Sanguine

In the afternoons, Sanguine painted The Constable’s portrait. Sanguine, of course, was the name only he knew. To everybody else, he was The Painter. Even if he tried to utter his real name, to say the word Sanguine, his tongue swelled and his hands, so talented with the brush, the pencil, became useless. In those moments, Sanguine became terrified he might forget his real name as had happened to so many others. The Constable, for example, no longer knew his name. If asked, he frowned and scratched at himself, looking lost, as if not knowing what a name was, let alone his own.

Sanguine took The Constable’s portrait quickly. He had over a thousand years of practice, after all. The Constable sat perfectly; you would think him dead, if it weren’t for his breathing. When everything was complete, Sanguine turned the easel for The Constable to see.

‘Fantastic,’ The Constable said, ‘you have very much outdone yourself, my man.’

A hand clapped Sanguine on the back, a crumbled bill arrived in his palm. 

The Constable kept his portraits in his jail cell. It is as if I have committed a dozen crimes, he told Sanguine once. Whenever I pass, a crowd of me, serving a lifetime of sentences. Sanguine watched him leave, tottering away on his bicycle. The sun shone through sparse clouds, already the day was getting away from him.

Sanguine returned to the roof. Here white crows with red beaks gathered. He tossed a clod of moss at them, and watched as they wheeled about the roof, squawking, wailing, only to land once more upon the guttering and take to cleaning themselves. 

There was much to do today. Loose tiles. A kink in the weathervane. The drainpipe full of mulch. 

Inside, more tasks awaited. The grouting needed replacing, the gate repainting. The switch in the dining room turned on the bathroom light; the switch in the bathroom turned on the cooker. He needed to dust. He needed to sweep, to do the dishes, iron the shirts, reorganise the books, fix the table’s wobbly leg. The oven smelled off. The bin was nearly full. 

Other stuff nagged at him. He was missing a fork. The radio kept making this staticky sound. None of the skirting boards quite matched. And all this dreck pushed away the task he really wished to complete: The Painting. The Painting that, so far, he’d spent nearly seven hundred and ninety two years upon.

On certain days, he made it to the attic, exhausted, yes, but feeling warm and good with the brush in his hand. The creaking floorboards and dripping taps retreated when he touched brush to canvas. Why, he asked himself, why don’t I just do this all the time?

Outside, the sky turned a bruised purple. Sanguine wondered whether he would see the moon today. He managed only a few minutes of painting, before he went to fetch his coat. It was time to go to The Forest.

When he left the house, a crowd of villagers were heading towards the black trees which gathered to the west of the river. Sanguine saw faces he knew: The Clerk, The Secretary, The Philistine, The Orthodontist, The Jobsworth, The Magistrate. Some, the practical ones, bore candles. He merged with the crowd at the bridge. It was polite to remain silent - this was, after all, a sacred time - so that was what Sanguine did, remained silent. 

Black and long dead, the trees of the forest groaned in the evening winds. Nothing else grew in the rich white sand at their bases. Once, The Dendrologist told Sanguine they were oaks, but Sanguine did not believe him. The Dendrologist said every tree was an oak, but this could not be true, thought Sanguine, else what would be the point of the names?

The crows circled overhead. As the villages filtered out to their allotted spots, the birds perched in the branches and cawed. Their red beaks dotted the canopy like beads.

A crimson box awaited Sanguine at his spot. Inside would be a gift. Usually he opened it at home, lighting a candle, making something of it, but already it was far too late, the sun was almost set, so he opened it before The Forest, leaving the pink ribbon that adorned the box fall among the sands. Oh, he thought, upon seeing his gift, again. Inside were several dozen clothes pegs. He forced a smile onto his face. With as much cheer as he felt possible to muster, he said:

‘I give my thanks for the gifts of The Forest.’

Around him, the other villagers repeated this chant. This was the fifth day he’d received clothes’ pegs from the forest.

On his return, he saw The Constable with his box under his arm. His scars had healed. He raised a now unbroken hand in greeting.

