The ever-intrusive light seeps into the night, silently banishing all darkness. Above, an invisible artist unfurls a blank sheet, spreads it carefully onto a frame, and fastens it to the honey-coloured wood. With brows furrowed in intense concentration, he takes a broad brush from his table and sweeps the soft bristles across the canvas. Within moments, the sky of the emerging landscape appears a brilliant blue. Every conceivable shade erupts in the sky, from the lightest of cyans to a deep ocean blue. Lofty mountain peaks spring up in the distance, and as the artist brings his brush once again to the page, a hill takes shape; tall trees reach out their arms to touch the sky, violet forget-me-nots are strewn among the tall grass that dances with the wind. Robins twitter while an eagle soars overhead, a speck of black in its blue domain. A squirrel dashes hastily up a tree, chattering all the way. But as the artist reaches out to create a billowing cloud high above the horizon, his sleeve catches the mouth of a bottle. Crash! He watches the bottle careen and plunge toward the ground, where it shatters into infinitesimal pieces, spraying glass and black ink onto his smock, shoes, table, easel, and most horrifically of all, the painting.
Black soaks through the bottom half of the page; tendrils of ink creep outward and spread shadow over the carefully detailed wildflowers, darken the blades of grass, wither the trees, disperse the birds.
In a desperate attempt to salvage the painting, the artist brings his brush across the page once more. A crude reddish-brown building emerges, blotting out the hill and everything that calls it home. Windows are added, then doors. Shingles appear on the new roof, pitiful shrubs grow in flower baskets, wind chimes hang suspended in the still air. The remaining trees shed their leaves mournfully and the grass turns a muddy-brown as the building takes on more features. A truck rumbles by and sprays gravel on pedestrians unlucky enough to be waiting at the crowded bus stop. From a second-level apartment window screeches a novice flautist’s attempts at music.
As the artist examines the painting critically, his attention is drawn by one particular window. It’s lopsided, he thinks, then adds floral curtains to hide his mistake. A stray dot of paint is transformed into a film of condensation, a ring of snow clinging to the window. A young girl is placed just behind, asleep in her bed and oblivious to the world around her. Hair tickles her chin, and blankets dangle haphazardly off the bed, but still she sleeps, peacefully. Another stroke, and the corners of her mouth twitch upward into a small smile; her eyelids flutter. But still she sleeps, lost in a world where dreams are reality.
At last, the artist sits back, satisfied. And then he peers closer at the painting and imagines what life would be like if the girl was real. He pictures himself in her place, waking from a dream and gazing out the window to a changed world. He can hear the insistent droning of the water boiler, the raucous scolding of crows; he can feel the condensation beneath his fingers as he runs a hand over the icy glass. What might she see when she looked outside? Would she see just her apartment building, complete with all its yellowing trees and dying grass, or would she see past the spilled ink to the ocean reflected in the sky, to the twitter of the bluebirds, to the beauty that resided in the flowers now hidden by towering apartment buildings? Would she know only her world, or the world beyond; would she know he existed and that he was her creator?
Dawn breaks. A painting is hung up in the sky with a sense of finality. Down below, the ever-intrusive light seeps into the night, and a girl wakes from her slumber.
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