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Photo Synthesis

Fear was a feather that brushed the back of his neck ever so gently, causing him to shrug his shoulders, slowly and involuntarily as the chill trailed down his spine.

He was looking at a photograph.

He had picked it up, quite at random, from a market stall at the Irish Fest in Indianapolis during the summer. He remembered the day very well for its clear blue sky and warm, mercifully dry, air. The sounds of music, not all of it describable as Irish by any definition, rolled across the grounds of Military Park as bands competed on three stages for the attention of the four or five thousand people strolling among the market stalls, tasting the Irish Stew from one of the many food vendors, or simply sitting in varying degrees of comfort in front of one stage or another. He was browsing family crests, Celtic jewelry-his wife was a big fan-and art work of every description, when he spotted the framed photograph and picked it up. It showed a scene that looked like a seaside pier in the early twentieth century. A man and a woman were strolling out toward the end of the pier, her hand resting in the crook of his arm. The photographer appeared to have mistimed his shot because the couple was at a forty five degree angle to the camera, as if they were passing as the photographer tried to capture their images. The man was looking past the camera, his attention apparently focused on something outside of the camera's vision. The woman's head was slightly bent as if she did not want to be photographed. They were dressed in that style that seems so anachronistic these days, their clothing at odds with the seaside location, yet not out of place for their time.

He had no idea why it appealed to him and nor did his wife. She questioned his taste and, when he insisted that he liked it, she wondered where they might display the photograph in its odd, yet elegant, little frame. He said he would put it in his office and completed the purchase despite his wife's raised eyebrow.

He worked at a small law practice in downtown Indianapolis. The short commute from his north side home was sometimes more trouble than the distance warranted but he took it in stride. He liked where he lived; he liked his work and he figured that the odd traffic jam was part of a price worth paying for the combination. His office overlooked a building site where billboards promised executive style condos and retail outlets, and had made those same promises for three years. He wondered, briefly, what

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