What Dreams are Made Of_Part Eight: Into the Night.

The panel was dry and needed a thin coat of linseed. The watercolors done from earlier that day were taped to thin boards near the easel. He lifted one to the lamp to consult the splashes of color that flowed into passages of light and movement. The days between and ahead lay neatly plotted in paint, yet their meaning was cryptic. They were hieroglyphs on the walls of his mind.

He set them aside and tightened the support under the half-finished oil. He couldn’t sleep. This was the second time in two hours he’d sat here to think. Smoothly brushing on a bit of oil from the jar near his easel, he wiped away the excess. A translucent layer of zinc white looked like a caul stretched across the underpainting. He mixed fresh color into the milky film with deliberate design.

His brush moved with its own cadence but still swayed to match his intent. It skated along the distant hills and snow dusted trees and dipped into deep purple shadows; its bristles moved across the craters and fissures that covered the luminous orb flying high above the forest floor. The sable tip was an extension of his fingertips, and with it he caressed every facet of his creation.

In the foreground he found her once more. She was sculpted in shapes and tones merged subtly. The illusion of reality was astonishing. Their eyes locked. His brush found highlights there. He felt along her cheekbones and stroked under her chin. Her hair seemed to flutter and catch reflections from the sky. Leaning in for a closer look, his energy started to flag and his eyes fluttered closed. 

A hand sought his. It was both warm and supple; gently, it guided him into the cool evening air.

To be continued.