It was a private screening, no appointment, a final masterpiece.
Like an artist’s art, it was modern with strokes of gaudy colour, with thick applications of material, no planning, no design. It was on a large canvas of magnolia, an ideal wash of matt, a clock against the border, framed complete, some brick exposed, wire from a lamp.
Like mosaic in a way, big and small segments, like a mix of stained glass, in and out of line, the darker shades blended in with chunks, oozed out like paint from a tube, thick smears, impasto in places.
And some areas, burnt black fabric, intertwined with red and white, running down the wall, splatter on the floor, the frame shattered by the bullet as it passed through bone and brain and memories; through receptors and nerves and grey matter; the colours, scattered randomly in obscure arrangements.
thirty eight special,
a smooth, herring bone handle,
his dad’s revolver.