Next?

He had annual leave coming up, but had no idea where he wanted to go.

As a young guy in his twenties, he felt that the world was his oyster. He knew he could go just about anywhere in the world for a couple of weeks. The problem was, each year he’d done a bit of travelling, seeing new places, but this time around he had no idea where he should go. That evening, although he got home rather late, he decided to have a quick look back at past occasions. He sat looking through his photo album, looking at previous holidays, hoping to get some idea of what he wanted to do. As he turned the last page it was obvious that this hadn’t helped.

Then he saw it. On the right. On the page that should have been empty, a single photograph. It was bang in the centre of the page. The position of it looked odd. Why had he stuck it right in the middle like that? When he looked closely at it, he could see that it was a picture of himself in the foreground, smiling at the camera. He studied the scenery. He didn’t recognise it. It was some sort of open space with people walking about in it. It had a somewhat European look to it; Italy maybe? That couldn’t be right because he’d never visited the country. The more he looked at it, the more perplexed he became. It was definitely him, but he had no memory of it. Also, who was taking the picture? That wasn’t something he normally did. Surely, he would have some memory of that!

He carefully lifted it out from the self-adhesive photo corners and turned it over. Nothing! No date or any brief note about its location. He always wrote something on the back, always!

He fitted the picture back into place while considering what he should do about resolving the mystery. He felt sure that no one had put it there as some sort of practical joke. He was also convinced that the image placed him somewhere that he had never been. He needed to find out where that was. The internet would be the place to go for this, although there was nothing much to go on. On the right of the picture was a long building with lots of columns. It was two stories high and looked very grand. There was an old-fashioned looking lamppost, and way back in the distance, a single column with a strangely flared top section.

He rubbed his eyes, there may be something on top, but it was too hard to make out. He was getting tired and eventually he decided to sleep on it. Before going to bed, he used his phone’s camera to take a picture of it. Tomorrow, in the office, if the opportunity arose, he could do a little research.

This he did, and coming home on the following day, he went straight to the album. He was pretty sure he’d worked out where the picture was taken. In the office he had finally ended up with several pictures that were taken around the Piazza San Marco. His photograph was of Saint Mark’s Square, in Venice.

Opening the album, he went to the page. He was no longer in the photograph! He was no longer there…. He stared at the picture for several beats before blinking a few times. At this point, although this was something that he was never able to fully understand, he simply closed the book and switched on his computer. Within minutes he was looking at more pictures of the popular tourist destination and soon after that, he was checking out the website of his travel agency.

A little later, thinking he should at least write something on the back of the mysterious photograph, if only the date that it was found. This time, when he opened the album at the page, the photo was gone, leaving only the four corner pieces. Again, the lack of surprise at discovering this seemed to be perfectly natural.

In fact, before he turned in that night, he went to the album once more and found what he seemed to expect. The corners had gone! He ran his fingertips over the surface where they had been and felt no trace of stickiness. Again, he regarded this as normal.

Despite the fact that the whole thing had been very strange, sitting in the travel agency on the following day, he knew exactly where he was going.

Leaving the shop, he found himself thinking about the album and couldn’t help wondering where he’d be going next year!