A PHOTOGRAPH THAT REMEMBERED TOO MUCH

HE DIDN'T POSE.
THE FRAME BENT.

Before he was Pons, he was the night caretaker of a portrait archive no map admitted existed. Every face there had been abandoned by history. He spoke to them until, one stormy night, the glass answered back.

It folded around his strongest expression — the skeptical half-turn — and cooled before anyone could pull him out. The curve held his head. The stem kept the suit. The empty space became the sentence he never finished.