The negatives of the old photographs lay in the yellowing envelope. I found them clinging together, as if something had bonded them there. Carefully lifting them out, separating them, and holding them before the light, my eyes strained to bring the blurred shapes and forms into focus.

Soon, life began emerging within the ghostly shadows of imprinted time, as I wandered into a gay day of laughter mingling into the wind, flinging handfuls of happiness across the lights. As the spirits of the images raced through the purple shadows toward the light, joy cut into the twilight areas of the min...