In an album of old photographs he found a reminder of the hours, the days, the fading afternoon light, the lived duration of those trusting faces looking towards him through a tiny aperture of time as if he had an answer, being future, and certainly knowing some things and just as certainly not the essential. While others seemed as if reassured that nothing of themselves would be exposed behind the flat enigma of their eyes his own images had stayed open and unfinished. These were provisional selves defined by situations, friendships, acceptances that emerged from crossed paths and which would not be renewed. In every case he'd had to treat some assumption as if it were true, as if it were the truth. That seemed to be expected and he embraced it each time, with a sort of stubborn naïveté and with more or less of faith. Enough for the immediate occasion at any rate, enough to make it through to the next moment, but not for the gaze at the other end of time.