But his father saw a son who was spending too much time alone doing kerreist knows weottt?! A son who should have been working or studying or playing professional football. A son not using his talent!

“It’s still possible,” his father told him. “You’re still young and good enough.”

“Sorry, Dad. Not interested.”

“I can contact certain people. I can get you in.”

“Sorry, Dad. It’s not for me.”

“Giving up the thing you do best!”

Everything was ridiculous. People made fusses about ridiculous things. They couldn’t live without ridiculous fusses. She was gone and that was that. Football was gone and that was that. It was time to move along. But what to? The urge to succeed stirred in the present’s insipid fog. There didn’t seem to be anything worth doing that was immediately attainable. No one was doing anything interesting. There were no role models. He had imagination; but there was nothing concrete to attach it to. He didn’t have the money to see the world and take photographs. He would have loved to have done that. Most other things were irrelevant by comparison. But there didn’t seem to be any way.

He went into the shower. Water poured over him. He didn’t move. He just stood there.

His father said: “You can’t keep holding a torch for her. You’ve got to start thinking about your future. If you don’t start doing something now you’re not going to make it.”

The son didn’t respond. Water clattered onto the floor. Saying anything would have been ridiculous; his father had never had this experience. Most people had never had this experience. Most people wanted to do safe, ordinary things. Nothing special. They didn’t have to think.

“She’s gone,” he heard his father repeat, “so you’re going to have to forget her.”

Water clattered. He didn’t respond. He had to find people who shared his vision. This was going to be difficult. Not many people shared his vision. Especially in a place so narrow in its thinking.

“There are stacks of women,” he heard his father say, “I can assure you.”

He didn’t reply. Women were too much work anyway.

He turned the shower off.

“It was an impossible situation anyway,” his father continued. “She was always going to be going back to Germany.”

The bathroom was bare. Just soap, a few toothbrushes and tiles. A bathroom for men.

“Anyway,” his father said, “you’ll get over it soon enough.”

The son held a towel to his head. The darkness was like a sheath protecting him from this absurdity; but this protective sheath wasn’t going to solve the deeper problem of survival through worthwhile means.

“The older you get,” his father went on, “the faster you get over these things.”

The son left the bathroom and entered his room.

“I know it’s bad,” his father said, “but it happens to us all.”

The son felt the fear of facing dullness. Returning from long trips to predictable places was always difficult.

“You’ve got to go out more,” his father said. “You aren’t going to get her out of your head by sitting around here.”

He didn’t want to talk about what he wanted to do in life. He didn’t want to talk about it to people who couldn’t relate to his vision. It was too private, not a standard desire, especially, he thought, in a place not famous for generating unusual ambitions. Shutting his mouth had become a forced necessity.

“Don’t worry,” his father said, “there’ll be others.”

The son felt as if he had lost something – not the woman – she was gone – but innocence while acquiring knowledge.

His bedroom’s window was filled with an azure canvas that offered no secrets. He looked out the window at the blue line of the distant ocean that sat under an unblemished wall of cobalt serenity. Convoluted, uneven rooftops held up a jungle of chimneys and tiled slopes before the untainted purity of the sky’s radiant sapphire.

I’m going to advertise to do gardening jobs, he thought. It’s going to be boring, but there’ll be no boss. It’ll pay for a camera. It’ll get me started. Other people have struggled as well.

“They come and they go,” his father said. “It’s life.”

“Yes, Dad, I know.”

Just get that camera, he thought. Get that damn camera!