The Photograph - A Short Story

The man opened the box that he had just purchased at a yard sale. He hadn't even looked inside before he purchased it, he really just like the look of the old box. It looked like an old crate with advertising for a dairy company on all sides, but it had seen better days. The lid was barely hanging on and the markings were all faded away, but there was something about it. How could he go wrong for a meagre five dollars?

He opened it up and started going through the papers. You never know what you might find in old boxes such as this. He had found old stock certificates, baseball cards, autographs, you name it. This one had some old receipts, some recipes which might come in handy at some point, and at the very bottom was a photograph.

Written on the back was "Jim and Sandy, August 1939". As was the way back then, the couple looked very serious in the picture. Not like today where even the most mundane occasions is a good enough reason to take 100 goofy selfies. Jim was a handsome, well-groomed man and Sandy was a rather attractive woman in that very understated way that women were back then.

He stared at the picture and thought about what might have become of the couple. Were they even a couple? Were they brother and sister? Husband and wife? Did Jim go off to war in a few years never to return? Did he go to war and return a changed man, one that Sandy couldn't even recognize? Maybe Jim returned to war and Sandy had found another....who was to know?

The man sat there for the better part of an hour and thought about the couple in the photograph, most likely long dead now. He conjured up stories of who they were and what might have become of their lives. Some of his stories ended well, some ended badly. He took the old receipts and threw them in the recycle bin, kept a couple of recipes, and pinned the picture of Jim and Sandy to the bulletin board in his office.

From time to time while Jim was working, he would look up at the photograph and make up another story. He would think of Jim and Sandy and became attached to them. A five dollar antique box had given the man hours of enjoyment. As he turned the light off he looked at the photo one last time that day. He never knew Jim and Sandy, but he felt like he did. Even though the stories he thought up were probably nowhere near the truth, that didn't matter.

Jim and Sandy were part of him.

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Images are courtesy of Pixabay.

I am Scott. I write poetry and lyrics and sometimes I write about life. Please upvote and follow. Find out more at my website