5 | No Mad Woman

Reina looks homeless. Patched together clothes and a dirty design. Dreadlocked hair, not by choice, but because of the lack of bathing. She is walking in the desert. Miles and miles of sand surround her in every direction. Here and there in the sandy plains are a few gigantic boulders. They look like they have been boiled out of the hot surface of the earth. Reina is walking towards one of these rocks. Far behind her is her trolly. Left behind for the moment. The trolly's trail leads back a distance and then just stops, as if she started pushing her trolly after teleporting into the desert. Reina is carrying an old, patched together umbrella, a leather bag of painting supplies and an A3 white material canvas. Reina climbs up the rock, battling over ledges and areas where clearly no human has been before. The skeletal remains of lost creatures lie in the shaded parts like they peacefully died in the cool spots of the blazing desert heat. Reina finally reaches the top. The view is extraordinary. The sandy ocean pulses like waves in the wind. The rock giants stand on the horizon, like light towers signaling the way for travelers. Reina readies her painting supplies, and starts painting. The sun slowly moves over her. She has to adjust the umbrella every few minutes. The sweat drips off of her face. This looks more like a gym workout than a leisure activity. After the entire day, she is done with her painting. She packs everything up and heads down the rock. After quite a hike, she reaches her trolley which stands waiting like an obedient dog. The trolley is full of homeless items. A dusty sleeping bag, one leather shoe, a single bag of sweets, a few cans of food, two 5L bottles of water. Most importantly, hanging right around the trolley, is a big collection of paintings. The most amazing paintings of landscapes one has ever seen. The colors are true. The feelings are captured. Her soul has painted them, not her hand. She slides the umbrella into a plastic pipe at the back of the trolly, holding it perfectly over the trolly. She reaches into the trolly and pulls out a bag of plastic laundry clips and takes one out. She hangs her new painting to the side of the trolly. She takes out a white plastic spoon and a permanent marker. She walks back and views her new painting amongst the others. She bites off the marker's lid and thinks. Ha! She's got it! She writes onto the plastic spoon: "$A puppy dog". She walks back to the still wet painting, and buries the plastic spoon into the paint, leaving the price visible. Around the cart we see other paintings with plastic spoons saying: "$One week's bed", "$10x food cans", "$A sailboat trip" etc. She packs everything that is left in the trolly except for the paint brush she used. She takes the paint brush and sticks it in the sand next to the trolly. With the brush part standing upright like a soldier. To the bottom-side of the trolly, she inspects a glowing tube. It is a glass tube, filled with some kind of glowing blue liquid. It seems there is still a bit left before it reaches the "Empty" mark. She takes out a lot of extremely warm clothing items and layers them on. Boots, a scarf, a beanie etc. Very unusual for this desert-hot location. She readies herself to push the trolly. But, instead of pushing it, she presses a small button hidden at the right side of the long trolly handle. It turns the handle into a digital map screen. She scrolls around on the touch screen earth for a bit and then stops at Mount Everest. She zooms in more and more until one can make out a small dirt road. She taps the location with her finger. A red marker is placed on it. She readies herself, takes a deep breath in, and turns down the trolly's handle, like she's riding a motorcycle. The air around her starts spinning, dust flies everywhere. Suddenly she, and her trolly, vanishes into thin air. Leaving behind the vertical paint brush she stuck in the desert sand.