by Earnest Long
"I told you I really was an artist," she said. "You should believe things I tell you."
The pictures were pleasant but not terribly good. Then a year passed and then another year.
"Have you done any more paintings?" he said, thinking of something to say to her.
"Yes, here."
He looked at the paintings. They were on canvas and not on paper like the earlier ones.
After he had looked for some time, he said a trifle enthusiastically, "These are really good."
She shook her head, "Put them down without damaging them."
"I told you I was an artist and getting back into doing art. Of course, they're good."
"By the way," she added. "I've met new people. They are other artists, art dealers and people like that. So I might not see you for much longer if my artistic career takes off. In fact, it's best we say good-bye now. I'll give you a picture so you can remember me by though. Come into my studio next door."
He picked a picture and she went to the door with him to say good-bye.
"Can I call you sometime?"
"Perhaps you can. Yes, we'll catch up. We might. Call me in a year."
He left and went out into the sultry summer evening, which had the smell of damp grass coming from her front garden. This was her front garden that she mowed, but never gardened otherwise. And he went home.
He met an attractive woman when he was out who gave him a come-on look.
"Hi," he said. "I'm an artist. No, I'm not really an artist but I like art."
She laughed.
"What have you painted?"
"Oh, a few things," he said, remembering some of his efforts he had made to try to understand art better.
He felt all right to talk like this as having himself got the creative bug he understood art a bit better than he might have done otherwise. Also, he talked about some of his paintings with her, after which they made a date. When they had dated some time, she said she loved the time she had with him. Perhaps he had changed. But he could not say how he had, as he did not know. Nothing felt different. Maybe, though, talking about art did make you different. As well, he was someone who didn't know about politics. Anyway, he felt he had forgotten most of it, if not all of it. Nor did he want to talk about it because he felt he shouldn't. And he didn't have time for it as he had other things now as well that he wanted to do. So he had done nothing to get the news. And that might have been a change in his life and not just his conversation.
The day was too short to do everything he could think of doing. And he rarely found time for everything. Now he realized that he didn't have such a long memory. Nor could he talk about something he hadn't done recently. As well, when it was new, that was a good reason for him to take an interest in it. Or he would pay more attention to it just because it was new. It began raining heavily and he looked at the rain falling down the windowpane. Outside and through the running drips of rain, he saw the view from his window as if for the first time in a long time. Several hours passed like this as he sat looking at the windowpane in silence. And now he could hear birdsong coming from the gardens at the back of his house.
For some time now, he had wanted something more to do and to think about. And he no longer wanted to take such an interest in politics. Now talking about those old things was in the past.
Today he had found something so much better.
***THE END***