Coron
The day began where heat gathers and refuses to leave. In the market, everything pulsed. Shrimp. Chicken. Mangoes split open and breathing. Watermelon sweating onto wooden tables. You chose without urgency, the back of your neck already damp.
She drifted beside you, selecting mangoes with a quiet attention, as if listening for something. Outside, the harbor shimmered in fragments. Your boat waited, wooden and patient, holding its place without asking.
Barracuda Lake came later, after the noise had thinned.
A staircase carved into black limestone guided you over the cliffs. The rock was warm. The air carried the scent of minerals and sun. She stayed close behind you, fingertips brushing your back, a small, unspoken trust.
At the platform, the lake revealed itself.
Dark water contained by stone. Still enough to feel intentional. Cold beneath the surface, though it offered no warning.
She entered first.
When she submerged, the day shifted. Her movements softened. Time slowed. You followed with the camera as her body learned a quieter language beneath the surface. Her hair lifted and spread. Her arms traced slow, patient arcs through the water.
She dove once. Then again. Each time deeper.
Warm water gave way to cold. Ten meters. Eleven. Twelve.
It was her first freedive lesson. Her first understanding that fear does not disappear, it simply changes shape. When she surfaced, she laughed, breathless, eyes bright with something she had not yet named.
Later, the boat carried you to Banul Beach.
A narrow stretch of white sand held between dark cliffs and water so clear it felt imagined. You walked without speaking. Silence arrived easily there. Some places do not ask to be understood.
At lunch, the crew washed dishes in the sea, plates dipped and rinsed in salt water, left to dry in the sun. The gesture felt both ordinary and sacred. She laughed at your attention. Time loosened.
In the late afternoon, you filmed her standing in the shallows, statuesque, looking toward a horizon that refused explanation. Light slid across her skin. The cliffs behind her warmed into gold.
When the engine started, sadness arrived quietly. Not loss. Something closer to recognition.
Coron was not finished with you yet.
Neither was she.
Extended stories, unpublished images, and the private archive.
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