The gift box went in the cupboard, alongside some hundred others. Every year, they made a pyre in the main square and burned the boxes. The Chocolatier made gifts and these were disrupted among the villagers; The Demolitionist set off fireworks. They celebrated until sunset, and only then did they disperse; they were appointments to keep, after all, errands to run.

In his house, the chimes named the hour. Sanguine sat in his armchair, trying to calm his heart. But whatever he did it continued to thump relentlessly in his chest. Already the old wounds were appearing on his neck. The knock came at 8.05. Sanguine removed his top and stepped outside.

The Executioner perched upon a wooden block, wearing his black hood and garb. His axe leant against his upper body. He scraped a whetstone across its blade. In the silence, this rang out loud, as if he were sharpening the entire world. Sanguine knelt in the same spot as always. The mud before his door was scored from night after night of this ritual, so that now, in the semi-darkness, the moist earth cupped his knees.

‘Was it a good day?’ The Executioner asked.

‘Same as always, some good, some bad.’

‘I believe this should be one of the bad bits.’

‘Correct.’

The Executioner shrugged and rose to his feet.

‘The axe is a little blunter than usual.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing much, only that it may take more strikes than usual.’

‘I never feel the second strik-’

The jolt of return still surprised Sanguine. For an hour after waking, his neck ached and he struggled to breathe. Usually, he woke arranged in bed or on one of the armchairs. The Executioner, he had been told, liked him. Other villagers woke to find the noose still around their neck or the knife buried in their guts. Some, who The Executioner actively disliked, woke on rooftops, soggy from rain, or folded up beneath the floorboards of their abode. These unlucky few went about their days cramped, an ever present crick in the neck, trouble bending down, knees, elbows, shoulders, all shot.

Down by the river, Sanguine came upon The Sister fishing. A small wicker box sat beside her, with a set of tackles spread across its lid. Arrayed upon the bank, her rods wilted towards the river. A mist lingered here, which never seemed to leave. Despite her daily expedition, burdened by angling equipment, half drunk from her morning whisky, The Sister never seemed to catch any fish. Sanguine wondered whether any lived in the river, as he possessed no memories of ever seeing one.

‘Hello,’ she said, ‘I did not expect to see you today.’

‘I usually go by the path.’

Two empty bottles of whisky gathered by her feet, seemingly confiding with one another; a third, half full, leant against the wicker basket. She swigged from it, then turned to Sanguine.

‘Do you think this is the village we lived in before?’

Sanguine shook his head. Where he was before felt much denser and less muddy. The name of such a place escaped him.

‘The village I used to live in,’ The Sister continued, ‘had a granary. But there’s no granary here. So I think this must be someone else’s village, someone who perhaps saw me in passing and now I’ve arrived here, as a sort of figurine for them.’

‘What’s a granary?’

‘A place for storing grain.’

‘Isn’t that one?’ Sanguine asked, pointing across the tiled roofs and chimneys to the tilting white tower on the horizon. 

‘Could be?’ The Sister said. ‘Might have been?’

Curiously, Sanguine found a selection of dice in his right pocket. 

‘Do you remember your past life?’ Sanguine asked.

‘Only that there was a granary in my village.’

‘The Constable says he remembers his dogs and his wife. They bring him comfort. Does the memory of the granary bring you comfort?’

‘No,’ The Sister said, ‘no more than dreams.’

On his return home, Sanguine saw The Dandies dragging The Constable out onto the street. They wore trusses and curls. Handkerchiefs bloomed from their pockets. With their pimpled faces contorted from giggling, they struck at The Constable with whips and canes and stamped upon him with heels. One pulled down The Constable’s trousers. Another pulled free a knife, its handle inlaid with jewels.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Does the collective believe this implement adequate?’ 

One shook his head. ‘Thou have unveiled a knife for buttering and inquired into its adequacy for barbarism? Whatever next? A silent concerto? A pig dressed for marriage and presented as a bride?’

The third came over, leering. ‘Regardless of an object’s observed adequacy,’ he said, ‘one must make do.’

He snatched the blade from the others and began making his way after The Constable. 

Sanguine tried to ignore the screams peeling out from the village square. At home, he bolted the door.

