Work Text:
“What are you doing?”
The two of them sit side by side on the dewy grass, watching the world come back to life. The Sun hasn’t completely risen yet, but already the lush hills spreading out as far as the eye can see seem to be bathed in golden splendour.
“Whatever do you mean, Joseph?” Claude asks, sending his brother a lazy smile. The boy, not much older than fourteen – Joseph – points towards the vermillion autumn leaf in Claude’s hand, pinched delicately between his fingers, as if he’s afraid to let it disintegrate in his palms right there and then.
“Oh, nothing much, I’m simply pondering the impermanence of it all.” He flicks his brother’s arm when Joseph’s blank gaze meets his wistful one. “It’s a little sad, don’t you think, dear brother? This leaf will wither away, turning yellow and then brown and then finally, black – as will the others around it. Soon enough, winter will envelop us in wicked embrace,” he spits out, grimacing, though with all his dignity attached. “You’ve got to admire beauty while it lasts.”
Joseph looks up to face the sky. Sometimes, he can’t believe they’re the same age, him and Claude. Leaves shower down on them; they’re sitting in the shade of an immense érable argenté. Joseph manages to catch one falling leaf too, and inspects it carefully. It is a bright yellow (chartreuse, he thinks to himself absently), but it will soon turn black. The colour of death.
He swallows thickly and lets the leaf flutter away. He’s so sad all of a sudden, without knowing why. “But spring will follow winter, won’t it?”
Claude thinks for a moment, lets go of his own leaf as well and watches the wind pick it up and blow it far, far away. When he speaks, it’s in a strange tone Joseph can’t place. “I suppose it will.”
Joseph takes Claude’s hands in his, an abrupt gesture. “Promise me we’ll grow old together.”
“We will, Joseph, I promise,” Claude murmurs in that same strange tone of his, looking off at who-knows-what, just beyond the horizon. He doesn’t even look surprised. “We will.”
xxx
Snow blankets the Desaulniers’ front lawn. The trees no longer harbour any leaves and the thrushes no longer sing. Joseph looks out through the bay window at the bleak landscape and then closes the curtains with a swish, stomach churning.
He turns to look at the figure lying on the four poster bed, pale and deathly-still. He leans down to look at his brother’s ailing face and he can’t think straight. We’re supposed to grow old together. We’re supposed to grow old together. We’re supposed to grow old together.
Joseph takes Claude’s hands in his, an abrupt gesture. “Promise me we’ll grow old together.”
We will, Claude says, but the voice belongs to a child. A boy no older than fourteen, ambitious and bright and lively and everything the Claude of now is not.
Joseph doesn’t know when the tears started falling. Maybe it was when he held Claude’s cold, cold hand in his, perhaps it was when he felt that cold, cold hand go limp in his, or maybe it was when he exited the room in a deluge of overflowing emotions: hurt and anger and pain and bitterness and
Joseph doesn’t know when the tears started falling, but they’re certainly falling now and he can’t do anything to stop his body from racking with horrible, shaky sobs.
Spring follows winter, but not for Claude.
xxx
It is autumn, the photographer’s favourite season. He doesn’t feel like working today, he realizes, and guilt floods his being. I have to keep trying, for Claude. Joseph doesn’t think about his brother that often, which is strange, considering that Claude lies at the heart of his nature of work. But today, all he can think of is his brother. Claude, Claude, Claude, his heart whispers to him. He wants to shut his heart out.
I have to keep trying.
His heart wins out in the end, for some indecipherable reason. His heart wins and it compels him to put on his trench coat and take his camera out into the English countryside and admire the falling maple leaves. Why did I bring my camera out? he wonders to himself.
All the same, as if a man possessed, he sets it up and presses a button. The camera flashes and a photograph is spit out.
It is the first photo Joseph has taken whose subject isn’t a person. It is the first photo he’s taken that doesn’t involve dirty lies, deception, or sheer hopelessness fuelling it and Joseph realizes he likes it better than any photograph he’s ever taken.
He holds it out so that the sunlight glistens off of the photograph. In it, the orange and green and yellow maple leaves look animated – as if they’re fluttering to the ground slowly, or being wrenched off to far-away places by robust gusts of wind. He’s captured the sunrise perfectly.
Autumn is his favourite season. No, autumn is their favourite season. Who needs spring in a world ruled by autumn?