Jonas Kingsley, the self-proclaimed Painter of LifeTM, lies dead on his living room floor, a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.
Three months ago, the Clearview Mall in West Tangiers, Maine proudly announced that a Jonas Kingsley Gallery would be opening three months from then--opening yesterday afternoon, as it were--which it did. The Gallery opened yesterday afternoon.
Three months ago, there were two signs saying this exactly:
and
"Painters needed," Cecilia said in her head. "Enroll today."
Cecilia Ann Dunham is a bank teller down on Main Street during the day and a divorced mother of two in the evenings. When she lies in bed at night, she's Georgia O'Keefe.
When she read that sign at the Clearview Mall, Cecilia had a Jonas Kingsley calendar in her kitchen, a sweatshirt in her attic, and a set of twelve decorative plates hanging in her dining room. Most American women Cecilia's age had at least one Jonas Kingsley art item in their possesion, in particular those of whom were divorced. For they--the lean, doe-eyed daughters of the seventies who grew to occupy pudgy bodies and lead boring lives with men that didn't care and kids that didn't listen--the former Future Women of America whose main tasks now are to smile and be courteous in banks and businesses in drab rural communities that with each passing year become more and more like every other place around--they are the Painter of LifeTM's patrons, his core demographic. And a good one to have at that. A solid 22% of the country's population, they are, all easily-whisked away to the fake lands found in the mass-produced work of Jonas Kingsley. The fake lands that just happen to contain that one thing their real lands so sorely lack, be it a sunset a color their sun can't achieve; or a brook full of seahorses bisecting their dewy, well-manicured lawn; heart-shaped tufts of smoke poofed out their chimney made of perfectly imperfect stones; or a tiny man with tiny hands watering their garden with a golden pitcher from, no doubt, heaven. Fake fantasy lands which are clearly fake, clearly fantasy, but which look just enough like their real lands not to turn these poor women off. Not to tell them, "No. You can't have this."
When she read that sign at the Clearview Mall, a shiver ran down Cecilia's spine. No way was she good enough to work under the Jonas Kingsley's tutelage. But can you imagine if she was? She remembered the time just after the divorce when she enrolled in a weekend painting class at the community college and she wished she would have stuck with it longer. She remembered even further into the past, when she went with "Cecilia Ann Moore plans to be an artist" as her high school yearbook send-off. Those were younger times, more idealistic for sure, she was naive. And prettier. Prettier perhaps because of her naivete. It's hard to say. What Cecilia did know was that her days weren't all the same back then. She did things. And she had plans. She weighed less than half of what she does now. And her hair was beautiful, big. And now it's not. But was that hair, were those days, really that far in the past? Twenty-five years, has it been? Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven years Cecilia wanted back.
"That's it," Cecilia said in her head. "We're doing this."
The Jonas Kingsley, Painter of LifeTM, Painting Technician Classes went like so: A bunch of women and a few men spent two and a half hours of their weekday evenings sitting at long fold-out tables, applying miniscule daubs of paint to large, oxymoronic, "original reproductions" of Jonas Kingsley's paintings, while a dozen or so Master Technicians paced up and down the aisles making sure the machine stayed oiled. The classrooms would vary in size in accordance with the towns and their turnouts--sometimes they would be conducted in high school cafeterias, sometimes in YMCAs, or in warehouses just off the highway, and one class in Kansas was so popular, it was held in an empty airplane hangar--but the curriculum never changed. On the first day of class students were served curried lamb on sticks and hard-boiled eggs while they watched an inspirational video. From the second day on, they daubed paint.
Every time a Jonas Kingsley Gallery opened, this would go on, these classes, for ten weeks. On the eleventh week, the Jonas Kingsley would arrive and take over the role of teacher to those "artistically inclined enough to remain," the twelfth week would be spent promoting the opening, alerting the media, garnering the public's interest, et cetera, and on the thirteenth week the Gallery would open grandly and Jonas Kingsley would become richer, his name more household, his destiny more manifested, and so on and so forth.
As for those artistically inclined enough to remain, they would usually get to bask in about ten minutes of local fame, getting approached on the street, their hands shook and such, before inevitably reverting to the lives they led before becoming Jonas Kingsely Painting Technicians. One or two of them might choose to stay onboard the ship, take up a permanent position at their town's Gallery, and forever serve Captain Kingsley. It all depended. Those who treated the experience as a break in their routine more often than not left feeling satisfied. Those who expected the Jonas Kingsley classes to lead to bigger and better things always ended up disappointed. When people wrote Jonas and complained, his secretary sent them a 5% off coupon.