When The Constable arrived for his portrait that day, his eye was swollen and his nose broken.

‘Do you want a drink?’ Sanguine asked. ‘You look as if you need one.’

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Let’s just get on with it.’

Sanguine painted the portrait, and quick. He felt kind today, and this kindness came through in the painting. He made The Constable look noble. Kingly.

Usually, Sanguine did not feel so kind. Often, he gave The Constable rotten teeth, warts, big, ugly ears. Nothing grotesque, just enough so that when The Constable looked at the portrait he had an unfavourable view of himself. 

One day perhaps The Constable would finally notice and no longer arrive, beaten and bloody, for his portrait every afternoon. Sanguine hoped as much, but this was all it was, a hope, a stone tossed, objectiveless, into the sea.

On his way out, the portrait tucked under his arm, The Constable paused.

‘I never asked,’ he said. ‘How does it happen for you?’

‘Beheading,’ said Sanguine and sliced his finger across his neck.

‘Oh,’ The Constable said and took to examining the horizon. ‘Do you come from France?’

That night, when The Executioner lifted his axe, Sanguine thought: What’s France?

Sanguine once filled a jar with the white sand found about the bases of the black trees of the forest. He stashed it beneath his kitchen sink. The next day, the jar was gone. Come evening, he saw it, thirty feet into the forest, the sunlight catching the glass.

If you placed your ears to the black bark of the trees, you could hear faint - very faint - laughter.

One afternoon, a new villager arrived along the river. The boatman, shawled in ragged grey robes, faceless, worked the oars in silence. She bore the confused look of all new villagers, frowning at this new world, which she understood, but could not quite remember, as if it was a recently disassembled puzzle, now she could only get the corners and some of the edges, the rest, no matter what she tried, did not seem to fit together.

The villagers gathered on the banks with candles. The new villager stood and brushed the sawdust from her dress. This made a good impression. A sense of propriety was necessary in the villagers’ diminished state. Hands reached out for her. She took hold of them and stepped dainty, ladylike, onto the bank.

The Milkmaid, who had long since crossed to The Forest, used to place a wreath over the heads of new villagers. She assembled these from bracken and shell-like flowers. No one knew where the flowers came from. They did not grow in the village, nor the barren hinterlands surrounding it. Now, with The Milkmaid gone, the villagers instead gifted new arrivals with a pair of socks. These were grey with pink horses upon them, freshly knitted by the baroness.

‘Oh thank you, that’s awfully, wonderfully kind,’ the new villager said.

She wore spectacles and announced that she was once a librarian. Well, that’s what she thought, anyway. There were cheers. The Mayor, bedecked in his chain of office and vast cape, arrived to present the landmarks of the village. 

‘I am not quite sure we have books here,’ he said, ‘but perhaps we can find some for you.’

The crowd, led by The Mayor and The Librarian, headed towards the village. Several of them, mostly men, tried to make The Librarian laugh, but none succeeded, mostly through dint of their eagerness.

Sanguine remained on the bank. Out on the water, The Boatman re-oiled his lantern. He stank, even from a distance, of fish and sweat. In silence, he nudged an oar against the bank and pushed out into the water. Sanguine tried to remember whether he, Sanguine, knew how to row a boat. The Boatman faded into the fog; if the work was hard, he did not show it. 

The Sister arrived with her whisky and fishing rods.

‘Do you think anybody has tried to copy him?’ Sanguine asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ The Sister said. ‘Wouldn’t we know about that?’

‘No,’ said Sanguine.

The Sister shrugged.

‘Perhaps we should try,’ she said. ‘You know, I have a boat in the church.’

Sanguine reached the painting early that day. It looked good, but something was not quite right. Not in a way that announced itself, but a different, quiet incorrectness, that he had to search for. He paced, made countless drinks, stared, for all too long, out of the window. Finally, he saw it. 

He worked for the afternoon upon the pale flesh of a cherub’s elbow. He wanted it to look as if the cherub had recently leant upon some rough surface. This work took time. He mixed pinks and reds, tried new blends, new shades. But still it was not quite right. Soon enough, the day was almost up.

