Hey, how’d you get here?
You didn’t just click that link, did you? Because now look at you . . .
You’re fading . . .
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Fading . . .
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Fading . . .
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PLINK.
We vanish. Just like that.
For a moment, we float between worlds.
Between time and space.
Between all the words spoken and all the things left unsaid.
Between life and death.
Between reality and art.
DOINK.
We snap out of our little world and blink in the weird, yellow-orange light. The majestic setting sun oversees busy women harvesting in a field.
A shallow river snakes away from us in search of a new direction.
‘This place is beautiful. Where are we?’ you ask. ‘Wait a minute, why are those people dressed like they’re in an episode of Bridgerton?’
‘It’s not quite Bridgerton, but it’s close enough,’ I say. ‘This, my friend, is Arles, France, and it’s the year 1888.’
‘What? We’ve travelled back in time?’ A weird dance of emotions plays out on your face until you just stare at me and I think you’ve run out of facial expressions.
‘Chill out. C’mon. There’s someone I want you to meet.’ I take a couple of strides up the hill. ‘Are you coming?’
You mutter something about not clicking any more bloody links, but you follow anyway.
‘He’s just over here . . .’ I point to a figure hidden behind an easel and a large canvas.
We rock up next to the stranger. He’s chuntering away to himself as he stabs and prods at the canvas with his brush.
‘Vincent? Vincent van Gogh?’
‘Oui,’ he says, casting us the dirtiest of looks.
‘C’est bon,’ I say, admiring his canvas.
‘NON.’ He stamps his foot. ‘C’est terrible. Je suis un imposteur.’ He rants in some weird French/Dutch hybrid accent. We back away slowly. Verrryyy slowly.
Van Gogh’s ranting away, flailing his arms at the landscape and stabbing accusations at his canvas like it’s soaking up the paint wrong.
‘Whoops.’ I grin. ‘That didn’t go as expected.’
‘What did you expect? Why have we come here?’
‘Do you see this?’ I gesture at the beauty of the landscape. ‘And do you see him? Vincent.’
‘Uh-huh.’ You nod.
‘He’s painting the Red Vineyard. It’s the only work he was able to sell while he was alive.’
A crinkle of confusion slides across your face.
‘It’s true. And at the same time hard to believe. He was one of the greatest artists of his time. He created over nine hundred paintings in ten years . . .
‘And yet, he lived a life of poverty.’
‘But how could that be?’ You chew your lip, and I see your thinking face.
‘Because he didn’t know how to sell his art. He never worked out how to answer the one question that his potential buyers were thinking.
‘And believe it or not, it’s the very same question that your readers are asking.’
We stand in silence and watch the man work.
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Want to know what that one question is?
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