“Take this.”

I don’t recognize her. Not my normal server. She presses a photograph down on the table.

“What’s this?” I ask, but she’s gone, out the front door, running down Eighth street, looking over her shoulder, panicked.

For half a second I half-stand, considering going after her, but she’s disappeared out of sight, around the corner. Gone. My heart’s still thumping. I look around. Did anyone else see her? The young couple in the corner booth are focused on each other, not their pancakes. Another old guy, like me, at the counter is reading his phone. Nobody noticed. Hell, I barely did!

Picking up the photograph is strange. It’s been years since I’ve seen an actual, real life printed photo. Most people my age? We don’t trust images anymore. Too many programs altering and doctoring them. That’s why pictures like this became a relic. Photoshop killed images. But this one? This image shows me, or someone who looks exactly like me, wearing clothes I don’t recognize. None that I’ve ever owned. Standing in front of a building I’ve never seen.

I do my best trying to place it. But I can’t. Everything is wrong. The suit’s wrong. The building’s wrong. The only thing that’s right? Me. And even that looks younger than me today.

“What’s that?” Jeni asks, refilling my coffee. She’s worked at Dan’s long enough to know I come in almost every day, order the same drink, and read the newspaper. It’s an obsolete thing. Most of us older GenXers still like printed papers. Or we endlessly scroll headlines depending on our mood. Jeni’s roughly thirty, still pulling good tips. The customers? They are okay. For the most part. “Someone leave you a picture,” she asks?

“Apparently.”

She leans in, squints. “Huh. Programs can make anything look real these days. You want me to toss it?”

I look at it. Again. That unease? It settles into my chest. The feeling you get when something’s off and you can’t explain why. That’s what it felt like. “No. I’ll hold onto it.”

It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in three years. A puzzle. And for a guy whose biggest daily decision is newspaper or scrolling headlines?

That means something.

When I get home, Gracie’s in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for dinner. It’s 4:30. We both retired three years ago. That’s when life slowed down. Almost to a nonexistent crawl. If not for her teaching yoga and a mixed media arts class, I bet she’d insist on traveling. Again. We did that for roughly seven years before we chose to slow down. Really slow down. And take life one day at a time.

We’re in our 80s now. We survived COVID-19, and an almost-third Trump presidency. Instead we saw the first woman president, Alexis Jane Kerralt, elected. A solid democrat. We saw the collapse of our economy, the rebuilding of wealth based not on how much you owned, but on how hard you worked. Social security was revamped. Everyone had health care. Doctors were paid based on degrees, not what insurance companies or Medicaid decided their services were worth. There was a mass exodus from the United States, particularly MAGA Republicans who’d finally had enough. We were the cool kids now. Not that we were in high school. But unlike others from our generation, we outlived the success stories—the ones who died at 47, wealthy beyond belief. Or in their 50s.

Me? I read a lot and think about what I could buy cheap and sell at a profit. I used to sell insurance. Retired pretty well, as did Gracie. She was a professional interior decorator and yoga instructor. I thought I was doing okay on the revenue front until she showed me her first real check from her business. Triple my monthly salary in one job? I seriously considered changing professions. Instead, I retired. And then she did too.
She looks up when I walk in. “You’re quiet,” she says.

I hand her the photograph.

Her face scrunches up. Without her glasses, it’s tough for her to see the details. “This is you.” She holds it closer. “I think it’s you. I don’t remember you wearing these clothes.” She taps the photo. “What is this? A suit? You haven’t worn a suit since we retired.”

“Look closer,” I say.

She squints. “It’s dark. Navy? Black?”

“Charcoal. Three-piece.”

“With a…” She brings the photo right up to her nose. “Is that a pocket watch chain?”

“Looks like it.”

“Where’d you get this?”

“A stranger at Dan’s. Ran off before I could ask her anything.”

Gracie sets down her knife. “What do you mean, ran off?”

“Out the door. Like she was scared.”

She picks up the photo again, studies it harder. “Her? What did she look like?” She squinted harder. “I need my glasses. What building is this? Behind you?” She pointed over my shoulder in the picture.

“No idea. Brick. Looks old. Victorian maybe? Three stories. There’s a sign but I can’t make it out.”

“And you’re just standing there? On the sidewalk?”

“Yeah. Like someone asked me to pose.”

“But you don’t remember this.”

“Never seen that building in my life.”

She turns the photo over. Nothing on the back. No date. No location. No note. She flips it back and holds it under the kitchen light. “Your hair? It’s different. Shorter. And is that…” She traces her finger along the image. “You look . . . younger. Maybe sixty-something?”

None of that explained this photograph.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Gracie says. “You’re younger here. But this is a printed photo. Nobody’s printed photos in over twenty years.”

“I know.”

“So someone printed an old digital photo?”

“Maybe. But where would they do that? It’d be an antique printer. It would have to be.”

“Why? Why would they photoshop you into clothes you’ve never worn? In front of a building you’ve never seen?”

“That’s what’s weird.”

She sets it down on the counter between us. We both stare at it, like one of those old optical illusions where you can’t explain why you see a magical picture. Like a sailboat. Only there isn’t a sailboat in this one.

“This doesn’t make sense,” she says again. Then she walks to her craft room and comes back with a magnifying glass. “That sign. We need to read that sign.” She holds the photo under the brightest light in the kitchen, magnifying glass pressed against it, squinting hard.

“Can you make it out?” I ask.

“Maybe. There’s a… it looks like a B. Or an R.” She adjusts the angle. “And numbers. Definitely numbers.”

“What kind of numbers?”

“Can’t tell. Too blurry.” She sets down the magnifying glass and pulls out her phone. “I’m going to reverse image search this.”

“It’s a printed photo,” I say.

“So I’ll take a picture of it.” She’s already opening the camera app, holding the phone directly over the photograph, adjusting the focus. The flash goes off once. Twice. She taps the screen, uploads it. We both watch, staring at the little circle spinning on her phone.

“Anything?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No matches found.” She looks at the photo again, then at me. “Which means either this building doesn’t exist anywhere online, or . . .”

“Or what?”

“Or it doesn’t exist anymore.”

(To be continued)