The crows were on the roof again; through the window, the black trees of the forest loomed.

The frame was here before Sanguine arrived. When he climbed into the attic, it was as if it was waiting for him, along with the oils, the palette, the brushes. It dominated the attic space. To reach its upper corners, Sanguine required a stool. Lengthwise, even with both arms spread, he could not touch both sides. For some two hundred years, he ignored it.

But then, on an impulse, he began making sketches in the spare moments of his day, usually minutes before the axe was raised, usually to calm his nerves. Slowly, very slowly, his sketching spread across the hours. Soon enough, when he was not running errands or completing chores, he was sketching and this, somehow, made him feel right, like a ball, running smoothly along a groove.

He conceived of the painting as a classical scene - a river, a forest, and a crowd deep in discussion, surrounded by ruins and watched over by the gods. The sky would be a vast blue vault, dotted with clouds. Later, during its composition, the crows arrived, taking up their places in the branches, pecking at the ground. But this was not until some time into its composition. He began with the ruins. Doric. This was the word which kept coming back to him. He did not know what it meant. Perhaps it was another word for columns. So, yes, figures, emerging from a pair of dorics, in discussion, heading on.

He liked its size, the vastness of it. If it were small, no one would consider his painting a great work. If it was small, it was almost a waste of time.

‘Scale makes the soul sing loud,’ Sanguine said to The Constable one day.

‘Sing? I thought you were a painter.’ His voice was reedy; earlier, The Dandies had broken his jaw and the wound had not yet healed.

He often remembered the first brush stroke. A short black line, just off from centre. He scratched it out the following day. No, he thought, while scraping the paint from the canvas, utterly incorrect.

Rainwater pooled in the nave of the church. Most of the pews were shattered and a statue, headless, arms wide, stood at its centre. A noose hung in the transept. She should remove that, thought Sanguine, after she’s done for the day.

‘Did you bring it?’ The Sister asked.

Sanguine unwrapped the bread. It was hard, hard enough to plug holes in the walls of his house.

‘I don’t think we’ll need it, it didn’t seem to take that long to arrive here.’

Sanguine cannot remember his crossing, but even so, it felt long, a number of days at least.

In the basement, The Sister unveiled the raft. It was made from pieces of broken pews and the confession box. Removing it from the church took more geometry than Sanguine anticipated. It kept catching on walls and doorways. At one point, The Sister took a hammer to it, so that it could fit through the main entrance.

They trekked through the village with the raft upon their shoulders. The house of The Arsonist burnt crisply in the morning fog. From his attic window, The Constable watched them go, shaking his head.

At the river, they launched the raft onto the water. They waited nervously, their feet wetted by the river’s ebb. It drifted along, turning in the flow. 

‘I told you so,’ The Sister said, as if Sanguine had doubted her this whole time. 

With paddles shaped from driftwood, they pushed off the bank. At first, the progress they made was swift. The village retreated to the horizon and they passed the windmill, its crooked spokes turning in the low wind. They flowed alongside a field of dead flowers. This was the furthest either had been from the village and shortly after they went past the statue of the headless horse which only The Cartographer had spoken of. But the paddling was demanding. Sanguine’s breathing was ragged and he could feel the weight of exertion in his chest. He had splinters in both palms. A damp circle had formed on The Sister’s habit. They did not stop though. They feared getting caught and this fear pushed them on. 

At points, The Sister drank - big swigs, barely breathing between chugs; she held the bottle out to Sanguine when she was done, but he only shook his head.

‘Your loss,’ she said.

Soon enough, the bottle was empty. She hurled it downriver. They pass it, later, rotating in a swell.

‘Were you a drinker in your former life?’

‘No idea. I’m not sure I was even a nun.’ 

Soon, the river expanded and became everything. They realised, almost simultaneously, that they had reached the sea. Sunlight played goldenly upon its contours. It reeked of brine and salt. On either side of them, sand, white, but not white like the sand of the forest, expanded ever outwards. Before them was the horizon, but nothing was upon it except water. Birds dotted the sky - not crows, something white and loud. 

