It was easy to miss. I’m not sure why it caught my eye: an old cigar box, wedged between The World Almanac 1976 and a hardback copy of Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying. I dislodged it carefully and opened it. Inside were photographs, old black-and-white snapshots. I rifled through the stack haphazardly.
A man and woman in formal attire, posing stiffly in front of an unknown building.
Two matrons in flowered shifts, squinting against the sun from Adirondack chairs.
A blurry procession of kids – grade school graduation? First communion?
I felt vaguely impolite, as if I was intruding on private affairs never intended for my eyes. What unchronicled journey brought these photos to a flea market booth? At some point, there must have been no family member, no descendent, no close companion to value them.
Then, another photo: square, with scalloped edges. A young man sits on a steel-framed bed, perhaps in a hotel. He’s leaning forward, eyes wide, smiling and mugging for the camera. He is in a white t-shirt and pleated pants. An Army jacket hangs over the back of a nearby chair, his uniform shirt beside him on the bed. World War II?
Behind him are two women, both in tailored, knee-length dresses and wedge-heel pumps. One of them holds a bottle of beer. They look on, their expressions lit up with laughter. Does he know them well? They could be family, or virtual strangers. Girlfriends? USO dance hall volunteers? Floozies, perhaps, brought up to the room for—
I cringed at my unjustified rush to such a sordid explanation.
I rummaged through the rest of the box’s contents, but it yielded no clues. None of the other photos were remotely similar. The moment before this photo was taken, the moment after, the person behind the camera, their motivation for capturing it: all were unknowable. This sliver of time had survived as a cipher with no key to decode it.
I studied the man’s eyes: so alive, shimmering with vitality. His voice silenced, they strain to tell me something. He’s in love. He’s leaving. He’s scared. He’s lustful. He’s timid.
I placed the picture back in the box, returned it to its bookshelf catacomb, and continued on.
But his voice wasn’t silent; I heard it inside my head as I browsed the merchandise in other vendors’ booths. Don’t abandon me to obscurity. I don’t know if I died in the war or went on to raise children and grandchildren. Allow me to live on in this one anonymous moment that I still inhabit.
Later, after I’d had my fill of dusty furniture, outdated fashions, and odd curios, I stepped up to check-out register.
“Find anything you can’t live without?” the clerk asked cheerily.
“Just this.”
I placed the photograph on the counter.