The Version That Stayed

Celine Song's film keeps circling back. Two people at a carousel in Brooklyn, half-aware that other versions of themselves exist elsewhere, living lives they'll never meet. Sixteen days across three cities and the same frame kept returning: strangers holding poses I might have held, doors opening onto skylines I'd never walk into.

A pilgrim cast in bronze beneath blossoms he never lived to see. Two geese indifferent to the towers behind them. A couple at Grand Central kissing inside a long exposure, everyone else dissolved to streaks. A man at the Golden Gate taking the shot I had already failed. A child chasing a ball under the Chrysler, an afternoon that means nothing to her and too much to me.

On the ferry back, the Statue of Liberty sat inside a window that also framed an empty seat. I didn't sit there. Someone already was.