They drifted out onto it, propelled by the river’s flow. Trepidation filled Sanguine’s heart. He did not think he could die, but he worried he could become lost out here, that all he was doing was replacing one eternity with another. 

‘We should have some bread,’ The Sister said, ‘to celebrate.’

The bread tasted like dust. Long ago, Sanguine had resigned himself to this fact. Everything, from the fruit that grew on the trees, to the stringy meat on the rabbits and white lizards, tasted like dust. Still, hunger made him choke it down and soon enough they were going again. 

There was a rhythm to their movement now. The oars made contact with the water, flowed neatly through it, and were pulled free with ease. They rowed in silence. Neither talked about what they wished to find. Saying it out loud,  Sanguine felt, would taint it.

Soon enough, they could no longer hear the not crows.

An hour went by, then The Sister demanded they stop. She remained hunched over, gasping for air. Sanguine waited, oar in hand, for her to regain her composure. Behind them, some distance now, a faint line of white marked the shore. The sun was drifting towards the horizon, soon it would be night.

‘Can you go on?’ Sanguine asked.

She nodded and picked up the oar once more. They went on for another hour. Sanguine’s hands stung from the splinters and blisters, like fat white leeches, were forming upon his palms. His knees felt cramped and his shoulders screamed every time he pulled the oar through the water. He gritted his teeth against the pain.

They kept on and on, until they had nothing left. They collapsed in heaps upon the raft, barely able to breathe. It seemed they were still no closer. The sun was coming down; Sanguine raised his head from the damp boards of the raft. It had been a long time since he had seen a sunset. 

When the sky was illuminated in reds and oranges, and these reds and oranges swam upon the water, and it seemed the whole world was presenting itself just for him, he felt suddenly small and undivine. This, he thought, was why he became a painter. But no. To paint this would build a divide between himself and the world. Somehow, painting this would take it from him. All he wished was to be here, to be time observing itself.

Soon enough, the sun completed its descent, glowering redly, then winking out of existence and leaving the world dark. The raft’s bobbing and The Sister’s ragged breathing broke his reverie. They shared the bread again. Already, they were halfway through it. Sanguine looked to the distant horizon. Did they really have enough to last? The Sister chewed mechanically and picked the crumbs off her habit. If she was worried about the lack of bread, she kept it to herself.

That night, he woke intermittently. Upon his back, on the soft sway of the raft, he scanned the starless sky, but found no moon. The waters moved blackly beyond the raft. He listened to the vastness of the sea. The Sister slept, her hand held between her legs, and her breathing soft. Eventually, the rocking sent him back to sleep. He felt weak, too weak to meet the dawn.

The Sister was gone when he woke.

The bread was gone too. He expected to see her floating, face down, upon the water, but all he saw were the waves.

He took up his oar and began. It was twice as hard now. His stomach howled through the long morning, longing for the bread. Near noon, it quieted, but he still felt wrung out and hollow. He cursed The Sister for her selfishness. On he went, his hands turning slowly to mulch, his body clamped in pain. Soon the oar became heavy and he had to lay it down. He rested his head upon the raft and tried to gather her strength. Just stay, he told himself, just stay here for a while.

He fell into half-sleep, and dreamt of a half remembered France. There were trees and people talking to him about mice. Every few hours, someone stepped outside and set fire to a bucket. Pegs were currency and people displayed manure in their abodes. Here, he was a famous tobogganist. People said: oh look, here is the famous tobogganist, wherever he went. His mother, face veiled, asked him when his next event was, but he doesn’t know mother, they just tell him on the day. I've told you this before; you don’t listen. Oh, sorry, yes, that makes a lot of sense, silly me.

Sanguine woke, starving. Dream spires shimmered on the horizon; somewhere, a bell tolled. Calling for dinner, probably. 

