Art

There it was again.

The thin yet thick, the black yet white, the hard yet smooth image composed upon that canvas. It appeared almost isolated behind the glass of the corner gallery. The place was juxtaposed between the old and the shine with half facing the main street that was populated by many. Some on their way to work, others to home. The doors opened onto a side street where few ventured unless they had errands that required that path. It wasn't dirty, just unknown; it contained what people would imagine any city street to have: wrappers and puddles that appeared to form from nothing, an Asian restaurant that served the best dumplings that no one knew about, sewer grates and vagabonds.

But none of this was important to the man walking by that day. He was there by mishap, waking up to his car broken into, the windows shattered and the tires slashed. His CD collection was missing as well as his sense of security. He hadn't taken public transportation in years and wasn't about to start now. There were no short cuts he was aware of, but he attempted to shimmy his way into every alley he could, huffing and coughing from the walking, the other extreme to his indolent life style.

He finally came to a rest next to the gallery. Putting his briefcase down and leaning against a brick wall that would surely rub off onto his ironed white shirt. He didn't care at this point. Starting tomorrow, he would suck it up and take the bus, making sure he did his route research. The man looked up into the windows of the gallery.

More of the same, he thought.

However, when regained whatever will to go on, he had to stop when a certain piece of art demanded his attention. The man wasn't one to assign personalities to paintings. After all, he was a very logical man. Works of art didn't necessarily "speak" to him, just as his car was a vehicle and nothing more, but he reconsidered for a split second as this painting seemed to stare at him.

-

The next day he found himself in the same spot, still huffing and catching his latte breath. Still looking at that painting. He didn't dare go in, but instead looked at the painting from the outside, separated by a sheet of glass that acted like so much more. This depiction of nature somehow moved something inside of him, jump starting his heart in a way that hadn't been done in quite some time.

The next day was the same, and the next, and the day after that, and so forth.

One day the painting was not there. Where one might fall to their knees in the way one loses meaning in their life, the man did not panic. It wasn't that the painting didn't capture him enough for him to purchase it and hang it in his living room. It moved him so much that couldn't purchase it. He could only hope that the one who did buy it meant that much to them. He just wished that it wasn't sheltered and hidden from the world, but this was a part of life. Sometimes the meaning behind this canvas was that life goes on.

The empty section in the gallery that once contained his motivation suddenly gave him a new realization: he was not out of breath anymore.