On a street, not far from where I live, there is a small alley of sorts that cuts back into the buildings. As far as alleys go, this one is quite pleasant looking, more like a small street with miniature shoppes buried in its walls like gems. I had never considered descending into it; I don't consider going into alleys much at all.

So why was it then, that on this day I found myself deep within it? The portal of its entrance now far behind, the bustling of the main street muffled by distance. Behind me the world spun by, before, the strangest painting I ever did see, lurking beneath the dusty glass of a seldom seen shoppe. I must have walked the distance between it and I, though I cannot recall the journey; a finger of mine pressed against cool glass mere inches from the array of colors and ideas.

What draws me; what would cause me to wish for my finger to slip through this glass and reach into the very grainy edges of reality this painting brings? Why, it is through some strange hex that this artist has wrought from my dreams the scapes and planets of my night slumber, only just now beginning to whisp away within the fringes of memory. A spider web of tears gone drift away and in the shredded moments of my recall, a sigh.

For what artist dare rend from my mind the objects of my night splendor, stolen and displayed for all the world to see? A light smile touched upon the corner of my lips, for I would have done this very act, myself. Then left to stand alone in a forgotten shoppe behind the world without a trace, without a signature, to lure some unseen soul into the wasp's caress of their own mind's murmers.

I would have done the very same thing.

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Copyright © 2002 Amber Halo