Words, Lines, and Stories

Memento Mori

Rendered from unrecalled memory, teased from the pure whiteness of the paper, coaxed into existence stroke after patient stroke, the picture comes to life.

First, with just the smallest drop of charcoal onto the damp surface, guided by the featherlight touch of the tip of his thickest brush, the forest appears on the distant horizon, its tremulous outline and the form lacking detail almost a part of the fog, into which another, unguided drop of paint had spilled without the artist's control, the same way as the lake water.

The next drop of a more concentrated paint creates a clump of trees to the left, and the small island, and the rugged smudge of the firm ground bordering the lake within the picture.

He should leave it monochrome, he decides at this point as he reaches for a finer brush to replace the previous in his hand, dips it gently into a yet less diluted gray paint, his fingers applying more control and precision, guiding the thin tip to create a building and its reflection upon the mirror-still surface of the silvery water, smooth walls bathed in shadows, a tall, cross-tipped spire, a more defined, leafless tree standing lonely behind the church.

His fingers, quite without his volition, reach for the smallest brush he owns and dip it lightly directly into the tube, using the paint pure to add the last touch-- an old man observing the lifeless, eldritch building from the safety of the dry land, shoulders slumped with nostalgia for this unknown church as much as with fear...

The painter doesn't recognise the church either, but he recognises the man. He's him... and the eerie building is... death, beckoning, inviting... waiting patiently.

It's not the old man's time to cross the placid waters just yet. When the time comes, he'll paint a boat for him to cross safely, just like he now, sighing, adds a few graves under the naked tree, as a memento mori. He doesn't have much time left in this existence. He must do the best with what he has.