The painter knew the mirror lied. And the canvas told the truth.

The painter knew that color was not something you controlled but something you set free. He believed that color knew its way home.

The painter folded back the heavy curtain, standing in the stream of light breaking through the damp thickness of the room. He paused, still holding the drape in his hand as he considered with suspicion that a world could exist outside the window.

To paint one must forget everything else. Where you live, who you know, what you eat, when to sleep. The landscape of the canvas becomes your only reality. The planet you inhabit is a single plane of infinite dimensions, stretched like a guitar string, and standing before you like a concubine waiting for your command.

In the end there is only light and dark. And the two are not so far apart.

Life isn’t really linear. Although it’s generally perceived that way. The stories we tell are woven like snakes around a divining rod. A center of time containing all that’s ever been told and heard. Remembered and forgotten. Lost and found. Our pasts, presents and futures are unwound, stretched flat, cut into pieces and held up with human arms.