Her perception of him, at that second, blossomed from images conjured like smoke from a pipe to an honest, almost elegant, almost poignant (it seemed to Valerie) figure of what Bridgton actually was. His paintings held testimony to the small life he wanted the world to see – a life probably full of dreams and china teacups and rainy Sundays with woolen afghans. Heartbreak, and rage, and ecstasy. And loneliness. Valerie shifted her feet, the implication of that last thought manipulating her, as it did, into an urgent need to paint.”
2007, Ginosko Literary Journal #5
