a night at the Art Dance

"Which one," asked the fat, middle-aged man in the business suit. He leaned back in the plush office chair.

"That one down there," his wife aswered. She waved to the wall of boxy paintings, staggered along the wall. Each canvas had a clear sky but conveyed with various colors of daylight. Taken as a whole, they gave the wall an arching sense of a passing day. At the center of each sky floated an immaculate, painted feather. I was hovering along the deep purples of twilight as Kat lingered among the pinks and baby blues of dawn.

"I know what 'down there' means. You just said 'down there'-"

The blonde-streaked helmet head swiveled back to her husband.

"Then what are you askin' for," she asked with an arched, Long Island/Jersey drawl.

"Which one?" The suit tried to lean back further in the office chair to punctuate his statement, but he had reached the limits of the chair. Sandwiched between the couple was a 30-something, Japanese woman, perched upon a swiveling art stool. Her Smile of Humoring was in full plumage.

"The one on the end- any of 'em. They're all so gore-juss" she exclaimed with a flush enthusiasm fueled by red wine. She waved and gestured with a hand that appeared to have a junebug clasping for dear life upon her ring finger. Only when she paused for dramatic effect could I make out the cartoon-sized, wedding ring mounted on her hand.

I glanced about the worktables for any sign of the free wine we'd been sampling all evening, but resources were running slim at this late hour. It was time to call it a night anyway. The excitement of wielding plastic cups of free, red wine amongst an open house of art studios, choked with expensive art and their antsy creators had lost it's allure... and the threat of spillage had become a treacherous possibility.

It was time to go.