Welcome back to the daily prompts. The third for the week, and I had to get in a word I only just learned…
A shadow of remembrance
Balancing her morning coffee in the crook of her arm, Hannah pressed the key code on the alarm, turned the knob and pushed open the gallery door. She turned, re-locked it. Opening wasn’t for an hour yet and she needed the time to get organised, that is, drink her coffee and eat the pastries squashed in her overstuffed handbag.
She walked across the shining stone floor towards the office. And stopped halfway. She turned towards the wall, gasping at the confirmation of what she had glimpsed from the corner of her eye.
The painting Maggie brought in yesterday, the one they had exclaimed over, had hung carefully so as to catch the best of the light in the light-filled tall room – something was wrong.
Dumping her coffee and bag on a chair, Hannah stepped to the painting, and frowned. Faint lines seeped through Maggie’s bold colours. Moving back a little, Hannah made out the edges of an older work beneath the new, soft brushstrokes showing the figure of a woman, a flapper, hands out to the side, one leg up in the classical flapper pose. Hannah was certain the flapper wasn’t there yesterday, yet here she was, a shadow of remembrance of an older artist and his model, beautifully framed in the new work.
Hannah smiled. She might suggest Maggie use a palimpsest more often.
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