Condensed milk is what I imagine angels taste like. Their porcelain bones and translucent hair crushed and strained. The white gloop dripping out from a rusty spigot into a carton on a factory line. From truck to shelf to consumer, a lot of malleable soul given by all parties. And then, said consumer, my 61-year-old neighbour Albert spends $1.94 and chooses to simply not indulge. I know because it sat inside his cupboard for four years past its expiry date. I shake my head while sifting through the volume of garbage can at 2 AM under cover of darkness, as I do every second Tuesday of the month. I used to pull my hood up. I used to wear gloves.

I think everyone should keep a secret—at least one. You owe it to yourself. Best if you don’t even know what your own secret is. I have only ever been caught once, by Grandma Bette when I was 16. That was on me, I admit; I was careless and assumed she’d fallen asleep after her nightly Earl Grey. She told me she’d been watching me dig through her garbage for a few years but said it would be our little secret. Grandma called me Crow from then on. I didn’t defend myself, but I did tell her I’m not a crow. Crows peck out cat’s eyeballs. Crows take shiny things and don’t put them back.

I dig some more, getting my fingernails dirty, the stench of fermenting banana peels sparring my nostrils. And still, out of everything I find in this metal cylinder, the milk is the only thing that upsets me. It’s the waste of potential. And the idea that I am probably the last human that will ever see it in this state. What made Albert decide to throw it out? Was he nagged? Did he need more room on his shelf? Did a hand ever even reach for it? I wonder if cream of coconut was always an easier substitute. It could’ve been used for so many things. It could’ve been so sweet. It could’ve been a tres leches cake.

On the walk back inside for the night, the dry and sticky glob of ketchup that rubbed off on my thumb reminds me of the first time my infatuations brushed with the disposed. I was at an awkward cousin age—three years too young for the teen cousins and two years too old for the too-young cousins. I remember sitting on the couch one Saturday morning with my teenage cousin Mallory, watching Scream on a rented VHS when we weren’t supposed to. Mallory was glued to the TV so intensely that her hands operated on autopilot, stretching out the plastic label from the empty Coke bottle still in her hand, long finished. Mallory had discarded the bottle’s label in the bin at the foot of the couch. It had morphed into a thin halo, and laced on her fingers were the remains of asphyxiation—streaks of powdery red ink from her unknowingly contorting and twisting this poor thing in a moment of fervent whodunitting.

I wasn’t meant to be at her house that morning. I was meant to show up way later, but Mom couldn’t make it work. Right place, wrong time. For some reason, in that moment I daydreamed of meeting her at the original time of 2 PM, and of not knowing how Mallory got that red ink on her fingers, or why the label in the bin had been stretched so thin. Unknowing what I knew, would that other me have thought it was out of anxiety or excitement? Would I have known who it belonged to?

I often find these clues in thrift stores, and today, a brisk December Wednesday, is like any other. I’m on break at 11 AM, and the local Salvation Army is only a block down from my office at the Bank of Nova Scotia. I prefer musky thrift stores instead of fly-filled dumpsters because I know the people I find through here aren’t entirely wasteful. My ritual is always the same: I go straight to the dusty shelves with plastic baskets full of knickknacks and scan for human links. Postcards are too easy. Jewellery is the hardest, although not impossible. Forgotten name tags on collars and lovey notes scribbled inside the first page of paperbacks are preferred.

My phone chimes inside my jeans, and I fumble and drop a sun-damaged Garfield figure, startled. It’s a text from my sister, Louise. “i’m worried,” it reads, “it’s meant to be awful on Saturday :-(”

“Are you sure?” I reply, swiping my thumb across the screen. “You’re setting up a tarp, right?”

“yes but what if it’s windy? what if a thunderstorm shows up?”

I sigh, a smile pooling on my cheeks. “Don’t worry, I doubt Jade will even notice. All her friends will be there. Besides, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to rain on my little niece’s birthday party.”

“lol you might be right. i still need help deciding on what kind of cake to make her too but now everything depends on the weather >:-(”

“We’ll figure it out,” I reply, half distracted by the fabrics to my left. “Do not worry.”

“i won’t!” Louise replies, though I can smell the doubt leaking out my cracked screen.

But any old clue won’t do; they need to be sweet and rich—not either/or. A year ago, I found an old Game Boy Advance with a copy of Pokémon Sapphire tucked inside in this very Salvation Army. The game’s save file miraculously worked, and I witnessed the digital graveyard of someone’s unfinished journey, 23 hours and 7 minutes in. This tiny cartridge’s fascination occupied me for a few days, with thoughts on how far back this file went. Was it from 2002? Had the original save been wiped, and this was actually a secondhand player’s save? The leads ran dry pretty quick. The player’s name on the save had been inputted as just “E,” and that was that. Dead end.

