His Lens Never Had Room For Me Chapter 06

His Lens Never Had Room For Me Chapter 06

At the North Ridge Observatory Base in Alaska, the wind of the polar night cut across my face like a blade.

I stood in the center of the snowfield in an Arctic parka.

In front of me stood a heavy-duty equatorial mount.

The three field assistants assigned to me by the magazine stood behind me, holding their breath.

I was not wearing gloves.

In the sub-zero freeze, my frostbitten joints had turned red-purple, but my hands moved over the equipment with sharp speed.

Thirty seconds.

Polar alignment complete.

Twenty seconds.

Focal length locked.

“Two-hour exposure. Everyone move back one hundred and sixty feet and shut off every light source,” I ordered.

The three assistants obeyed at once, retreating into the darkness.

This was my return to my own battlefield.

Not far from me, on another snow ridge, Everett was also setting up his equipment.

His movements looked restless.

Sienna stood beside him in a thick insulated field jacket, stamping her feet over and over.

“Mr. Hale, my hands are frozen. I can’t turn the knob on the equatorial mount,” Sienna said, her voice trembling with tears.

Everett said nothing.

He walked over, took off his gloves, and turned the cold metal knob himself.

Ice had formed over it.

He used too much force, and the sharp rim of the metal sliced open his finger.

Everett frowned and shook the bead of blood from his hand.

“Give me the backup battery,” he said, holding out his hand.

Sienna fumbled through the backpack in a panic.

“Not in the bag!” Everett’s voice turned harsh.

“I told you the backup batteries have to be kept close to your body, inside an inner pocket, so your body heat keeps them warm.”

“If you leave them in a bag in this temperature, they’ll drain before you even use them.”

Sienna shrank back from his shouting.

With shaking hands, she pulled a battery from the outer pocket of her coat and handed it to him.

Everett slid it into the camera.

The screen flickered once.

Then it went black.

Dead.

Everett stared hard at the dark screen.

Suddenly, he remembered the Denali backcountry four years ago.

That night had been twenty-two degrees below zero too.

He had only needed to reach out, and a battery carrying body heat had been placed into his palm.

Elena had unzipped her down jacket and kept that battery pressed to her stomach for three hours.

At the time, he had been focused only on the shot.

He had never even said thank you.

“Mr. Hale, I’m sorry,” Sienna cried.

“It’s too dark. I’m scared. Can I wait in the car?”

Everett looked at Sienna.

He looked at the girl he had declared his “only light” onstage at the awards ceremony.

In the face of real cold, real darkness, and real boredom, her light was fragile enough to shatter.

“Wait in the car. Don’t turn on the lights,” Everett said, forcing down his irritation.

As if she had been pardoned, Sienna ran toward the snow SUV parked in the distance and climbed inside.

The next second, the SUV’s headlights snapped on.

Two blinding high beams sliced straight through the darkness for miles, sweeping directly across Everett’s lens.

They swept across my camp too.

The settings Everett had spent two hard hours adjusting were ruined completely in that instant.

Everett froze where he stood.

He stared at the SUV with its high beams blazing.

Once, because of the faint glow of a phone screen, he had pointed at Elena’s face in the snow and screamed at her.

Now, he had brought someone who lit up the strongest possible headlights.

Everett’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

He pulled it out numbly.

It was an internal industry email alert.

The magazine had released its official announcement poster for the new chief astrophotographer.

On the poster, a woman in an Arctic parka stood with her back to the camera, looking up at the aurora.

The photo credit read:

[Elena Hart]

Everett stared at the screen.

The high beams were so bright he could barely keep his eyes open.

At last, he realized where the person he had pushed away with his own hands had gone.

Everett, your zero light pollution had been destroyed completely by the person you kept beside you.