Dandelion Seeds
an excerpt
Slowing his steps as he neared the underpass, Patrick Morrow felt certain of two things: the sanctity of art, and acid reflux.
The latter he called his “walking impediment” – a burning sensation in the lungs and windpipe, as if he’d run too hard in the cold. It increased at the same rate his inspiration waned. Betraying his lectures at the college about the perils of artificial intelligence, he’d turned to an AI health app for an answer, and its conclusion made sense. His midlife malaise manifested as unwanted acids.
This morning he’d tried, and failed, to paint the sunset he’d photographed at the lake over the weekend. A sublime sunset, he thought, but for reasons unknown the Divine Light did not bless it. He should have expected the acids to taunt him after that.
No matter. If the Divine Light that turned a sunset into a painting was no longer operative in him, if he was on his way to being superannuated by software, he would at least make himself useful by defending the sanctity of other people’s art – especially the work of his students. Stomach acid and bilious ruminations would not keep him from the Save the Mural drive. And while Patrick Morrow would be a ‘Yes’ on the matter of saving art from erasure, on principle and without question, he figured he should still see the work up close.
