The way we view lovers in photos is nothing like the way they view themselves. To them an image of bliss, a picturesque kiss, is a confirmation of a love which otherwise would permeate their shared world unnoticed. Submerged in a sea of their reconciled desires, which to them stretch eternally, the photograph freezes the ambient liquid into a crystal. It can be held. “Ah yes, we are in love.” The ice melts back into the sea, the lovers swim on.
But for those of us on the surface, the photograph is a bitter thing. The sea does not fill the universe. It is bounded on all sides, lucky for us who can’t breathe it. A risen, bobbing fragment of that world reminds us of the bliss of submarine life, and how hard we have it in the cold wind. It tells us we are suffering, and tempts us to drown.
