What confuses Dave, what has always utterly confounded him, was how Spitfire managed to get into every photo except the good ones. After recovering from almost having his nose broken by the gargantuan phone—was that really an iPhone, or an iPad? he couldn’t be sure—he took the device and scrolled through the photos. Sure enough, almost every blurry frame has a crystal-clear shot of her German shepherd pooch.
The dog seemed aware in every photo, too. She was looking directly at the camera, but evidenced no clear sign of confusion or curiosity. She knew it was a camera. Her eyes, a sweet, warm brown color, spoke of hidden knowledge that only the immortal possessed. Or maybe it was just a dog’s simple eye. Dave was less and less certain of Spitfire’s status now. Maybe T was right. Maybe the dog was a dragon. Dave put it from his mind as he finally found the clear shot of the bridge-troll.
It made his mind wander to the rumors of aliens. He’d visited Roswell on his way to Reno, seen what there was to see, but who knew what was what? The troll might have been some monolithic entity from another world, or just some drug-induced vision of someone’s landlord. The car was a nice touch, though. And the statue of Lenin was ironic in his mind, all things considered.
He’d studied photography during his long enrollment at UN, and the photos all fit in with the profile of an expert—the ones that were clear, anyway. He shook his head and chuckled. “You oughta sell these, T. I bet someone would pay good money for these. That aside, Fremont looks awesome. I’m kinda eager to see what your place is like.”
"Yeah?" Teresa asks, almost a little shyly, when Dave compliments her photography skills, something she's never really given much thought to beyond its use for her as a way to bring the world into greater focus. Then her thoughts turn to a more comically, fake-megalomanically-oriented reaction. "That sounds like a great way for me to beat out maybe everyone else in all of Fremont in hipster credibility. They'll have to worship me as queen once I get publicity for it. Can you imagine? Their fragile worldviews will shatter to dust when they realize that, this whole time, they've only been seeing with their eyes"—here's where Teresa's voice escalates into a hysterical mockery of her neighbours—"when they could have been seeing with their hearts!"
She finishes it all off with a cackle, attracting a couple stares from the crowd. By now they're getting close to downtown; from there, their possibilities grow to infinity, and Teresa's barely considered what they'll do when the two of them arrive—after all, this is Dave's weekend to explore.
