I Am the Work

In honor of a friend who recently brought up an Interesting Topic, I offer this from my notebook of unfinished stories:

07-06-09: A book of photographs suddenly, shockingly re-orients a man into a past life. He recognizes it immediately—can not only name the people and places in the photos but knows their voices, their laughs—but the sense is overwhelming and it takes him some time to come to terms with it.

In a film, this would be overlapping realities, characters mixed from both time periods, exploring common themes and disparities. He finds that he vastly preferred his old life—perhaps why it imprinted on him so forcefully that he recognized it—and it better suited the person he truly is. He and his life were so much of a piece that his ongoing spirit forever identifies with it. He spends the rest of the story trying to return to it—impossible—and then recreate it in the life he has now; tries to make the overlaps align, until he comes to terms with the fact that they never will, and begins to accept the differences.

*who took the photos and published the book?

*how many lives before was the man aware of in the last life?

“I miss you terribly, Luce. I can’t even begin to tell you how incomplete I feel without you.”

“Nonsense. I’m a part of you now. You don’t think I’m actually on the beach here, do you? I’m your memory of me.”

“I know, Luce. Just let me have this minute.”