The oar had come off the boat. He paddled towards it, the raft’s wood scratching his stomach. When he pulled it onto the boat, it felt heavier than before. He might die out here, with this hole in his stomach and this thirst and these insistent bells. He pushed the oar into the water. It was no longer the sea he was paddling through, instead he was making progress along a street of thick mud. People came out of their houses to heckle him. They told him his ankles were weak, that his pets, all seven of them, would abandon him, that rain, so democratic, did not deign to fall upon him. He edged forward, ignoring the foul insults about his mother. An hour later, he woke up on his back, the sun searing spots onto his sight. Not crows circled overhead. Sanguine wished he was back in bed, but then here was his mother, here was his maid, and here was a quart of milk to raise his spirits.

‘To liberty,’ his mother said.

‘Why yes,’ Sanguine said, gulping down seawater, ‘to liberty!’

Sanguine heard the cacophony of the steamboat first, the grinding of gears, the clanking of engine parts, then he saw it, slicing mercilessly through the waves, chugging a plume of black smoke towards the sky. A foghorn peeled out across the water. The oars were now too heavy for Sanguine to lift. Five days had passed since The Sister left him. He’d tried to chew upon the wood of the raft, but this made him hurl his guts into the water.

The Executioner pulled up alongside the raft. Sanguine was almost happy to see him.

‘My friend,’ The Executioner said, voice muffled by his black hood, ‘what are you doing out here?’

A pirate hat perched upon his head. He disembarked onto the raft. His weight almost threw Sanguine into the water.

‘Let’s get you home,’ he said and carried Sanguine, easily, onto the boat. He placed him in the bilge, with the lobster cages and the harpoon.

‘Why do you have a harpoon?’ Sanguine asked.

‘It's symbolic,’ The Executioner said, ‘don’t worry too much about it.’

Sanguine knelt to place his forehead upon the gunwale. The raft drifted away across the waves, already the oar had become lost. He dreamed of silk sheets, like in France, and of sleep.

‘Why do you wear the hood?’ he asked, but before he got the answer, he woke, with a jolt, in his bed once more.

One afternoon, Sanguine sat to paint but could not think what needed to be done. He stepped back, to observe the painting in full, and stood here for some time, examining the work. Was it done? No, no, of course not, it couldn’t be.

That day, he paused for a moment at the boundary of The Forest, looking out over the many mounds of sand. There must be something, you assumed, on the other side. He tried to see it now, but The Forest expanded too far onwards. One day, he would find out, but there was no reason for this to be today. As he left, he paused, yet again and looked back. His gift that day was a box of fruit.

He encountered The Sister on the bridge, while chewing upon an apple.

‘So how far did you get?’ she asked.

‘That’s difficult to say,’ he said, ‘it was just sea, after all, on and on. Just water.’

‘We should try again,’ The Sister said, but Sanguine gave no weight to The Sister’s words. If they were to try again, he would be on his own, he knew, and he did not think he could face the hunger and the madness a second time.

‘Perhaps we should wait a while.’

She nodded at this, and looked quickly at her feet.

‘The Constable is looking for you,’ she said. ‘He says you have abandoned your post and no longer wishes to be associated with you.’

‘Why is he looking for me then?’

‘He wants to tell it to your face.’

The Constable’s house was a semi-detached red brick block. The adjoining house collapsed some fifty years ago; the ruins of it - the wooden frame, the stubbornly standing bricks - clung to The Constable’s house like plaque. The Tramp used to live in the ruins, but all that remained of her was a musty coat and pocket flask.

When The Constable saw Sanguine coming, he leant through his upstairs window and shouted: ‘Piss off!’

Sanguine burst into a run and shoved in through the front door.

‘Get out of my house, you brigand!’

A shoe (leather, black wingtip) flew out of a side room and down the stairs at him. Sanguine ducked, sidestepped a second shoe (canvas plimsoll) and then hurried up the last few steps.

He found The Constable in his bedroom, arms crossed, surrounded by photos of people Sanguine did not recognise. One of his feet was shoeless.

‘You abandoned your post,’ The Constable said. ‘I no longer wish to be associated with you.’

‘Well I’m back now,’ Sanguine said, panting. ‘I can paint you again, if you like.’

‘Where would you paint me? Your post? Well you can’t, can you? You abandoned it.’

