Shem and Vanessa were strolling through the Rosalind Bowers Art Museum. They pause in front of a rather curious piece of ‘art’ that is hanging on the wall:

  

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Below, on a shiny, silver plaque, embedded into the elaborately hewn, driftwood frame, read:

  

MICHEAL’S WORD PAINTING

By

Artist Unknown

  

“It carries a certain up-right deportment, wouldn’t you say?” They had sat down on a bench that faced the artwork. Vanessa studied the reflection in a glass partition, ten or so feet to the right. It was this ability to view the pieces from alternate perceptions that they loved when coming to this museum; well, that and the third floor utility closet.

 

Shem continuously ignited her ambivalence, blowing it to smithereenies and opening wide swaths of ‘territoire d'imagination’.

 

“Given the elasticity of the lines,” she turns frontwards and leaning over to her right, right up next to Shem, so as he can see it also, runs a pointed finger in the air; a kind of semi-arc, “neither there,” she swings her arm back and forth, “nor there.” She starts to hum, while still gently flowing her waved motion, to and fro, hum a hum, hum hum, to… and… hum de… hum… and… fro…

 

Shem turns his mouth to her ear and whispers, “Like a silence of the winds, the deepening response turned casual?”

 

Vanessa’s ‘la dee da’, nonchalance is dripping into radiant, little, glass puddles on the floor.

 

Shem continues in a soft, measured voice,”Seven veils quintessential to the very core, in a slow, simmering ash, billowing hence?”

 

Her glistening tempora is swathed and bundled abound.

 

“Causes…” He holds the ‘ess’ sound; slithering, slipping, sizzling, “effects?,” Again he lingers the ‘ess’; silent, soothing, seismic.

  

Paul is a long-suffering Aston Villa FC supporter.

 

 

The Hypothetical Awards