In those harsh and bitter years of toil as an indentured servant in the household of a cruel master, on one bitterly cold morning before sunrise, I started writing a story about a Magic Painting that was a Doorway to another World, and anyone who looked into the Painting entered the world of the Painting. And everyone returning from the world of the Painting was miraculously healed of all wounds.
But before I could finish the story, I was summonsed to my duties, which were many, unvarying, heavy and onerous. Later, much later, I crawled onto my thin and threadbare mattress in the corner of the dark, cold and tiny cell assigned me by my keepers.
Later, much later, I opened my battered notebook and turned from page to page to find the incomplete story about the Magic Painting that was a Doorway to another world. But it was nowhere to be found, in that notebook, nor in any other, nor in any of my files or folders hard and soft, anywhere in this or any other world. And the harder I looked, the more obsessed I became, the harder I looked, the angrier I got, the harder I looked, the sadder I got, the sicker I got, the more miserable my life became.
I still yearn to complete the story, to make it real, to write the ending of that fantastic tale. But the words have gone. And all that remains is a fragment of a memory, a shard, a slice, a chad if you will. And when I die, which will be real soon now, the knowledge of the story of the magic painting that heals all wounds will be lost forever, and so too will the story about the story about the magic painting.
Copyright © S R Schwarz 2007. All rights reserved.
