Tale 68- The Artist of the Sky

The days passed, the Traveler having left the home and walking onwards toward the next village. There was a young woman performing in the streets, wearing a giant pair of stilts and towering above everyone below, several children waving at her. The Traveler watched as she hopped down, her performance ending for the day, and got the familiar sensation, deciding to approach her. The woman was quite friendly, the Traveler merely asking if she had any stories to tell, explaining she found herself intrigued, and the woman laughed and said she had one that she was planning to tell her younger sister that evening, asking if the Traveler would like to hear it. She opened her book and nodded, the woman leaning on her stilts and telling the tale of ‘the Artist of the Sky’

‘Once, there was a young artist who lived by the sea, and who set about painting the sky. She toiled for hours on end, practicing her clouds, forming the sun just at the perfect point in the sky, but by the time she was finished, the painting was no longer accurate. Frustrated, she painted over everything, now painting the sunset, pinks and purples and yellows decorating the perimeter of the beautiful orange sun. But by the time she finished, it was nightfall, and now the sky shone with a million stars. She painted over everything again, this time depicting the millions of lights shining above the waters. By morning, she’d repainted the image over and over, and decided to devote her life to painting the sky each hour, repainting her image every time of day, until it was finally perfect.’

The Traveler finished writing the story, before wondering to herself. Is it possible to accurately capture the full scope of someone or something on paper, to be preserved with all its wants and woes and loves? Or is it only possible to capture a fragment, a small crystallized image of a whole? Would it be possible to preserve every inch of the Traveler on paper, or would there forever be a thousand unknowns, a thousand unanswered questions which would never be documented, as she would never speak them aloud? One could only guess what happened in the head of another, after all. She gave a small sigh and thanked the performer for the tale, the woman waving her off as she headed toward the forest once more, hoping to find a clearing to rest in.

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