Daily Post Photo Challenge/ CAREFUL

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Careful.”

Live at the Bottom Line

I had just finished my second of three college years in the program in Arts and Media Technologies in Jonquière (Québec), and my girlfriend and I met up with four of her friends – one of whom was just back from spending 2 years in Thailand and was brought back to Canada after a hard and long search led by his father – half-way on route to Québec City, where there was this huge party planned for the birthday of a friend of my girlfriend and her best friend. It all went perfectly wrong, as any real good party should go, and the police had to end it abruptly. Four of us decided there and then to go on a road trip going from Quebec City, to Montreal, to New-York, ending in Virginia Beach, since all of us were free for the summer and had cars at our disposition. The main declared purpose of this road trip was unknown to all of us.

During this trip, I got to better know one of the friends that was with us. This guy had gone totally mad travelling across Thailand, doing stuff with no logical meaning whatsoever. He was seen by many locals and left behind him only whispers of pity and incomprehension. This lunatic was pretty much out of it and nobody had managed to find out what had happened to put this previously very open-hearted, grounded, good fellow and appreciated companion, in this state… This had a very strong effect on me and I realised how thin the line that kept us mentally fit (according to social standards) was, and made me appreciate that these people also had some kind of wisdom and spontaneity that most of us “sane people” were somehow lacking… So, as I had my old Leica camera with me, I decided to be a witness of the sad beauty of those who had left the ship to sail away in a world of their own.

This post is in relation to the Daily Post’s Photo Challenge: CAREFUL