Flashback

Sometimes the past and the present blend into a single experience that is at once new and yet strangely familiar. We call such moments flashbacks. While walking on a thin strip of sand on vanishing island last week I experienced a flashback that took me way back to South Africa. I picked up a shell whose features I immediately recognised: spotlessly white with a five-leafed flower printed on the upside. In South Africa these shells are called ‘panshy shells’ and they are the subject of many a local myth. Because they are rare and very breakable few people have the privilege of owning one – only true locals are supposed to have one. Before I left South Africa I got one as a present from a special friend and I’ve been keeping it wrapped in soft paper ever since. It was strange to see the flower-shaped print again in this entirely different part of the world. The shell was not quite the same as it was a lot more solid and a lot less rare than the panshy shell, but the flower is as puzzingly beautiful as I remember those in South Africa to be.