The best clue I’ve ever found was a simple monochrome photograph a couple months ago. It was among a stack of similar photos, but this one stood out. It was of a slender woman, whose body seemed to belong to her late 20s, neck craning over her shoulder with one foot precariously inside a car’s open door behind her. However, her face had been cut out of the photo—only the shape of a heart where it would’ve been remained. The paper itself was crumpled and frayed, with twiglike creases that mirrored those of a palm—or of my palm peeking through the heart. On the back of the postcard was “Mary, June, 1938,” written in a ballpoint pen’s blue ink. I kept this photo at home for a full month trying to think of how I could trace it back to someone in her family. Mary’s face, or what it looked like, consumed me. She gave off an impression of carefree youth. And the future prospects of a kind-hearted person. I wanted so desperately to find the heart-shaped locket that would complete the puzzle. I wanted to eat it, in desperate hopes of Mary’s face appearing in my dreams. But after weeks of trying to think of methods, I just gave up and returned it to the thrift store.

My pocket buzzes, a white light piercing through my jeans as I comb through flannel shirts. Another text from Louise. “i lied. i’m still worried”

I scoff. “I could tell,” I reply, now giving my phone my undivided attention with both thumbs. “You’re neurotic.”

“i am not!”

“Louise, you turn off auto-capitalization on your texts. Yes, you are.”

“lol! whatever gumshoe”

Almost hitting an elderly woman with my tote bag in the T-shirt aisle, I mouth a silent apology. “Okay, maybe get a second opinion?” I type. “Somewhere more reputable than the Weather Channel? A lot can change in the sky before Saturday. And sorry, but I’m kinda busy right now. Wanna talk it over later?”

“sure i’ll call you tonight and discuss. might be a little late tho as per!”

I slip my phone into my back pocket and spot a compact yet bulky Canon digital camera on a nearby overstocked shelf. It’s unusually heavy for its size, its mid-2000s space grey paint slightly scuffed around the edges. The camera refuses to switch on, and there doesn’t appear to be any USB charging cables nearby for juice. I flip it around and find a removable cover on its underside. Inside, an SD card. I push in on its plastic edge with my index nail and the black rectangle springs out. SanDisk. 512 MB. I bring it to the counter and ask how much it is. The woman shrugs at the lack of price tag and says it’s free.

I return to work but don’t work. I stick the SD card in my laptop, careful to glance over my shoulder at anyone walking near my cubicle. A small, green LED flashes intermittently on the edge of my keyboard as it attempts to read the card. It takes longer than I expect before a pop-up splashes on the screen.

This removable drive is damaged. Do you want to attempt to repair the files?

I suck my teeth and hit “OK” without much hope in the press. For the next few seconds, the progress bar crawls its way to nothing. I dip my head, defeated. I’ve done this enough times with my own external hard drives to know it never, ever works. That pop-up’s usually the marker of an unpronounced death. Well, maybe whoever owned it dropped the camera. Maybe it got left out in the rain. Maybe it—

Drive repaired successfully.

I blink at the pop-up, stunned. On my desktop, a name stares back, like someone just opened my front door and sat on the couch. “CHRIS.” I slide my spongey tongue across my parched lips and double-click on the drive. A number of folders spring up, all named and sorted in order by year. “Venice vacation, 2011,” “Berlin vacation, 2011,” Sarah’s birthday, 2011,” “Sarah’s birthday, 2012,” “Sarah’s birthday, 2013,” “Mom and Dad’s anniversary, 2013,” “My birthday, 2023.”

My eyes zone in on the last one. The ten-year gap between that and the penultimate folder sticks out. And the fact that it happens to pick up on this very year is just as odd. In a new and convenient world of 4K smartphone cameras, no less. Was it accidentally donated?

I dragged my cursor to open “My birthday, 2023.” A few dozen photos loaded, where they all appeared to capture a small gathering at some bar. Three or four friendly faces seemed to routinely appear with big, rosy-cheeked smiles. From scanning 7 out of 24 photos, I was able to deduce a number of things. One, the banners in the background told me it was Chris’s 34th birthday. Two, the metadata on the image files told me it happened on October 31st, although the black and orange bunting lining the walls would’ve been enough of a hint for that. Three, from the flash illuminating the laminated menus on the circular tables, Chris’s birthday apparently took place in an Irish-themed pub called the Emerald Times. Four, as guys mostly cropped up in the selfies, Chris may possibly be single, or at least was as of a month ago. And finally, five, Chris is handsome. Very handsome. His laser-red retina eyes weren’t enough to distract from his sharp jaw and fairy-tale blonde locks. And I can’t help but—

I slam my laptop shut. A second later, my boss strolls by, his domineering aura rustling a pile of letter paper on my desk. It’s probably best if I wait until I get home to investigate further.

