The Sparrow's Path

Monday

Art on a wall, like a painting in particular, can be a strange thing. It spends most of its life in one place, and largely ignored by anyone or anything around it. With some notable exceptions which hang in climate-controlled, motion-sensored galleries across metropolitan museums, a typical painting endures long stretches of disregard from its human viewers, punctuated only by short bouts of sharp indifference. In rare cases, a painting might activate the mind of someone searching for the wonders of emotion not normally supplied by their lot of ordinary experiences. In the very best case, that someone may be induced into a calming serenity, privileged for a fleeting moment with an elixir of inner contemplation that, like clockwork, dissipates instantly upon the distraction of thoughts like why one ought to care about art in the first place. The rest of the time, paintings are more or less a burst of intriguing colors meant to chop up the monotony of the off-white panels which bridge one room to the next.

Even so, there was a particular painting in Julian's apartment which did not, and very well could not, conform to the boring expectations of its kind. The painting was an illustration of a boy and his dog, walking forward out of the frame, through the frame, against a backdrop of a city park adorned with a recreational shed and a small pond. The sky is greyish-blue, the boy is happy in his jaunt, and the dog is following appreciably. This painting, however, is not one of a boy and a dog in a park, at least it may not be, depending on which vantage point the observer takes. While it looks like a boy and a dog in the park from one point of view, one slight movement in any direction would reveal another image, that of a murky visage of a melancholy, elderly man. The clouds above -- both light and dark -- sketch out his bushy grey eyebrows and deep grey pupils, while the boy's body -- bright on the left, shadow on the right -- reveals a curved, squiggly nose pointing down to the ground. Flat, motionless lips rise up from the contours of the grass, while flecks of dirt in the ground approximate the man's stubble-ridden cheeks. Streaks of sunlight through the clouds above transform into flashing locks of hair. The dog, once longingly looking to his master, now gazes wistfully at the vast and brooding expression above.

The painting hung in Julian's bedroom, on the wall to the side of his bed. In between the bed and the painting was a small side table with an alarm clock. Every morning, Julian woke up on cue from the sounds of the clock, turning onto his side to turn off the alarm, and opening his eyes for the first time to the sight of this dual-identity art piece. Whether he saw the boy and dog or the grim-faced man is a matter of chance. Sometimes he hoped to see one or the other, but most often he was content to let the painting decide.

On this Monday morning, Julian turned to his side to turn off the alarm, set earlier than most Mondays. 6:09am. He had already hit snooze once, and the alarm was roaring back to wake him again. He thought to himself: why are the intervals in between snoozes nine minutes? Seemed like an odd number to pick, especially since it was so close to ten, a much more conventional interval to break apart time. Perhaps Herb would have something to say about it, he figured. He turned off the alarm, and opened his eyes to the wall with the painting. On this day, he hoped for the boy and dog.

He saw the old man.

Julian rose out of bed and began his morning routine, which was in many ways Franny's morning routine as well. Brushing his teeth and scratching her ears. Taking a shower and rubbing her belly by the shower mat. Pouring coffee into his mug plus dry food into her bowl. Franny was persistent in demanding her morning needs, beginning her overtures with gentle leanings of her body on and around his legs and gradually escalating in intensity into verbal berating and clawed assaults of the couch. At which point Julian acquiesced to Franny depended on how much patience, free time, and alertness he had while beginning his day. Despite the obvious extortion, Julian rationalized his capitulation by noting that Franny did hold up her end of the implicit bargain between the two of them. After being satiated, she would quiet down and retire to the den for her daytime nap.