No, 214. The Kiss. It took him three weeks to carve this alabaster sculpture of a clothespin. He realized only later, as he sat regarding the piece in his studio, that he had made a sort of industrial (or, more accurately, pre-industrial) version of Brancusi's famous sculpture, The Kiss, from 1913. But whereas Brancusi's stony lovers were bound together in their endless embrace by an inner drive of desire, the two sections of his new embrace were spring-loaded. Desire had been reduced to pressure. "A sculpture for our time," he thought ruefully.

No. 213. Nocturne. Now that Colin and Clifford were making their rudderless way to Lunenburg, he felt lonely in a rather unexpected way. He began to feel the need to revisit his painterly past, almost as if he were seeking some reassurance that he's actually had one. This afternoon he was revisiting. a painting from 2012 called Nocturne. He liked it better now than he remembered liking it at the time. He liked the dark, restless harbour with its solitary, departing sailboat. He liked the tremulous spotlight--if that's what it was--that seemed so insistent and, at the same time, so lacking in resolve. It was a harbour he missed greatly--without ever having been there.

No. 212. Oz. It was a week now and his old art-school friends, Clifford and Colin, were still there. They were supposed to have launched themselves, by now, on some epic automobile journey they had planned to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. "Why Lunenburg?. he asked them. "It was all Clifford's idea," Colin told him. "I was watching a DVD of Captains Courageous," said Clifford. "With Spencer Tracy and Lionel Barrymore and Freddie Bartholemew, and I couldn't get those fishing schooners and those long, deep swells and those puffing sails out of my mind." "It's not like that now," he told them. "That film was made in 1937, and it was shot in the Grand Banks, off Newfoundland--not Nova Scotia.” "Still, " said Clifford, "We might get a glimpse of the Bluenose. She docks in Lunenburg." "From the look of things here in the studio," added Colin, "you seem to be feeling the need for adventure too. Longing for some sort of escape." "You think so?" "Well, what's that big green painting you're working o right now? What's that bud-like thing in the middle?" "That's The Emerald City," he told them. "The painting is called Oz." Colin and Clifford looked at each other,. "Maybe you'd better come with us to Lunenburg," said Clifford, pouring himself more coffee. "It'd do you good," added Colin.

No. 211. The Crab His old on-the-road friends, Clifford and Colin, had decided to drop by for a quick coffee and a chat--only to find their friend gone. We'll wait for him," said Clifford. "Okay?" "Fine with me," answered Colin. The studio was unlocked, as always, so they let themselves in. What they found surprised them. On the wall hung the biggest painting they'd ever known their old art-school buddy to make. It was raw, aggressive and apparently, judging by the plume of oil-fragrance in the studio, still wet. "Recent, I guess," said Clifford. "I'd say so, "agreed Colin. "It has a title scrawled on it. He's called it The Crab," said Clifford. What do you make of it?" "Maybe he's angry," ventured Colin. "Or hungry," said Clifford...