that what he did to us?” I said, the displeasure clearly notable in my voice. My father was a sour subject for me and she knew it.
“Don’t talk about him like that. He’s still your father River and he had his reasons” she argued back. Was she seriously defending him?
“Bullshit. He clearly doesn’t care about us why should we care about him? Leave the picture behind, mom. This is supposed to be the start of a new life and he isn’t part of it” I told her angrily.
“Watch your language River” she warned. One thing she absolutely could not tolerate was bad language.
I could stay here and argue the whole night but instead I opted for heading to my room to finish the packing my mother was so worried about. I didn’t mention anything about the dragonfly I had photographed and she hadn’t asked either. I knew mom thought my obsession with dragon flies was kind of weird and she wasn’t really interested. Plugging in my headphones and closing the door I began to finish the packing I had started as I listened to Neon Eyes.
While rummaging through my closet I found the shoe box where I kept the old Polaroid camera that my grandma had given me a couple of years back.
Curious as to if it still worked I decided to try it out by taking a picture of my room since after tonight I would never see it again. I snapped a picture of the room and smiled when seconds later the camera had spit out a piece of paper. I waved it around so the picture would appear and gazed at the exact replica of my room in black and white. Aside from dragonflies, cameras were my second obsession. So many perfect moments could be captured through the lens of a camera and so many memories saved. I put the camera back in the box and closed the lid.
After the packing was done, I headed into the bathroom to take a nice long hot shower and get ready for bed. When I was out of the shower I put on some flannel pajamas with no shirt and brushed my teeth. While brushing my teeth I gazed at my reflection in the mirror. Gray eyes stared back at me looking empty. They say the eyes are the window into the soul and I think my eyes reflected my emotions pretty accurately right now. I wasn’t happy about the move, I was actually really bummed out over it but I couldn’t tell mom. She would be really disappointed and there wasn’t much she could do right now anyways, we were moving tomorrow. People had always told me I had really mesmerizing eyes but I wasn’t crazy about them because they were a constant reminder of my father. He hadn’t left us anything when he walked out on us but at least I inherited his good lucks, mom would always say. My father and I shared the same grey eyes and jet black straight hair whereas my mother and I didn’t share many physical aspects.
I rinsed out my mouth wiping it with the back of my hand and headed over to my bed. I didn’t usually go to bed early but tomorrow was a big day so I made an exception. Whether I liked it or not tomorrow would be start of our new life, and that was the last thought I had before I succumbed into a deep sleep.
Author's Note: New Point Of View what do you think??