The series of paintings Cecilia and her classmates were working on was what was referred to in the Jonas Kingsley catalogs as a Site-Specific Slice of Life--a landscape found within a thirty-mile radius of a particular Gallery. For the West Tangierian Slice of Life, Jonas chose Ciao Down Pizza. A mere year and a half old, owned by someone in neighboring East Tangiers, and operated by slowing septugenarians placed there by a reintegration program run by a home for the elderly in the owner's town, Ciao Down Pizza was hardly an accurate slice of West Tangiers' life. But Ciao Down's lack of qualifications were of little concern for Jonas, what with the way the sunlight cascaded along the tin roof of the delapidated barn behind the pizza parlor. It would be a good place, he thought, to add a little boy, dangling his legs and a homemade fishing pole, pulling a large rainbow trout from the small turqouise puddle he would also add.
In the coming weeks, Catching a Trout in Tangiers by Jonas Kingsley would be orignally reproduced 348 times.
Initially, Cecilia's role in bringing the Slice of Life to life was to add a daub of red paint to the third and fifth rose that bloomed from the cracks of the barn's windowsills. The tediousness of this type of work may bother some people. In fact, it did. By the time the beginning of the eleventh week rolled around, only seven--seven of the original forty-eight students--turned out to be artistically-inclined enough. Cecilia was one of them. She was enjoying the classes probably more than anyone else, and anytime a student quit, she was quick to take over their responsibilities. By the time the eleventh week rolled around, Cecilia was responsible for the daubs of paint on each of the four flowers on each of the three windowsills, the highlights on the rainbow trout's rainbow scales, any and all aluminum siding, the grassy path, the thicket, the pizza parlor's "Yes, We Are OPEN" sign, the golden sun and its godly rays. Without Cecilia, far fewer than 348 reproductions would have gotten done. She was the class.
It was a Wednesday night in early April. Cecilia waited in her car for her daughter to finish karate lessons. The local radio station had decided to play "Oh Sherrie" by Steve Perry for what was by Cecilia's count the fourth time that day. Despite the fact that she had grown to hate that song, normally Ceclia would just let it play. Sometimes she'd even catch herself humming along and once caught, sometimes she'd even keep humming. But that night, in early April, she turned the radio off. Her thoughts, she thought, will be enough. And they were. The radio was off and Cecilia was alone with her thoughts and they were enough. While she waited for her daughter she thought about how the brick hill beside the karate school is so old and wondered if it would ever get paved over and how it would be a shame if it did, but it does definitely get icy in the winter. She wondered if karate was Chinese or Japanese, or both, and if she would ever make it to either of those countries. She decided she probably wouldn't. A girl who sounded like her daughter laughed, but it wasn't her daughter, she didn't know who it was. She wondered if her daughter could beat up her son, and she remembered the piano lessons she used to take in grade school and how she wasn't great, but she was okay, but she messed up her solo in the piano recital, and how that may have been the most traumatizing moment of her life, which is saying a lot for someone who wrecked a car and killed her sister, accidentally. It was an accident. She was young when it happened. They both were so young. Seventeen and Nineteen. 17 and 19. Cecilia's thoughts fell briefly on her mother, who had retired to North Carolina years ago, and who as of late was becoming more and more forgetful. Cecilia wondered if she would ever see her alive again. She hadn't planned on visiting her mother anytime soon and, well, you never know what's going to happen. Then Cecilia thought of a story about a girl who got in a real bad car accident, but who didn't die, but who everyone thought died, because that's what the government wanted them to think. But what really happened was the government took the girl from the hospital and turned her into a spy. They taught her karate and sent her to China to spy. Or Japan. Cecilia would have to find out which one invented karate before she wrote her story. Cecilia wanted to write so many stories. And she will write them all, eventually, she thought. She sighed. And then she checked her watch. And then she saw her daughter exit the school and in the time it took her daughter to walk to the car, Cecilia thought of a new way to organize the furniture in her living room. All of a sudden she hated that the couch cut the room in half. How come she never noticed that before? she wondered. It cuts the room completely in half. When she gets home, she told herself, she's gonna move the couch.
