Incompertus sat crosslegged on the floor of his apartment, surrounded by an unusual collection of objects.

There were three empty wine glasses off to one side, each containing the afterimages of a photograph which
now hung in the air above them, each in its own glass, woven together with a different kind of magic but
somehow harmonized, a harmony he could barely appreciate. It had taken him the better part of a year to get a
soft light over the top of the print that he had spread out on the table before him, and yet as soon as he'd taken a
step back it had been too bright. He had to admit he lacked a certain amount of finesse when it came to assessing
these things. There on the table was the photograph: a small black and white image of the three of them, of
them all, sitting on the steps to their house. There they were, he, his son and his wife, out to see the sun set, with
the three black birds poised in the air above them. Hard to believe that the picture was over seventy years old.
He had only known his wife for three years before she died, long before the birds had come and haunted them,
before his son had vanished, before the bitterness had set in. He had never truly looked at the photograph before,
never really considered it. How much he had missed, how much he had realised he understood and did not
understand, living in a constant state of anger. But things were different now, they had to be. He had to try and
find a way to live with his son's absence, with his own constant thoughts. How could he do this? He wondered
if he should try to burn the photograph, to save them all the misery of seeing the image in his mind every day,
with his wife and son, sitting on steps. How long since he had seen her smile, or even looked at him the way she
looked at their son. They'd both missed out on so much. He'd just been so angry all the time. Not that he didn't
have cause to be, but he was no closer to understanding the cause of his anger, he was no closer to
understanding his wife's death. He held a small blue slip of paper in his hands. He had not touched the slip for
months. He stared now at the small number punched onto it and felt like he was seeing it for the first time again.
This was the number he had been searching for, the number that he had sought for so long, and now he had to
choose. He could call the number on the slip or he could send the paper into the fire.