The first time I saw Claire Gravesend she was already dead. She hadn’t been that way long. She was lying in front of the Refugio Apartments on Turk Street, still warm, still with color on her cheeks. I put two fingers on the left side of her throat and confirmed what was already obvious. I didn’t consider calling 911. The last thing I wanted to do right then was talk to the police. And anyway, it was too late to do her any good.

Even as I watched, the rain was pooling over her open eyes. If there was any part of her that could still see, she was looking up from beneath an ocean. The surface was too far away to reach. She’d taken her last breath and now she was sinking, bringing with her everything she’d ever known.

Claire Gravesend.

Of course, I didn’t know her name yet. I didn’t know what she would do to my life. It could have been a passing encounter. An unfortunate sight on a Tenderloin street that was already inclined toward misfortune. But instead I took out my camera, and ultimately that was what drew me into it. I only saw her in the flesh for a few minutes, and after that it was just photographs. Pieces of her life, hints. The traces were scattered like shards of broken glass.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised when that encounter wasn’t the end of it. Once you brush against someone like Claire Gravesend, you’re marked. Either you begin to turn the wheels, or the gears move on their own. And when the axles start to spin, the motion is self-perpetuating. An eternal cycle, always renewing.

What I can’t shake is that image of eternity. Or it could be fate I’m talking about?—?the idea that your name and the course of your life were set down in stone before the Big Bang’s first spark. That you could live forever and not escape the path that had been laid out for you.

But that’s only because of what happened later. view abbreviated excerpt only...

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