It was when Cecilia got home and moved her couch that she realized things were changing--changing forever, perhaps, changing for the better.
Jonas Kingsley didn't show on the first day of the eleventh week of the Jonas Kingsely Painting Technician Class. Nor did he show the following day. He spent those days in a hotel in Cincinnati getting blowjobs from his devoutly Christian wife Marcy's sister, Cassie-Lynn. Blowjobs weren't cheating, they told Marcy's God.
"Wanna bet?" replied He.
Jonas Kingsley finally showed up to teach the class which bore his name on the fourth day of the eleventh week. The second to the last day of the class, as it were. This past Thursday, as it were.
By then, assuming that Jonas wasn't going to show at all, three more students had quit the class, leaving four. Cecilia, of course, and three women named one variation or another of Elizabeth. Cecilia was by far the busiest, having assumed almost all of the workload in the wake of forty-four students' dropping out. The three Elizabeths did their few tasks quite well, though quite slow, and seemed more interested in complimenting one another and being amazed by the coincidence that they share the same name. Liz. Beth. Elizabeth. The Three Elizabeths.
And Jonas? Well, Jonas didn't so much teach the class as he did walk around it making phone calls. He called his team of assistants, making sure they had notified the local newses of his arrival. He called the owner of the Clearview Mall, arranging a time to golf later that afternoon. He called Marcy and told their answering machine he loved her. He looked at but one painting in the three days he taught the class. The one the Master Technicians set aside during the fourth week, right before the majority of the class started quitting. The one they labeled "Most Accurate Reproduction" and embossed with a seal stating just that.
A normal Kingsley painting sells for around $350.
A Most Accurate Reproduction One-of-a-Kind Kingsley fetches five times that amount. Sometimes even ten.
Blabbing away on his phone, not a paintbrush or palette in sight, Jonas was never not the businessman and this surprised Cecilia. She was expecting an artist. She was. She was expecting him to look like the only picture of him she had ever seen. The only picture she had ever seen was the only one most people had ever seen: the one of him wearing a beret and with a paintbrush tucked behind his ear, sitting on a tree stump with his wife Marcy, and a chocolate-colored Labrador Retriever. A moment in time recorded and repeated on the backs of hundreds of thousands of books, calendars, and highway billboards. Cecilia now estimated that photo must be at least ten years old. Jonas Kingsley was chubbier now, his skin more leathery, his goatee now a beard. His way of speaking was that of authority. His mannerisms too. And his clothes. Cecilia was positive she had seen his polo shirt on her boss before.
"If at all possible, I'd like to be interviewed at least three times by lunchtime today. Can three interviews be arranged?"
Of all the questions out there, that was hardly the one an artist should be asking, thought Cecilia, but, alas, she had roses to daub and couldn't be bothered with disillusionment.
Contrary to the theories of the his skeptics, and there was indeed a cloud of skepticism hovering over Jonas's entire body of work, Jonas did in fact paint his original originals. He was overwhelmingly talented, in a way, in that one way. He was taken. Taken by his vision, his plan. He had a plan. He was not a sell out. No, mam. He was not one of those gifted students who fell victim to the dark side of commercialism. What Jonas was was a businessman born with an uncanny ability to paint mass quantities of semi-fantastical suburban landscapes. An ability he managed to turn into 11,000 paintings in the 20 years since he started painting--11,000!--and those 11,000 paintings he turned into 6 million reproductions, into $850 million dollars. Into five ten-bedroom homes, four in America and one in Puerto Rico. Into five Ford Expedition SUVs.
It is worth pointing out that Jonas Kingsley never called himself an artist. Other people did from time to time, Cecilia did, but Jonas preferred "painter." He was a painter. He was The Painter. The Painter of fucking Life, God damn it.
There was a buzz all around West Tangiers this morning. Nay, all around the middle of Maine. If you stepped outside, you could hear it. The air had felt like this every morning this week. The town's very own Jonas Kingsley Gallery would open so very soon and West Tangiers would become a little bit closer to the big time.
