Until He Stepped Away

This was meant to be a Flashback Friday, but has accidentally ended up as a SlippedBy Saturday

But between trains, late nights, and the kind of days that pull you out into the world instead of keeping you at your desk, Friday slipped past. Travel does that — shakes the edges of routine, blurs the calendar, makes space for the unplanned.

Today’s slip feels right, though.

Last year, working through forty-five years of poetry for my Love & Loss collection, I found Finding Your Eyes. I couldn’t remember when I’d written it — only that it wasn’t one moment, but an imagined one. A cinematic flash. Brief Encounter in a single gaze.

The poem stayed with me. It became the skeleton of a short story — one where the gaze is the start, but the loss, the stepping away, is what lingers.

What began as a fleeting poem now has weight, breath, and footsteps.

Until He Stepped Away

Mid-thirties, maybe; suit slightly rumpled; hair parted neatly, unfussed. Eyes steady on the camera—on me.

I found him in a thin brass frame at the far end of the flea market. Beaded edge, tabs bent tight at the back. Not my style, though I told myself I could swap it later.

Late light spilled across the rows of tables; glassware glinted. Somewhere, chestnuts roasted: sugar over char.

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular.

A man in a flat cap sold boxes of loose photographs—weddings, holidays, stiff gardens.

I picked one up at random: a boy with a dog, blurred at the edges as if they’d moved too soon. Another: a couple smiling stiffly in a garden, the woman’s hand resting on the man’s sleeve as if remembering itself late.

“How much?”
“Two quid.”
I handed him the coins and slipped the frame into my bag.

At home, I set the photograph on my desk and made tea. The frame caught the light; he didn’t.

The photograph had that faint chemical smell old photos get, like rain on metal. Its edges curled under the glass, as if pressed to something too warm, too long.

I kept catching myself glancing at it. My chair drifted a few inches closer. The kettle clicked off; I didn’t move. The tea I’d poured earlier sat untouched, cooling.

That night, I turned on my bedside lamp, planning to read a little.

“Goodnight,” I said without thinking

I fell asleep halfway through a line; the book slid from my hand to the floor.

When I opened my eyes, I was sitting on a park bench. The air smelled faintly of leaves and damp earth, cool but not cold. Above us, branches laced, sunlight sifting in patterns.

He was there. Not the photograph—him. Same suit, though the fabric caught the light differently here, softer, lived in.

We talked. The words came easily. We laughed. The reason didn’t matter.

At one point, he reached across the space between us and brushed his fingers over mine. Just once. Enough to say: I know you.

Somewhere, a bell chimed.

I woke in the dark; the book lay open on the floor. I reached for the photograph, the glass warm beneath my palm.

The dreams came back the next night. And the night after that.

In one, we were dancing in a small living room, barefoot on polished wood. An old jazz record crackled from somewhere behind us.

In another, at a station café, rain streaked the windows. His hand covered mine, warm against the chill finding its way through the glass.

We argued—not loudly, but with the restraint that leaves the air sharp. He turned his watch face inward.
“Don’t,” I said, and closed my mouth on the rest. I laced my fingers under the table.

Waking hours felt like intermission. I moved through them; my mind stayed in those other rooms. The photograph stayed on my desk. I watched it the way you watch someone across a crowded room—waiting for them to look back.

I found him again in the park from the first dream. Light lowered—late afternoon toward evening—and the air carried that faint chill that makes you move closer.

We sat side by side, knees almost touching. The quiet felt full, like it was holding something in reserve.

“We don’t have long now,” he said.

I laughed, but he didn’t smile.
“Will I see you again?”

He didn’t answer. Just that small, imperceptible smile—the one from the photograph—and the look you give someone you’ve already memorised.

Then he stood. My hand lifted, but he was already a step away, then two. The space between us thickened until I couldn’t see him at all.

I didn’t breathe.

My palm hovered. The air above the glass felt suddenly cool. And in that coolness—faintly, impossibly—the smell of damp leaves. I looked down. The frame was empty.

I went back to the flea market the next morning. The vendor was there, his stall set up as if nothing had changed.

I found the box.
A girl in a school uniform, eyes squinting into the sun.
A man with a cigarette dangling from his lips.
An empty field with a single white chair.

But not him.

“Looking for something special?” the vendor asked.
I nodded.
He shrugged. “People come and go.”

My hand lifted, empty—then fell.

As I left, the wind rattled the loose awning above his stall. Somewhere, a bell chimed.

Weeks have passed. I no longer wake expecting to find him between dreaming and daylight.

A faint oval of clean wood still marks where the frame sat. A faint line of dust where the edge had been.

Once, passing a shop window, I thought I saw him—just behind me, smiling.

I turned.

No one.

Somewhere, a bell chimed.