Found

I walked up the trail, boots scraping over loose stones. The slope leaned into my legs, my calves tightening with the effort. The air carried a confusion of sounds: branches brushing against one another, leaves shifting, water moving somewhere beyond sight.

Suddenly, I became aware of how differently sound behaved at an altitude. Not in any precise or scientific way. Just that my footsteps seemed louder than they should have been and the gravel under my shoes answered back more sharply than expected. Every small movement felt amplified. Even my breathing sounded strange to my own ears. It felt too close, as if it did not fully belong to me, as if someone else were walking close behind.

Soon, the trail thinned out. Earlier, there had been people in front of me and behind me, voices rising and fading. Now there were longer stretches of nothing. The path curved inward, hugged by trees that leaned in just enough to narrow the sky.

I counted steps as I walked, the way I always do on long climbs. Counting makes the distance feel measurable. This time, however, I lost track somewhere around a hundred and did not begin again.

A little ahead, the trail dipped slightly before rising again. I slowed there, partly to rest, partly because the ground changed texture. The dust gave way to something darker, damp from shade. My foot slid a little, and I stopped, annoyed more than alarmed. I steadied myself before taking another step.

That was when I noticed it.

At first, only a corner showed. White, but not quite. Too thick to be leaf, too stiff to be bark. It lay close to the edge of the trail, half-embedded in mud, one side pressed flat, the other slightly curled upward. I stopped without deciding to. The surface caught the light in a way the ground around it did not.

I crouched and brushed the mud away with my thumb. It was a photograph. Only half of one.

I lifted it carefully, surprised by its weight. It was heavier than paper; it must have been softened by moisture. One of its edges was jagged and fibrous. The photograph had been pulled apart from the centre. The tear was immediate, unmistakable. This was not damage caused by time or exposure.

On it was a man, smiling.

However, the smile was not directed at the camera. His face turned slightly to the side, his eyes angled toward the space beyond the torn edge. His arm was raised and bent with ease, resting on a shoulder that was no longer there. The gesture assumed someone would be there.

I looked at the missing half. My eyes followed the torn line, as if it might reveal something if I traced it carefully enough. It did not. The other body had been removed completely. There was no sleeve, no suggestion of hair, no hint of where the arm had landed.

The background offered no clarity either. A blur of pale colour, perhaps sky, perhaps a wall. Nothing in the image anchored it to a particular place or moment. It was the kind of photograph taken without ceremony, never meant to carry any weight.

I turned it over. The back was blank. There was no date, no handwriting, no sign of having been kept carefully.

I felt a brief, foolish urge to look around, as though the other half might be nearby, lying just out of sight, waiting to be found. The thought embarrassed me almost immediately. Nothing about the photograph suggested that completion was possible, or even desirable.

The man’s expression held my attention. It was calm, settled, the face of someone at ease beside another person. A face that had not anticipated separation.

I stared at the edge, following it as if it could tell me what had been lost. Whoever did this had not thrown the photograph away. They had broken it instead, allowing one part to leave and forcing the other to remain. I wondered which half they had kept.

Just then, the photograph ceased to feel like something I had found. It felt like something I had arrived late to — a moment already passed, a decision already made. I crouched a little longer, feeling the small weight of the paper against my fingers. I realised then that the photograph had likely been torn before it ever came here. This wasn’t a decision made on the trail. The trail had only received what remained. The letting go belonged to another place entirely.

I stood up slowly, knees stiff from crouching, and looked down at the uneven earth. This half of a memory had rested here for who knew how long, pressed flat, overlooked, ignored by countless boots. For a moment I imagined holding it, carrying it forward. Not because I wanted it, but because holding it felt like pausing something that had already ended. I let the impulse fade and placed it back where I had found it.

The smile lay open against the dirt, unguarded and strangely vulnerable. I pressed a small stone against one corner to keep it from curling.

When I began walking again, my body returned easily to its earlier rhythm. Step followed weight. Weight followed breath. The trail rose and demanded attention. The trees closed in.

I did not look back.

The photograph stayed with me, as an image that refused to close. I kept seeing the arm, holding the memory of a weight it no longer carried. The smile remained unchanged, as though no one had told it what had happened. What lingered longest was the space beside the arm. It was exact. It did not soften with time or distance.

As the trail bent and the trees opened briefly onto the sky, I noticed myself adjusting my pace. I walked more carefully, placing my feet with a deliberateness I had not felt earlier. When something pale caught my eye near the path, I did not immediately bend toward it. I kept moving, letting it remain what it was from where it lay.

The ground shifted. The air thinned. My breathing returned to me in a steadier way. I became aware of how often, before this, I had mistaken noticing for taking and attention for entitlement.

The photograph remained behind, held in place by the stone I had chosen. I did not turn to confirm it. The trail continued without acknowledgement. I followed it, leaving the photograph where it had already learned to remain.