A thoughtful boy, John had always wanted to make sense of some of the things that had happened to him in his life so far.

It all started with the fortune cookie from Brigitta.

A random opening which led him on a journey of thought, discovery, reflection, and ‘synchronicity’ of hispast and my future, attempting to make sense of it all and perhaps, change his fate in the process.

You see, after that meal at the Chinese, strange things began to happen and suddenly he ‘got it’ – he started to understand the bigger picture. Things started to make sense.

Sharing these stories helped him. It was like a release. He likens it now to a medicine cabinet.

A medicine cabinet? I hear you ask.

Think about the scene in 13 going on 30, or even better, Big, that seminal film from our childhoods (maybe) and specifically the scene when Tom Hanks’s character Josh sees himself as a grown up. He sees himself in the mirror but doesn’t believe it’s really him, so he opens the cupboard to check there’s nothing behind it. The cupboard contains the usual medicines, nothing more.

John’s medicine cabinet shows a mysterious face. By looking inside the cupboard, unlike Josh, he finds experiences from the past that also tell the story of the face he sees.

So, writing these stories helped John. It was cathartic, and helped put things into perspective and into the past.

Explained the car crash. Attributed blame for the burglary. Solved mysteries.

As you have read, those thirteen faces he has written about, were unlucky for some. Mainly him.

But John couldn’t stop there.

The fortune cookie message had predicted something that may or may not be true. What else lay in store for him in the future? He needed to know what other possibilities were there, so that he could make the most of his future. Like Marty McFly, by going back he was improving his own future.

This time, he also had to enlist the help of others once again. He looked closely at the work of Sophie Calle and Paul Auster, who made the following comments  over ten years ago:

“Chance? Destiny? Or simple mathematics, an example of probability theory at work? It doesn’t matter what you call it. Life is full of such events… These are coincidences… Things like this happen to me all the time!”

John also wanted to discover more, by using other people’s interpretations of his story.

He began to find out how others saw him, and his future.

He followed the rules of the Psychic Reading Handbook, in which he read the following:

“Sometimes our desire to create something is so strong that we impatiently search for the outcomes before they have been created… A psychic can help you to get to the heart of the matter by putting aside your emotional blocks and pre-existing expectations”

He had his palms read several times.

Followed his stars.

Made wishes, too. Think back again to Big, and the wish that Josh makes at the Zoltar fortune teller’s booth.

His wish came true, and he had fun, for a while at least.

This guy takes photographs. Not just any photographs. He took photos that tell the story of  my life.

Some even before I was even born, some with me in them.

I came across his old dark room when we were clearing out the school buildings. An Science technician there thirty years ago, he used an empty store cupboard to develop and proudly display his work.

I took what I could. I took all those images that I instantly recognised, plus a couple I just liked.

The first family holiday I can remember was to Butlins, Pwllheli. We went to this beach. That’s me running away from the water, scared. Sally often walked Daniel on this beach.

I’ve still got a VHS recording of a trip we went on at primary school to somewhere in the Lakes. On it, we were filmed walking up a mountain. This mountain. It was also Terry and Kim’s favourite place to visit.

When I was seventeen, I was approached by a drunken tramp who told me he was going to kill himself later that evening. I spent time talking to him, gave him some money, and hugged him, told him everything was going to be ok. It wasn’t, and he jumped to his death from this bridge a month after meeting me.

Later, I spent a year in Blackpool at art college. Greg and Ana loved Blackpool, reminded them of Vegas.

Then of course I came to study in Liverpool, and even now my dad sometimes visits the Port of Liverpool building for work. It’s also where Gaz stole his first phone.

Last year I visited Whitby, a beautiful resort on the east coast. This is the harbour.

I spent new year this year at a lovely secluded farmhouse, and the following day visited Conwy and fell in love with the place. Frank had also taken this photo.

Little did I know when hoarding these prints, that Frank now owns my old camera. It was stolen from my class room three years ago by a disgruntled pupil, and sold on in a nearby pub. Frank had always wanted to ‘go digital’ but had previously been too scared. He knew it must have been stolen, but it didn’t really matter. This seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

When he started playing about with the camera, he felt a bit guilty though. And he found the lad on some of the photos stored on it, strangely familiar.

He’s still taking photos, mind.

Today I found out that another mystery that caused me pain, will never be solved by the powers that be.

Despite this letter from the public health department of the council arriving in my postbox a couple of months ago, and the reams of answers that I sent back, Tracey (apt name) from the office dealing with the investigation into the outbreak this morning told me that presumably there was no link to be found amongst those who fell ill that weekend and therefore no further information could be sought or offered.

By now though, Neela will have been deported. It would seem she has got away with it.

If her last act in this country was indeed to poison a section of society, it is pretty ironic considering she was once going to be a doctor.

She came to Britain a few years back to stay with family. It was difficult leaving her husband and their son but things hadn’t been right for a while, she dreamed of bigger and better things and Kalim was happy working where he did. She had a photo of them in her purse – well, she had, it must have dropped out one day and some weirdo had picked it up and kept it. Still, she wrote regularly, sent money home when she could. It got harder when her status changed to ‘illegal’.

She arrived in Liverpool with the intention of working with her cousin in one of the restaurants on Bold Street, until a job came up at the school of Tropical Medicine.

It never did.

Instead, she suffered years of misery. Yes, she had her extended family around her, but missed the warmth of her husband and child, whom she presumed she would not even recognise now. Still, as soon as she was home she would track them down and find out how they were getting on. In a way she was looking forward to going home even more since her town featured in the successful film Slumdog Millionaire. She couldn’t wait to see the changes.

Ever since her arrival in Britain, Neela has been the victim of racist comments at work, in the street. Since the London bombings it had got much worse. But so had the country in general, and the things she saw more regularly now, meant that she wasn’t even that upset the day the letter came telling her she had to go ‘home’. In the past few years, she has had her phone stolen, found out she was working with a load of prostitutes, and most recently she has seen a car crash when the guilty driver sped off.

She just wanted to have a little bit of revenge, it was playful more than anything, she certainly never wanted to hurt anyone.

I guess we’ll never know quite how she did it, unless she comes back to confess, but Easter 2009 will be remembered by many for the week they were infected by campylobacteriosis. Some thought they were going to die, so severe were the gastro pains and headaches. Some lost over half a stone, their appetite, precious time with their families, all because someone else was having to finally admit their dream had died, and left a mark of contamination amongst innocent citizens unlucky enough to eat and drink there that day.

Neela says she will be back.