But the next day, The Constable arrived with his coat folded over one arm. He handed Sanguine a note. We are not speaking. The Dandies had put out The Constable’s left eye; the flesh around the socket was a foul black and a dribble of blood scored his cheek. He sat for an hour, still, despite the pain.

When Sanguine turned the easel to display the portrait, The Constable hid his smile. On his return to the village, Sanguine saw him dismount his bike to look at the portrait again. He touched along his jaw, as if trying to align the image before him with the flesh of his face.

Alone, Sanguine washed cups and swept floors. He cleaned the windows and straightened the weathervane. Finally, he returned to the attic and the painting. He sat, brush in hand. He paused, leant forward with the brush, but could not bring himself to touch the canvas. He put down the brush.

‘Wow,’ he said.

After several hundred years he had done it. The painting was finally complete. Outside the crows were cawing; it sounded, somehow, like cheering.

Sanguine posted flyers through the letterboxes of the village.

COME AND SEE THE MOST MAGNIFICENT PAINTING

CABIN BEYOND THE BRIDGE

TOMORROW MORNING WHENEVER

Villagers arrived in small groups after sunrise. One by one, he led them to the attic. Upon seeing the painting, The Doctor took off his glasses and put them back on again, then took them off again; my my, he said, my my. The Clerk fixated on the cherubs in the bottom corner; they had been leaning on something prior to this, he said, bark, I think. The Librarian used to be an art critic and proclaimed the painting one of the greatest works she’d ever seen. The Watchmaker stood for a while, fidgeting; on his way out he placed a coin in Sanguine’s hand; if you need a new watch, please swing by. The Guest simply nodded. The Dandies giggled. The Constable believed all the faces were his own. Both The Candlestickmaker and The Baker cheered and shook Sanguine’s hand on departure. The Singer believed that this was what they had been aiming for with their voice this whole time. The Sister did not quite get it, but came back all the same. The Arsonist patrolled the wooden boards before the painting, chewing upon his cheek, before squatting in one of the corners and peering intensely at the crow, after a moment or two, he smiled. The Libertine brought a measuring stick and took the length and width of the frame very seriously, along with the proportions of the ruined columns and the figures. The Child said, not quite your best work, and left. Finally, The Mayor announced that they should display this in the village hall and began drafting the necessary correspondence to make this a reality.

When Sanguine examined the faces that looked upon his painting, none wore quite the right expression. They missed the detailing on the eye of the magistrate, the subtle symmetries of the river, the trees, the clouds. They could not sense the discarded composition sketches or the long inhospitable days of doubt. His work, which supposedly would bridge the gap between them and him, only made him feel further from them.

Sanguine finished the day exhausted. When the knocking came at the appointed hour, Sanguine invited The Executioner to see the painting. The axe remained outside.

He stood and admired the painting for some time. Eventually, he removed his hood, so Sanguine could see the tears upon his face. 

‘That’s very beautiful,’ The Executioner said. Sanguine had never seen The Executioner’s face, but now it was revealed all he saw was the blackness that ringed his eyes and how the whites appeared almost red from tiredness. Did he not sleep like the other villages? Sanguine wondered. Or had his time here taken on the aspect of one long day? Either way, eventually, with resignation, The Executioner donned his hood once more.

‘Do you think it was worth the time?’ he said when they stepped outside.

‘Yes,’ said Sanguine, ‘yes, I think it was.’

A rumour arose in the village; today, it was declared, was Tuesday. But around midmorning, a new theory emerged: it was not Tuesday. No. That was foolish. Instead it should be known that today was instead Thursday. When The Sister emerged from her church, the debate had been raging for an hour. She stepped, dramatically, onto a crate and declared that, given the angle of the shadows and the circling of the crows, that it could not possibly be Tuesday, or Thursday, but was, in fact, Sunday. Several agreed. They became Sunday advocates, flagrant Sundayists and gathered to the crate. The Sister, smug and triumphant, eyed The Constable, whose Tuesday declarations had started the whole debate.

‘You just want us to go to your church,’ he said.

‘If anything, I don’t want anyone in my church. I hate it, on Sunday, when you all show up.’

