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NEO-NOIR SLOW BURN THRILLER FLASH FICTION
I Found an Old Photo Album. Every Picture Was of Me With People Iβve Never Met.
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It was wedged between dusty cookbooks in the back of a cabinet I didnβt remember using. A thick leather-bound 4" x 6" photo album, edges worn, spine cracked.
I flipped it open. The first photo was of me, smiling stiffly in front of a nameless lake. I didnβt remember being there. The next showed me at a bar, surrounded by strangers, their faces blurred at the edges. Page after page, the same pattern. Me. Laughing, drinking, sitting on park benches with people I couldnβt name. Some of them were marked with a red X.
The more I flipped the pages, the more wrong it felt. My posture appeared stiff and my smile forced. It was like I was trying to look happy⦠instead of actually feeling it.
In one picture, I was shaking hands with a man in a suit. His eyes had been blacked out with a marker.
In another photo, it showed me sitting at a cafe while a woman leaned in, whispering something. Her lips were parted, caught mid-sentenceβ¦
