I love antique shops, especially ones that are overflowing with things. Piles of maps, pyramids of old china and glassware. Dust and corners where people can't quite reach and the items lie undisturbed. I really like vintage photographs although I find them emotional to look at. All those once loved faces, long dead and forgotten and not cherished in a family album but stacked in a shop of curios. Their names are sometimes written on the back but mostly they are anonymous.
Whilst I was at Much Wenlock poetry festival this year I spent a happy half an hour looking at a rack of photographs. I wanted to buy quite a few but I resisted as I collect too much clutter and I had just had a clearout before I left. However, this small picture (it is the size of a large stamp) could not be left behind.
Photographs were expensive but someone bothered to take a picture of this little cat. I imagine it is marmalade and white and it doesn't look very old. It is watching something/someone. I have been carrying it around in my wallet every since and look at it sometimes imagining the person who owned the cat. Was it a child playing with the camera or an adult who loved their cat? A test shot? It's not a great picture; the cat blends into the lawn and bushes but it is still there, cheating time and death, a surviving image of a long lost cat.
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