CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

XCII: Present

That night he dreamed of a macabre gallery where all his paintings gazed down at him.

They were countless. Crabs and carousals. Herons and homes. Forest and futurescapes. Insects and ice cream parlors. Graphic comics of half-finished panels of spiderlings. Boats cutting through the bay waves.

Dinosaurs from a younger age, where crayon and colored pencil had ruled and eyes were flattened on the same side of the reptilian faces.

And he could hear the Le Mans roaring, feel the heat of a fire lick against his heels, smoke filling his vision. Engine gunning for him.

Brendon struggled awake, sighing roughly against his pillow. For a moment he thought he couldn’t breathe, a pressure against his chest. Then Orion’s arm twitched, shifting the weight of it so it pressed more belly than lungs.

He sucked in a deep breath. Lifted slightly off the bed that he might see the shadow of the brown paper of Casey’s painting. Then he relaxed again with a shiver, the roaring of the Le Mans still singing in his ears as he fell back asleep.

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Next Chapter Coming December 15th