STEC Archives, Print Document Division
Curator signature: Jer
Format: Textual Record
Object: New Jersey’s Personal Journal
Location (if known): Naval Base Avalon
Time (if known): Dated June 14th, 1989
Hope is a strange feeling.
I’ve studied this photograph over and over, and I have still to come to a conclusion about its implications. This isn’t the first time the Heart has spat out curious items. This definitely isn’t the first time stuff like this has been taken as a sign, or that it’s from the future, or that it’s from another world.
This isn’t the first time we’ve voted unanimously to keep under wraps, either. We have enough supernatural stuff to deal with and idle speculation does no one any good. At least it’s keeping Marby entertained.
Yet, for what it’s worth, unlike the other images, this one appeared with a caption. On its back, in neat cursive, “Elizabeth Tower.” Elizabeth Tower. The Clock Tower is not called that. It can’t be called that. Not yet. The conditions… should not occur. Unless my memories are wrong.
It is possible. It has been a long time. Even I can’t remember everything.
But I can’t help to think that there’s something here. Something familiar. That woman in the picture… She feels familiar to me. It is almost as if I knew, know her from some place. The scent coming from the photo I definitely know well, and it’s not an aroma that any of the girls here wear. Tomorrow I’m going to take it to Tambor and have her smell the thing for me. Just to prove that I’m not hallucinating.
None of the British shipgirls recognize the person in the photo. To them she might as well be a stranger – another curiosity on a long list of curious things.
Not to me. The familiarity is comforting. If I concentrate hard enough, I can almost see her face. I know what she sounds like. Know what she smells like. Yet I can’t remember her name.
I am either overthinking this way too much, or I’m onto something. Hope is a strange feeling indeed.