Sometimes I wonder if there is any truth to the idea of your soul being taken the more you get photographed. On the bus home from the bank, I rub my thumb against the lock switch on the side of the SD card, Chris’s retinas burn into mine. Somewhere inside me, there is a girl that wants to get close to others, but I can’t find her—the lid shut too long ago to remember what shape the key is. She’s nicer than I am. Sometimes I see her in other people when I don’t know their name, age, address, or personality. And I saw her in Chris’s red pupils, I think. Out of every person I’ve profiled, Chris was the first one I’d been attracted to. Immediately romantic. Immediately parasocial.

After pouring myself a modest glass of Merlot, I collapse into my patchy leather sofa with my laptop. I find a single photo in Chris’s birthday folder, the first taken of the night, and it’s the biggest clue so far. It’s Chris and his friends posing with cans of Guinness on the front porch of an apartment I assume to be his. A bright blue door with a gold number plate of 71 on it. I take a sip of wine, then place the glass down on the coffee table before opening up Google Maps—the alcohol slowly streaking down the half-dome glass like blood. I set my starting destination at Emerald Times, then punch in my hypothetical destination as just “71” and wait for nearby locations to auto-load. 71 Morrow View Drive and 71 York Ave are the closest spots. I drop into street view mode to get a closer look. Morrow View Drive has a brown door. York Ave has a blue door. It feels cheap, but I don’t really care.

Still, things aren’t as clear as they should be after how much sleuthing I’d already done. Why did Chris pick back up the camera after not using it in a decade? Why did he get rid of it so soon after taking these photos? What does his face look like non-posed? I had to tap the glass.

I check the city’s schedule for garbage collection in his neighbourhood and read it’s tomorrow, Thursday. Without much aforethought, I grab my keys and drive to his neighbourhood at midnight, pleased to find it’s only 16 minutes away from my place. His area is nice, quiet, still. So still my foggy breath echoed. Once I roll up to his door, my heart pounds, surprising me. I pull up my hood, tighten the strings, and park a few houses down so I’m not right outside his front door. Luckily, he’s the type that puts his garbage out at night. I lift the can’s lid and scrape through the top layer, occasionally glancing up at his place right ahead. With each flick of my eye, I notice something more. The blue door looks uncanny, and… there’s a light on upstairs. Inside, I can make out a silhouette of—

Suddenly, my phone goes off and jumpscares me, a high-pitched ringtone blasting out onto the streets. Shit, Louise. Diving a hand inside my pocket, I flip the silent switch on the side of my phone as fast as I can. I then yank the black bag out entirely, lugging it over my shoulder like Santa Claus, and pelt down the street to my car.

Once home, I text Louise that I’m too tired to speak, that I’ll talk about the party setup tomorrow instead. She understands. After another swig of wine, I lay out a painter’s drop cloth and dump out the trash bag’s unallocated contents. My cat Jiji sniffs around the pieces, but I quickly shoo her away. There’re napkins with dried bits of food on them, and I wonder what toppings Chris unglues from melted cheese on communal pizza at parties. There’re disposable razors, and I wonder how fast the shadow appears under Chris’s jaw, and when he first learned of his testosterone manifesting physically. There’re empty coffee cups, and I wonder what drink Chris gets. How many sugars, if at all? Does he sip it, or does he glug it down and burn his throat? They were all from the same place—Bird’s Coffee & Cakes. I find four more cups from Bird’s in the bag’s contents. He’s a regular.

After my head hits my pillow, the painting of Chris’s humanity slowly came in by numbers in my mind, but right before the finishing stroke, the image of the heart-shaped woman flooded my mind. It had been months since I last saw Mary with one foot inside that car, but I could not stop thinking about her. I often wonder what the last photo someone takes of me will be, and what age I will be, or how close it is to my death. Will I be smiling? Will it be candid? I guess our existence births and dies in hundreds of people’s minds every day on the sidewalk, so I shouldn’t worry too much. Still, what’s better? To be unnoticed when absent or unnoticed when present? I can’t help but wonder when the last time someone will lay eyes on me in a photograph or thoughts stroking me in a mind. Some people are lucky enough to be seen forever.

I didn’t want Chris to dissolve into another Mary. The next day, I bussed to Bird’s Coffee right after I got off work around 3:15 PM, and I told myself I’d wait there until close. I ordered a cappuccino but didn’t drink it; the scent of java beans in the air was enough to keep me on my toes. I brought my laptop along, pretending to do some work for a solid 4 hours, but Chris never showed up. I was determined though. I call in sick to work that cloudy Friday and huddled in the same corner of Bird’s from 7 AM. Maybe I could bump into him and introduce myself. Right place, wrong time.

