When you stare at something that is brightly lit for a long time and then close your eyes, your inner eye sees the same thing again as a static afterimage: what had actually been light is now dark and what had been dark appears light. If, for example, you watch a man walking down the street who repeatedly turns back to wave one last, one very last, one very, very last time, and then you close your eyes, on the inside of your eyelids you’ll see the frozen movement of his very, very last wave, his frozen smile, and the man’s dark hair will be light and his light-colored eyes will be very dark.
If what you were staring at was important, Selma says, something that upended the entire expanse of your life in a single movement, then its afterimage will resurface again and again. Even decades later, it will suddenly reappear, no matter what you were looking at just before you closed your eyes…
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