Cecilia began the morning with her usual saturday cup of coffee. It being the first of May, she went to turn her calendar ahead. Not her Jonas Kingsley calendar, for she had taken that one down and crammed it into a junk drawer. In its place, Cecilia had hung a calendar of her own creation, one made up of drawings she did herself, at night while she lied in bed. This morning, over April's drawing of Persephone was turned May's Cape Elizabeth lighthouse. Cecilia then finished her coffee, knocked on each of her kids' doors and reminded them not to sleep their lives away, and headed to the mall.
The Gallery Grand Opening looked everything a Jonas Kinglsey opening usually does. Long bundles of balloons, banners, the press and their cameras. People had been lining up outside the mall since three hours before it opened. And by 1pm, with only twenty minutes until Jonas Kingsley would appear, some still had yet to make their way inside the mall. A pass Cecilia was given, that she wore proudly around her neck, allowed her to bypass this line. That felt good. She couldn't conceal her smile. She approached the small stage set up in front of the Gallery, in the mall's atrium. She was given a front row seat.
It was quite possibly the biggest event West Tangiers had ever hosted. A presidential candidate paid the town a visit in the seventies. That was a decent-sized event. Still, this Gallery Grand Opening was bigger.
Jonas Kingsley arrived to the Grand Opening on time.
Welcome, welcome. All of you, welcome to your Jonas Kingsley Painter of Life Gallery! This is a great, great gallery we are opening here today, and let me tell you why.
Not only is your Gallery well-stocked with my latest series of paintings--the Winter Summerlands which I know you all love so much--but, your Gallery also houses not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven, but eight--eight Jonas Kingsely Originals!
Most Gallery's only have three or four Originals for sale, but I knew when I arrived in Tangiers back in January, when we were scouting locations, I knew this town was worth more than that. I could tell you were people who appreciated things. You will find the Originals in the back of the Gallery, through the gated glass doors. These are paintings from an earlier period of mine. Right around the time my wife and I renewed our vows. So they occupy a special place in my heart. Just as I am sure they will occupy a special place in your homes. Please, check them out. I just know you'll love them.
Now, I can't talk a moment longer without mentioning Mike. Michael Water, everybody, owner of this fine shopping establishment. You've got a hell of a chip shot, Mike. Remember you promised me a re-match.
No but, seriously, the hospitality I have received here at this, the Clearview Mall, has been amazing. Thanks to Mike and all the mall employees. You are some of the warmest, most welcoming individuals I have ever worked with, and you should all be very proud. Let's hear it for the mall!
Alright. Yes. Yes. Thank you.
Thank you.
And of course, I'd be nowhere without my most talented Master Technicians, some of whom are on hand today. These guys and gals are Jonas Kingsley, as far as I'm concerned. You guys are, and I know you hate it when I gush, but you guys are indispensible. Thank you so much for what you do. Your patrons thank you. Without your time and talents and abilities, I would've never made it to the people.
To you people. Yes, thank you to you, my patrons, as well.
Come on everybody, let's give you a round of applause, too. Yes. All of you who came out for this event. Thank you.
Alright. Yes. And last but certainly not least-
I know, you all came here to look at some paintings, not listen to me chatter away. Last but not least, thank you to the painterly-inclined ladies that were Tangiers, Maine's Painter of Life Painting Technicians! Let's hear it for them.
Real big applause, now. Come on up here ladies. Yes. Yes. Alright. Yeah, that's it. Big applause. I have here-
I know, I know, this is the moment you've all been waiting for. I have here an example of what they've been working on these past few months. I have here, under this curtain, one of your very own Jonas Kingsley Site-Specific Slice of Lifes! How many of these did you ladies make? 400, I believe? 450? You've really got something to be proud of. Let's hear it. Well done guys.
And without further ado, I give you, Tangiers' own Slice of Life; the one painting only available here, in the Clearview Mall's new Jonas Kingsley Painter of Life Gallery...
Ladies and Gentleman: Catching a Trout in Tangiers!
Yes. Yes.
This is, and you probably think I say this all the time, but Catching a Trout in Tangiers is one of my favorite paintings to date. There's something in it, something I was able to capture, right around this area. Do you guys see this? You in the back? You'll all have to come up and get a closer look at this, but the way the sunlight cascades across the tin roof here, it's quite stunning. It really is. And this little fisherboy. How adorable is he? Couldn't you just take him home and call him your own?
Thank you ladies, for all your hard work. These Catching a Trout in Tangierses are truly something you can be proud of. You've all been given your copy, yes? Okay, great. And now why don't you ladies all say "hi" to your adoring patrons.
