A photograph in an unopened envelope
From After Hours, a Club column. About this column ↗
Fiction.
The prints arrived on Thursday.
She recognised the handwriting on the envelope but left it on the shelf until Sunday, among receipts and postcards.
"Are you going to open that?"
"Eventually."
When she did, the first photograph was mostly a wall. Somebody's shoulder entered from the left.
She stared at it longer than any of the portraits.
"That was just before," she said.
He didn't ask before what. Not everything needed a caption.