Adventures Inside Ryans Head: Episode 63 A few nights ago I arrived home late to discover the Northern Lights dancing in the sky, like a giant neon curtain flapping in solar winds. I was quickly entranced and began walking along my neighborhood in search of an area without streetlights so I could get a clearer view of the phenomenon. After nearly a half an hour of walking, I reached a small park at the very edge of my neighborhood that was blissfully dark. I sat on a small park table and watched and waited, expecting to eventually feel a chill which would be my cue to go home and get some sleep. That didnt happen. The Northern Lights were too brilliant and the park too peaceful to imply even the slightest hint of coldness, Instead my forehead began to bead with sweat, and my jacket begun to cloy at my skin. I could only assume that the atmosphere in the park, and perhaps the entire state, had fallen under the magical influence of the Aurora Borealis and become thick and suffocating with magical residue. An ideal time for mysterious things to occur, to be certain. Thats when I met Jacques (pronounced Jocks). A kindly old gentleman sat in the park with me that night, with a crown of gray hair circling a dome made of moonlight. He sat in front of a small, gnarly canvas with as grassy surface and moved a dark, crooked brush across the cloth. More crooked than the brush were his fingers, branching out from the stump of his wrists and caging around the stick so stiffly that the silhouette of his arms looked more like the limbs of a tree, swaying back and forth in the wind. His skin had the texture of a drying walnut, and his face twisted and wrinkled in an all consuming smile as he moved his brush along his canvas, the image of an artist in the throes of creative ecstasy. Perhaps the heat I was feeling was somehow related to his passion, or perhaps it stemmed from the insane jealousy I felt in that moment. I approached him, and introduced myself. Jacques. He answered, and extended a withered branch in greeting. I delicately shook his hand and sat next to him on his park bench, watching his brush move with mesmerizing fluidity. His canvas showed nothing but a dark, inky substance on the grassy background. His brush pulled the gelatinous ink in different directions, swiftly stretching and laying it down on the earthen canvas. His hands moved quickly, pulling different branches out of the inky mass. The dark substance in the center became progressively smaller, losing more and more weight as Jacques brush moved more and more ink away, until the branches took a solid shape in my eyes, illuminated by the moonlight and the starlight and the Aurora. The dark shape looked, for all intents and purposes, like the small silhouette of a tree. The detail was immaculate, with tiny twigs growing off of slightly larger branches, growing off of thicker, gnarled stems from a sturdy trunk. Jacques then stood up from his bench and walked to the small, baby pine tree on the other side of the path, placing the canvas on the ground next to it. He fit the base of the tree-silhouette against the sapling, and patted the canvas firmly into the ground. He moved to another tree and picked up a canvas as though from nowhere. The grass became the surface, the dirt became the frame, and he returned to his seat next to me. With his brush, the artist painted another thick blob of shadow in the center, which he then began pulling into another shape. I remember making yours, Jacques explained, and his voice sounded like whispering leaves on an autumn day. You would not stop moving! It made your shadow very difficult to paint, but that is good, do you not think? I nodded dumbly, watching him work like a child seeing the world for the first time. A shadow that stretches all the time doesnt shrink. It means you live well. I nodded again, this time in thanks. Would you like to try? Jacques smiled and handed me his brush, which pulled the breathe from my lungs and the blood from my skin. Really? I asked, and accepted happily. I spent the rest of the night painting a saplings shadow, under the guidance of a true master. Although I did a very poor job of it, Jacques was patient, and I had plenty of light thanks to the veil of astral magic dancing overhead. Today I walked through that park and found the shadow Id painted, noting with a great deal of satisfaction that only a couple of branches were missing.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 05:38:18 +0000
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