The crowd mills about in the room, unhindered, unguided by the gallery owner whose initial shock was swallowed up in their indecision.

The night rolls on and I am telling strangers about a grandfather who was an admiral, a father who raped me, a mother who died in childbirth. These people believe me, believe they'll see a rainbow of color on my paintings if only the sun would shine. It is outrageously funny to me.

"These are the blank faces you see in the berries," I say, and they nod as if they were let in on a secret.

The End

or, The Beginning