He was looking at the photograph. No, he was studying the photograph. He was concerned about what he was seeing in the foreground and how it related to the action in the background. There was action in the background but it wasn’t making any sense to him about how it related to the woman in the foreground. On the other hand he was used to, and even tired of making myriad gross assumptions about important things. For instance the mere fact that he had begun to attach important significance to this photo. It could be true that there was indeed no real significance to this photo except that he had decided upon the very first second he saw it that there was. It was as he was standing quite still those first few seconds wondering what in the name of hell had brought his mind and vision to view this photo that his assumptions gathered force and accumulated like a heavy snowfall smack dab in the middle of his mind.

After a while he did step back to ponder and perhaps gather this blizzard of thoughts into a kind of recognizable package. In truth he wanted to locate the formidable attraction that had so instantly, it seemed, taken hold of him and forced the study of such, in some ways, a very ordinary photo but he easily recognized the second he conjured up the phrase, “very ordinary photo,” that it was actually even more than extraordinary.

Finally, well after what had appeared to be hours of study, but actually only in the course of a few minutes, he rubbed his eyes, blinked several dozen times in rapid succession and after nearly all his assumptions had melted away, it was then he in no uncertain terms realized the face of the woman, the close up face of the woman in the foreground looked exactly like his mother. And the same second this realization formed in his mind was also when he knew all of the action behind her, in the background, were townspeople drinking, eating, children running in circles, waiting for the execution to begin. And this was the very moment he turned away from the amazing photo on the wall, walked out of the room, quickly down the stairs, into the street where without even a well placed screech, a pale blue pick-up truck smacked him permanently into the curb. His eyes popped from his head, rolling quietly in the litter filled gutter, finally resting at the feet of his mother about to cross the busy intersection. One eyeball impaled on the skinny high heel of her shoe, the other picked at as a morsel by a lonely pigeon.