Fakowitz sat down on the floor and began to cut up his old photographs. He went about it in a savage, obsessive way, ripping the scissors through the often stubborn film. Soon a pile of distorted cuttings gathered by his right knee.

Different faces, long-forgotten hills, vague and indiscriminate buildings merged into one colourful collage. A man with half a face peered over the top of some ivy bushes, which were too big in perspective for the wall they grew from.

Despite his feverish concentration, he smiled through his work. Getting rid of the past in such a destructive, instant fashion was the most satisfying thing. His right hand began to ache, but still he continued, no longer cutting, but ripping and tearing, jabbing and piercing. Fakowitz came to the last photograph in the pile. It was a picture of a man standing by a wall. The man was smiling. Fakowitz stared at it for no more than a second, briefly allowing a past reflection to overpower him. Then he resumed with further vigour, accompanying each jab and rip with snarls and mutters. He stopped, breathing heavily, feeling a drop of sweat run quickly down his face. None of his efforts had made any difference, the film was untouched. The man held the same relaxed, contented pose.

Sweating, red-faced, Fakowitz made one deliberate cut across the photograph. The blades seemed to melt into it, leaving it intact. Fakowitz now stared at the severed finger, his own, that lay on top of the remaining photo shards.

Blood seeped profusely from the wound, staining the carpet, his trousers but not the smiling man. He stabbed the grinning face and put the scissor blades through his palm, twisting them round so as to form a deep gorge in the centre. As he cut through his veins in an effort to free the blades, blood spurted out.

Each time he tried to destroy the picture, the scissors somehow ended up in his body. Soon, blood was pouring out from his body, at seemingly every place; cuts on his stomach and hands, incisions running up his thighs and upper arms, deep purplish stab-wounds through his cheeks and shoulders. Yet he felt no physical pain. Fakowitz felt the burning anguish through his heart and he screamed through his tears.

With a last effort, he tried to devour the picture, stuffing it with bloodstained hands into a lacerated mouth. The thing grew bigger in his throat and started to choke him. Fakowitz retched violently, but each intake of breath pushed the photo further into him, it was still a whole. Weak with blood-loss he could do no more than lie back and stare transfixed through pop-eyes at the image of the smiling man coming closer and closer.