Chapter 2
London, Chelsea
The Blue Dot
Monday, September 1, 2014
9:31 a.m.
Tavish stepped to the back of the room to better assess the three paintings one of his partners, Maddox Vaughn, had brought to the gallery this morning.
On one, done in blackish-brown hues, there was a well-built man on his knees, surrounded by circling, playful, skin-and-bones children, reaching out but unable to touch them.
On another, a gray sky darkened a charcoal ghost town, while its dark river flowed calmly by, full of pale-gray dead bodies resembling leisure boats.
In the last, the most seemingly banal landscape he had ever seen burst from the canvas.
He watched, stunned and awed, as the images struck him anew. They all reminded him of live hallucinations, worldly nightmares.
The figurative paintin
