Smoking Guns

Writing the eulogy for my sister's funeral is not, as you can imagine, anyone's idea of bliss. I am keen to do my late sister proud, however, and feel vigilant as the words I will speak are slowly formed in my mind and then committed to the page. What has already been formed in the mind and committed to paper, is the new piece the artist has, in my absence, been working on. This time, for every piece is different, there is a kind of initial and deliberate indecipherability. A mass of thorny twigs and branches conceal a tiny figure parked almost at random towards the right. And just when you think you are entering into some kind of puzzle, you realise that in fact nature has you surrounded. You, too, are somehow entrapped. The silent valley down which you so confidently marched is in fact crammed with people. I met an artist in the war zone. He reminded me of the artist here. They share the same dedication, a kind of melodious absence of other options. Their work is an absolute necessity. The artist in the war zone used to do portraits, he was a portrait artist, something which at one time was illegal. Furiously, he would cycle through the capital with his latest piece rolled up tight and concealed in a bag on his back. One time after he had spent weeks if not months on a particular portrait, he was caught by a young policeman. Fortunately, they knew each other, they were old school friends, and so the artist's painting hand, as sometimes was the case, would not have to be chopped off. Instead, he saw the fruits of his labour lit and burned by his old friend and returned almost fearfully to the ether. I have asked my four remaining sisters by email if they have any lasting images of our late sister that they would like me to include in the eulogy. I would hate for those images also to go up in smoke.