The painting

and

the dream​​​​​​​​​

​

​

It is something most disconcerting, to be

regarded by a madman – however brilliant –

as being obviously delusional oneself.

‘So then…’ he began, ‘…the door is…’

‘Yes?’ I enquired eagerly

‘It is terrible. It is a very bad door’

‘Oh’ I said.

‘Indeed’ he continued, surveying my painting

through a half squint, as if it actually hurt him to look at it. ‘But the chair…’

‘Yes?’ I enquired, my hopes arising,

‘It is, if anything, worse’.

It was a disappointing review.

​

He considered my expression. I was trying to conceal my knuckle-chewing embarrassment, with I suspect, limited success. He mustered some compassion.

‘The boots though…’

‘Oh yes?’

‘…are not entirely without merit’, he said. And he smiled. I must admit I was not expecting to see him smile. I had never thought about it of course, but had you asked me to, I would have found it a very difficult thing to imagine.

He lifted a half-drunk, half un-drunk bottle of wine to his mouth and the yanked the cork from it with his teeth, spitting it out onto the floor. He poured some into a heavily chipped enamelled mug, handing it to me. He took a swig from the residue and coughed.

‘Don’t feel bad my friend’ he said, ‘however deficient your painting may be, it is not as abysmal as this stinking wine’.

Without testing this opinion, I rested my cup on the edge of his uneven, woodwormed table, though it looked like it might only just take the weight. Without speaking, I bowed and turned toward the door. It was clear my visit had been pointless, unless there was some meaning, as yet deprived from my vision, to be found in having my comprehensive inadequacies as a painter burnt into my already bleeding, ruptured soul.

‘Where are you going fool?’ His hand clamped down on my shoulder; his fingers smeared and spattered, blue and yellow and brown, had more of art on them by accident, than my sorry canvass possessed despite my best intents.

‘Home of course’ I replied. ‘I am most grateful for your appraisal’.

Immediately his hand left my shoulder, whilst he took a step back, as if both repulsed and surprised. He drained the dregs of the wine before quietly, so quietly, he spoke again.

‘Do you have no dreams?’ he asked.

‘Well…’ I began, but was not allowed to finish.

‘Don’t think!’ he yelled, with a sudden violent outburst, ‘Don’t think! Answer! Answer! Answer!’

‘I have…I have ideas’ I stammered.

‘Hah!’ he erupted, once again, hurling his emptied bottle to the wall, ‘ideas are no good! Dreams! You need dreams!’

I was in an instant muted, and began to tremble slightly. His eyes moved towards my twitching fingers then back to my, doubtlessly, pallid face. Becalmed again, he pointed to the chair in the corner of the room. As if entranced, I sat.

He fumbled in the pockets of the jacket that “enshrouded” him, more than it was being “worn”, and retrieved his pipe, tobacco and a solitary match, which he struck against the rough, bare wall. The silence was growing louder, until at once, at last, he ended it.

Smoke, twisting, arching clouds, hovered above us.

‘Ideas’, he said, ‘are just a string of thoughts. They are rooted in the conscious mind but dreams’ he continued, ‘are a spiral of imaginings, and they spring from here…’, and he outstretched his fingers, holding his hand up high to the smouldering air, as if in an act of benediction.

​

I could say nothing, and I thought… nothing.

He dragged an easel closer to my chair,

pulled a stool across the noisy, rug-less boards,

lowered himself upon it and sighed.

‘Now, you will sit still, and remain quiet,

and I shall paint you. As this is your dream,

and not mine, it shall not be a good painting

but…’ he growled, his teeth clutching at the

stem of his pipe, ‘it will still be better  than yours…’

​