Stay: Gallery Again

I walk up to him, biting my bottom lip the way I do when I'm trying to suppress a laugh. He's sitting in the "Stay" room, easel set up in the middle of the room holding a large canvas. He focuses so intently on his work that he doesn't notice me come in to stand beside him. I barely touch his elbow, and he jumps a little. He looks up at me, beaming when he recognizes me. He starts cleaning his brush on a pure white cloth. 

"What do you think," he asks, nodding his head towards the painting. 

"I like it," I reply, attempting stoicism when really I'm fit to burst. A single eyebrow tells me he doesn't believe me. "Well, it's not finished yet," I try to cover. 

"Exactly. It's not finished."

I realize now as he's cleaning his brush, staining the once-soft white cloth with pigment, the part I play in making sure those pigments meet canvas again. He gets up and walks away, leaving me with the unfinished work. It's larger than the others and even though it's not finished; it's an instant favorite. It's different from the others, markedly so. Yet, the style is the same. The strokes were all applied with the same hand. The colors in their infancy will contain the characteristics of their precursors. I look at it, displayed on the starkly-simple light wood easel in the center of the room, away from the lights that illuminate its siblings. Even in the shaky shadows, it still outshines the others. 

Looking at the collection around me, I want to curl up in a corner and set up house. I love this collection more than all the others, even the ones I should love more, the ones anyone would guess I did love more; but this one is my secret. I never want it to end. There's no reason it should continue, but secretly I always want a working easel in this room. In it's simplicity and quiet, unassuming beauty, it's all I've ever wanted but thought I could never have. 

Reluctantly I remember that all rooms have walls that must connect and end.