Prior Present.

I grabbed hold of the photo book and spread it out front of me, over patterned carpets I laid the array of moments. Smiling faces, shocked expressions and bad hairdos lay before me, documenting years. Time had flown. It was odd, unnerving perhaps to look back at, to see who I was from who I had become's perspective. I looked still, seeing with clear vision.

 Many a time I had sat and looked through the book, following a repetitive routine, giggling at some photos, sighing at others. It was on May 5th when this changed. I noticed a particular photo standing out from  the rest.  I awoke that morning, fresh eyed and fuzzy haired and had walked down to the kitchen my mother had recently had installed between her weekly hours fortune telling. I had spotted that leather-backed book and ran my fingertips across its grey pages, aimlessly gazing through it. I had passed through one picture when I spotted a face I hadn't recognised before. A face with pure slightly bronzed skin and big owl like eyes. 'Who's this?' I asked. My mum reached over the table from behind her magazine and as her eyes took in what iIhad seen she quickly stammered, 'Not sure my love. Eat up your breakfast.'

 The frayed edged image never left my mind. I stumbled around for a week, the face floating around in my head. Maths homework, high fives with friends, dancing to stereos- it never left despite any of my actions.
'I had an interesting day love', my mum told me that evening. "One woman brought in a newspaper today saying she felt drawn to a face in an audience of a recent protest. She couldn't explain why so I got her to choose some cards.  They all suggested someone new would be arriving in her life." Interested I was not, I had just got back from a busy day and so the only reply my mum earned was a brief 'yeah mum'. I then ran upstairs.

  And that was when I had the dream. I dreamt of swimming and dancing and jiving and whooping at night clubs. I dreamt I was drinking and sinking and sinking, and then, then falling down stairs, an angry face, a door closing and then a jumbled night sky. I was crying and running through curving alleys and I ran into it. The face. It smiled at me, smirked and reached out. I reached out too, and then realised I was reaching to pick up a frayed edged image of off the floor. It was him. It was the picture.