Ian M. Anderson

The sun room: Piles of boxes, photo albums, cobwebs, sheets draped over furniture like so many playhouse ghosts, like so many early memories that could be fading dreams born from the imagination of a hurting soul. And the piano in the corner. *** The memory of the sun room came back to Martin as he held a green head of cabbage in the produce section of the grocery store. His first reaction, once the image faded, was to text his brother: "Grandma had a piano?" He slid his phone into his pocket and grabbed another cabbage, Grandma Morris taking more space in his brain: She had sun-catchers dangling on the windows -- mostly cardinals, bright red, and he remembered passing his hands through the crimson light. The text back from his brother read, "Grandma Morris? Don't you remember her sun room? We eat in 10 min. from now -- that means at 7." Martin had both cabbages pressed to his ribs with his left arm and he tapped out another text with his right hand. ...

The night Mr. Daphne met his end was the same night the ancient almond tree that overlooked Saint Dominic's Parish Church was struck by lightning. Only one person saw both the flash that split the tree down the middle and Mr. Daphne struck dead, and that was Jeremy Fields. He was also one of two people who understood the irony of the morning after Mr. Daphne's death, for he saw what no one else was looking for, and only Father Abel listened to tramps like Jeremy. The day of his death, Mr. Daphne renewed his campaign to save the church. From under the forsythia bushes Jeremy awakened to the clip-clop of dress shoes on the stone walk; he rolled over muttering to himself about grass and flowers just in time to ignore what came next. "I said, this is no place to sleep. Go on. There's a place for you down the road. Go on." Mr. Daphne, his slick face growing pale and then flushing pink, whispered further threats to the bushes before he turned abruptly in order to catc...

(From Art and Man , 3rd ed, page 173: "...for instance, an artist such as a painter will work out the same theme or landscape dozens of times with many variations. A sketchbook belonging to the same artist may contain pages dedicated to faces, still more to a certain shape of hip or nose, others seem obsessed with eyes. Finished paintings or drawings are no exception, and critics go mad with questions about the repetition -- with the simple answer: the artist does not finish a theme at one stroke; variety dances in the mind.") 1. An old studio apartment. The plaster walls on three sides are bare and uncleaned, but the fourth, however, holds two paintings -- copies of what at first look like the same scene. Closer inspection reveals they differ slightly, and those who know van Gogh's technique will recognize his work. Both done in 1889, the paintings share a common title, though some have given an extra name to the second to distinguish it from the first: The Road Mend...