Sanguine passed, carrying a set of green tiles.

‘Let’s ask The Painter,’ The Constable said. ‘He will know.’

But Sanguine did not know. ‘Most likely it’s Tuesday,’ he said. ‘Yesterday was Monday after all.’

‘That is true,’ The Clerk said. ‘Yesterday we agreed it was Monday.’

‘Yes but we wouldn’t be arguing if we didn’t think we were wrong yesterday as well,’ The Watchmaker said. ‘Clearly there is doubt, only yesterday people kept the doubt to themselves. Now they’re voicing it and you’re mistaking their silence yesterday for agreement.’

‘What?’ The Waitress said. ‘I don’t understand any of that.’

Sanguine quietly departed. Alone in his house, he worked patiently in his bathroom. He was re-tiling the bathroom. Crammed into his tiny bathtub, he hummed to himself. Once, the song might have had words, but these were lost. Come evening, several rows of tiling were completed. He made himself tea and stepped out into the garden. It tasted bitter but warm against the early evening chill. Above, the sky turned a peachy orange. I could paint this, he thought, but then: no. No, it’s fine as it is.

‘What will you do now?’ The Constable asked. ‘Another masterpiece?’

‘I expect so,’ Sanguine said. With the brush, he made The Constable’s teeth taper to points.

‘Excellent,’ said The Constable, ‘everybody, I am sure, is in anticipation.’ He looked through the window then, and a sadness gathered to him. ‘Why do you think we’re here?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘Here, you know, in this place.’

‘I don’t know. It seems like a second chance.’

‘I think I killed someone,’ he said, ‘or maybe killed the wrong person. Something like that.’

He placed his head in his hands with rehearsed tenderness.

‘I think it was a policeman and now I’m here, wearing his uniform and reliving what I did to him.’

Sanguine remained silent. Words deserted him. Eventually he turned the portrait. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

For three days, Sanguine stood a little longer than usual at the boundary of The Forest. The sand seemed never ending. He tried to imagine what could be in its depths or its other side. He wondered whether he and The Sister had gone the wrong way, that they had gone back, when they should have gone forward. Even when he left the boundary, he could not shake thoughts of The Forest. Even when the axe came up, even when, yet again, he woke in pain.

Shortly after completing the painting, he spent a whole day in bed, avoiding the chores required of him. When The Constable arrived, he spent less than ten minutes upon the portrait. When the axe came down, he found himself welcoming it.

On a morning not long after, he went to The Forest early and stood upon its boundary. He knelt to find a pebble of suitable size and then, pausing for a moment to get his eye in, he launched it into the depths of the forest; it landed some feet away in a tiny geyser of white sand. He waited. He anticipated something, he did not know quite what, a shifting of wind perhaps, the sands to rearrange themselves over the stone. But nothing occurred. Tentatively, with more reserve than daring, he stepped over the boundary.

His boots made dusty sibilations while he walked. He looked back, once, at the village, the church steeple, his little shack. He wondered why he had stayed so long. It was some time, walking, almost wandering the forest, before he began coming upon clothes. Doublets, gowns, robes. He saw a pair of walking boots, standing to attention, a hat hanging from the branches of the tree. They seemed numerous, more than enough to clothe the entire village twice over. 

The Forest appeared to continue on forever, as did the clothes. It was not until another hour of wandering passed, that Sanguine felt his fingers tingling. When he looked down, he saw his hand flowing away from him. He thought, suddenly, of the garden back home, all overgrown, and turned, as if to head back, but when he turned, he could not remember why exactly he had done so, and then this thought, the thought of a thought, flowed away too. He remembered the painting, the hours of it. These felt vivid. No. Like they should be vivid. Then there was a shore from another time, a kite in the wind. Black cats, curled by the fireplace. A loom. An apricot, mid morning sun upon it. His name. Sanguine. Sunlight streaming down through the clouds. A kiss. Laughter from the attic. Smoke curling in a dark place. Sanguine.

And then he was gone. A pile of clothes remained, folded on white sand. Through the neckhole, a single crow, beak somewhat askew, pushed itself free and burst skywards.