Shadows of the Possible Future

So I was standing in front of Padaria Portuguesa on Saint Laurent Boulevard in Montreal and waiting but also enjoying the sun and the chill in the air and my first Croissant of the trip and I saw a man about 15 feet away taking a picture of his long shadow on the sidewalk.

I love the idea of understanding someone else, understanding the world differently through re-performance. So I decided to make an exact match of his self-portrait.

In the next chapter of this story, mother google will probably sort us into a bin of same place / same time / same picture and synapses will fire and wires will cross and before you know it we'll be getting each other's electric bills and spam email.

Eventually probably I'll be kidnapped by someone who he owes money to and his wife will receive a ransom note that doesn't make any sense to her since her husband is making flan in the next room. She'll laugh and throw it away and no one will know what happened to me.

I'll make myself invaluable to the gang of toughs so that they won't kill me - I'll do shadow puppet shows that gently satire the unlikely mix of their cruel profession and their genteel manners. I'll decide, of course, that this is very satisfying work and end up using my shadow puppetry skills as bait for unsuspecting future kidnapping victims, being careful not to lose my sense of goodness by always working on behalf of these victims to make sure that they're treated well. You know, croissants every morning and craft cocktails at night.