Canvas

The room is ivory white, devoid of even a hint of furniture. The air is still, without a sense of movement, as if holding its breath in anticipation. The walls extend gracefully into the distance, like long lost friends. The ceiling and the floor seem to appear suddenly, as if from nowhere. Music flows, through dots chiselled into heavenly patterns in the air. On the floor, there is a tangled piece of black thread, an old crumpled postcard, a spool of brown tape, a child's colouring book, a broken pair of spectacles and a little wooden cube with dots carved into its faces.

They sit there sprawled on the floor, backs leant against each other, facing opposite directions. An ink bottle lies sideways on the ground beside them, its blue contents let loose onto the soft floor. He rolls words between his inky palms, tapping his feet lazily to a ground drifting in thought. Her eyes are closed, head tilted lingeringly towards the ceiling, the song's melody pirouetting on her tongue. Patches of inky blue adorn their clothing, as if drawing shapes to the tune of a waltzing zephyr. Memory paints itself into the distance, a peevish shadow creeping through a pale white darkness.

The artist steps back from the canvas, surrendering the tableau to existence. Wavy shapes that dissolve into the ivory emptiness of the room, like smudgy watercolour. A bird frozen on the threshold of a soaring flight, outstretched wings on the cusp of a cloudless horizon.