Page 229 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

both sweeping across my face, searching for my eyes. But
as they no doubt hoped, my eyes had slipped the world to
wander and wonder. And my hands, while still of the earth,
would now repair the way back—from death into dream.
My brother and sister also looked upon me, glad for their
place in the gallery. Together, united in dream and slaves
to nothing, my first family celebrated my second birth—
between two worlds, artist to both. It were as if the universe
shrunk to the size of my purpose, narrow but infinite, every
shadow a signpost, leading to forever. There was song in me
that night.
It was dusk when they returned to gaze upon my work.
The twins were at my side before I knew it, their wild hair
playing all around me as they held me in the quiet of my first
piece. I knew they were pleased. Their laughter sparkled in
the dark, twinkling and turning in the blackened air of the
gallery. I held their admiration inside like a last breath, not
wanting to exhale. Then came the giant. When he looked
upon my work, his thunderous laughter filled my tiny body
with everlasting strength. I knew, somehow, his strength
would one day be my own. My smile grew wider.
Then she came to me, my new mother. Gliding from the
darkness, endless with mystery. She stood revealed in the
smoldering debris of day. Her eyes followed mine beyond
the solidity of the world, joining them in the gallery beyond
the gallery, where vision was the property of the mind.
“Your work is the light the sun pretends at bearing,” she
whispered. “Your brilliance shines only to enlighten, never
to expose. Your art is the voice of a dreaming god, Vincent.
And you need never again want for a family. You could have
all of this, in us. You have only to say yes, and we are all of
us, yours forever.”
“Yes,” I whispered to her, choking back tears.

232 | Mark Anzalone