Yes. Right? Come on out there, more applause for these ladies.
Where's Cecilia?
Ah, yes. There you are. These flash bulbs have blinded me, I- Let's hear it for Cecilia, everybody! Put your hands together. I'm told she was our most involved Painting Technician, yes? Fantastic. Cecilia, why don't you say a few words about the class, and the painting you worked on, and, and about the part you played in bringing such a wonderful Jonas Kingsley Gallery to such a wonderful population of people. Ceclia, everybody! Yes!
Oh, I- I wasn't prepared to speak. Ahem. I didn't think I would get to say anything. I don't really have much to say, I mean it. I'm not really good at talking. But, thanks. No, thanks. No.
Oh, okay.
Well. Hmm. Hi. My name's Cecilia Dunham and, um, well, when I first saw the sign on the door here that said they were looking for painters, um, back in February I guess it was, well, I thought to myself, "you're too old for that sort of thing."
I mean, I always wanted to paint you know. I used to a little bit back in high school and stuff, but I never thought I was good enough. But, yeah, the Painting Technician class was fun. We started out small. There were a lot more people to begin with when the class started, so we didn't have to do as much, but towards the end there was more work. But I didn't mind. I thought was fun. I know, Liz over there- Yeah, you didn't like it so much. No, I'm just kidding. Liz loved it. It was Beth who hated it. Oh, I'm just kidding again. All of us ladies liked it. Even if it was a little boring at times. But it was fun, really. Very much so. Tedious, you know, but you can probably imagine that. Actually, I-
Oh, I don't know if I should be saying this, but-
Oh okay, what the hell.
Hmm. Well. To pass the time, or to help pass the time at least, I mean, I would sometimes switch things up a bit, you know what I mean? Like, for instance, see these flowers here, on the windowsill. The roses. That's what I was in charge of. In the beginning I only had to do these three roses. I had to make them red. But later on I got to do all twelve of the flowers. And the roses were red, but the tulips were both orange and yellow, and the birds of paradise, they were a bunch of different colors. And, well, right around the time I had to start doing all the flowers, I thought to myself, "all these paintings look the same," you know? Wouldn't it be neat if I were able to tell, I mean, years down the road, when I'm over at someone's house and they have one of these, you know, wouldn't it be neat if I were able to point how their's was differ-
"Wait, WHAT?!!" exclaimed Jonas, having just registered what Cecilia was saying.
"Huh?" Cecilia inquired back, a little shocked by Jonas's outburst.
"What did you do?!"
"Oh, n-n-nothing really. I just sometimes switched the tulips around is all. The yellow ones I made orange and the orange ones I sometimes made yellow. And sometimes- "
"On every painting?" asked Jonas, placing his hand over the microphone.
"No. Not every one. Just, like, the second half of them. I didn't get the idea until I started painting all the flowers. And every once in a while I would add a reflection where there wasn't one, on the trout. I mean, sometimes I would forget which way things were supposed to be and I would do it the right way by mistake, but, I guess most of the time, I- "
"Most of the time you did it wrong? Is that what you were going to say?!" asked Jonas, his voice growing more irate.
"Not wrong. Here, look."
Cecilia directed Jonas towards the Most Accurate Kingsley, the one displayed on stage.
"Well, this painting must be an early one. It doesn't have anything switched," Cecilia replied, "but we can check some of the ones in the store, if you want. I can show you. It's not that big a deal."
Jonas face reddened. Then it purpled. His hands tightened. His hands clawed at the back of his neck. He looked around for his Painting Masters, the ones he paid eight dollars an hour to make sure things like this didn't happen. They had vanished.
Then: "Sure enough!" a voice shouted from the Gallery. "These two are different!"
A man was holding up two Catching a Trout in Tangierses while some other mall patrons craned their necks and strained their eyes in the hopes of seeing how they were different. A few others began looking for more different paintings. Then a few others began looking. Then a few others. Then:
"Here's one!"
"This one's different too!"
"Cecilia, how many roses should be red?"
Cecilia was smiling. She shouted, "Three roses should be red, I guess!"
"No! Those are wrong. Put those away!" pleaded a cold-sweating Jonas. Symptoms of shock were appearing.
"This one has no red roses!"