As I sipped my burnt coffee, eyes occasionally darting toward every new patron joining the queue for coffee, I got thinking about Grandma again. I had never come as close to someone discovering my depraved tendencies as I had that day since Grandma named me Crow. I had never thought so extensively about that day Grandma caught me in her bins, but once she called me out, it was like I had been severed from the situation. That she had cut that piece off of me that did these things in the shadows and kept it for herself. Why did I want to hide when Louise called me outside Chris’s place?

At 8:51 AM, to my shock, he arrived. My brain waterlogs. Unceremonious and human, Chris strolled in, his red and white-striped scarf wrapped around his thin neck. My ears tuned to his appearance, almost as if the ambient café soundscape had booted off, and only the screeches of his shoe’s rubber soles against the marbled tiles stood out. He looks almost exactly like the SD card photos, albeit a bit more dishevelled, clearly rushing in to grab his pre-work coffee. I don’t think I’ve blinked once since first studying him. And truthfully, I don’t think I’d bat an eye his way if I passed him on the street—he’d stick right to the pavement. While still a very good-looking man, everything about him was designed to fit in. His salary-grade monochrome suit and tie. His foppish, yuppie, blonde haircut. The only thing that caught my attention was his perfectly spherical silver-framed glasses.

The café soundtrack restored to my ears. Chris didn’t seem too interested in the high-pitched shrill emanating from the nearly out-of-service espresso machine. In fact, he didn’t look its way at all. That was telling. That turned me off. He impatiently queued, arms folded, anxiously waiting for his turn to order. In a way, I could tell a lot of things from seeing him in person. In a way, I could tell he hadn’t showered. He’d glance up at the menu behind the baristas and scratch his neck. In a way, I could tell he stayed up late watching TV. He’d wake his phone to glance at the time, then glance at his wristwatch too. In a way, I could tell he was thinking about quitting work soon. When he blinked, he blinked with his whole face. In a way, I could tell he probably hadn’t called his mother in a while. Not small blinks either—everything was cheek-clenching. In a way, I could tell that, secretly, his favourite colour was not blue. His freckles lifted high, then bungee jumped over and over. In a way, I couldn’t imagine any more potential. He wouldn’t fill me up.

Besides, he doesn’t recycle.

And then, as if drawn by a magnet, Chris looked in the corner nook of the café directly at me. And I surprised myself. Because I did not look away. I didn’t want to shrink into my seat. He quickly broke our invisible eye thread, but I continued looking back. Burning a stare directly at his face. Then his glasses. Then through his lenses at the man standing behind Chris, his face obscured by a heavy prescription.

Not wanting to be too greedy this early in the morning, I buy a small coconut muffin and leave not long after Chris gets his cup of whatever. I think. I don’t know—he could’ve sat down beside me and I wouldn’t have noticed at that point. I don’t have to dream up how Chris would be sipping his coffee anymore.

 On my way home, I head into town to donate the SD card back at the Salvation Army.

Checkout lines, elevators, the background of tourist photos… I wonder how many cloned, memoried, candid versions of me exist, and which contain the most essence of me. We’re recorded a hundred times a day, but there’re also people who are never photographed for the entire time they’re alive. They’ll never be backed up digitally, but I sometimes see them in the thrift store. And no matter how many secondhand pieces I pay for, I’ll never be able to take them home with me. They’re in stretched fabrics, or a sewn sleeve. An old PC keyboard with its inked letters faded. A wooden chair with its seat morphed by the weight of relaxed thighs. There are people in desire lines in fields too—memories of fun shortcuts and of destinations reached earlier than predicted. A crease formed in someone’s forehead through fear or laughter.

But they are fleeting and easily forgotten when dark clouds appear, like pictures drawn on a sidewalk in coloured chalk. In red and yellow and blue.

I twist the gold key in my front door. I don’t usually see my living room in this dull shade of light on a Friday morning, so I feel slightly uneasy, almost like I’ve stumbled in on something I was never meant to see. I find myself doing things I wouldn’t normally do in its new format, like emptying Jiji’s litter box at 9 AM and extending my gaze at spaces that I’d assigned to be forever in my peripheral vision. I dump my jacket on the floor and slump onto my worn-out couch, face-first, smiling only because the depressed cushions pressed against my cheeks stretch me so.

I might’ve imagined Mary too whole, when maybe rich is good enough. I’d never considered the idea that while she may be a good friend, perhaps she wasn’t the best at remembering birthdays. Or what if her friends loved her dearly, but they were silently upset that she’d always leave gatherings too early. I wondered if I’d ever come across the locket that housed Mary’s expression one day, though I didn’t really want to anymore. Was Mary entering or exiting that car? Was she smiling? Frowning? I wondered her secrets, and wanted to. Because she still had them. The fact that I look in people’s garbage isn’t my secret. No one will ever take a picture of the girl inside me.

My pocket vibrates. It’s Louise. “looks like sun tomorrow :-)”