Written during a research year in Brussels, the book brings together found photographs and texts. It combines autobiography with fiction, notes of everyday experiences with found contemporary testimonies. The photographs depict people looking directly at the viewer. In this moment of eye contact, those who lived decades ago come alive again. The texts imagine some of these encounters with a counterpart, in whose presence one's own existence is also reflected: We, the other person and I, are both, here and now, alive. This moment is precious and fleeting, and the fact that we cannot hold on to it does not mean that we do not try. And that is what this book is about.