"Stop it! They aren't for sale! Take them off the shelves!" demanded a colorless Jonas to his Gallery employees, but to no avail. His employees were also clammoring for a glance at Cecilia's wrong paintings. Before long, a small chaos had erupted. People who weren't even at the mall for the Gallery's Grand Opening soon found themselves part of the scene. And in the middle of it all was Jonas, desperately trying to snatch his Catching a Trout in Tangierses from the hands of the people. This did nothing but excite the people more. Things got frenzied. Customers were throwing money at cashiers, demanding that they sell them a "different painting." Cecilia was even being asked by some to add her signature to the paintings. Once or twice she signed her name over Jonas Kingsley's. But not on purpose.
Yes, on purpose.
Mall Security was finally called in to intervene. A cotton-mouthed Jonas made the call. He wanted everyone out of his Gallery; he wanted the Gallery, if not the entire Clearview Mall, shut down, and slowly, but surely, the mass was dispersed. Some people left the mall quietly, contently, having managed to sneak out one or more of Cecilia's wrong paintings. Those that had their wrong paintings confiscated were either left angry by the whole ordeal or a bit saddened. Most people, however, were just plain confused as to how they ended up part of a mob. That wasn't like them, they thought. They weren't ones to mob at the mall.
In the end, only a dozen or so Different Catching a Trout in Tangierses made their way out of the Gallery that day. For the most part, the Clearview Mall's security guards were successful in handling the situation, calming the people down, and sending them on their way. The police showed up, but were not needed. The whole ordeal lasted only about twenty minutes. The mall stayed open but the Gallery pulled its gate.
The panic, however, would not leave Jonas's body. He loaded the eight original paintings he planned on selling into the back of his Ford Expedition and drove away from the mall, out of West Tangiers, southward, out of Maine. On his way out, he made more phone calls. He ordered all seventy-nine of his Galleries to be shut down too, and it was unclear when exactly he intended to open them back up. Then he went and halted the four other Jonas Kingsley Painting Technician classes currently in session. He told the Master Technicians in charge to tell the students not to show up, not tonight, not tomorrow night, not the night after that.
The machine had broke.
What's more, word of what happened was starting to spread. Every news channel in the tri-state area was there, and not one of them headlined something other than the scene outside the new Jonas Kingsley Gallery. Someone from the Channel 2 11 o'clock news called it "a landmark in consumer expression." Channel 4 went all the way and likened it to Women's Suffrage. The scene was referred to as an uprising by some, a mutiny by others, a "mall art movement" by Art Forum Magazine, and Good Morning America would cover it the following day.
The machine had most definitely broke.
Cecilia left the mall at five o'clock, after conducting multiple interviews with news stations and the local paper. That night she sat on her back porch, staring out into her overgrown backyard. In the weeks that followed, she would quit her job at the bank and take up a position as a secretary in the high school's principal's office. It was a move she hoped would eventually lead to teaching an art class, but it never did. This bothered her, but only so much. It didn't stop her from making her art. In fact it may have increased production. In the weeks, months, years that followed, Cecilia would go on to make countless arts and crafts. Calendars, quilts, stained-glass window hangings, clay candlesticks, and so forth, all of which she kept in her home. Her home became filled to the brim--there wasn't an empty space in sight--for despite the pleas of her friends that she sell her work at street fairs and seafood cook-offs, Cecilia never did. She never wanted to. What she made were things she couldn't part with and that no printing press could reproduce. Wanting to sell was something Cecilia never felt. When she read that a Different Catching a Trout in Tangiers had fetched $7,000 in New York City, she simply cut the article out of the newspaper, decorated it with glitter, and stuck it in a scrap book.
She would often wonder, though, to some extent or another, every day for the rest of her long life, what exactly it was that caused the scene at the mall. Was there any possible way she could make something like that again?
Jonas left Maine and drove straight to his childhood home in Blue Ash, Ohio. It was a tiny home, three rooms total, and it sat tucked away in a dense forest of elm and oak trees. No one lived there anymore--both his parents were dead--but Jonas never had any intention of selling the home. He always thought it would make a good museum one day. An inspirational pit-stop for aspiring mall painters travelling through central Ohio. He would have to clear away some of those trees though, before it could become The Birthplace of Jonas Kingsley, the Painter of LifeTM.
That was his final thought. Those trees. It will be two more years before his body is found.
© 2005 Thomas Edward Bayne