“But why are the clocks melting?” he asked, tilting his head to the side and studying the painting on his easel.
“I don’t know, my love,” Gala answered, coming to stand behind him and looking over his shoulder at the still-wet work. “Perhaps you were trying to say something about time.”
“Perhaps,” he muttered absently while his eyes continued to dart across the canvas, devouring every detail. “Why don’t I remember painting it?”
“I don’t know,” she purred in his ear. “Maybe you were so taken with the muse — ”
“You are my muse, Gala.” He turned to face her, smiling. “This painting will make me famous.”
“I’ve no doubt.”
“I never painted anything like this before I met you. I’ve never been so inspired, so…”
“Happy?” she supplied.
“Happy. Yes, happy.” He leaned over to kiss her and she wrapped her paint-smudged hands around his back, holding him against her. His long, thin moustache tickled her cheek while their lips danced against one another. When at last they broke their embrace, he turned once more to regard the painting and she tucked her hands into her pockets. “I just wish I remembered painting it.”
“Perhaps then,” she said, with a smile on her lips and in her eyes, “you ought to title it something not to do with time, but The Persistence of Memory.”
“I may at that,” Salvadore laughed, and shook his head. “Yes, I may at that.”
Rhonda Parrish is a writer and poet who hates writing her own bio. She is also the editor of Niteblade Magazine. You can find out more about her at her webpage, Rhonda Parrish dot Com.
