Though it could have been easily at his disposal, there was no limo awaiting her as she hauled her luggage from the conveyor belt into the strange streets into which she had found herself. She came to follow an artistic prophet, a man who could pull anything out of the air and make it real on canvas or paper or even a napkin, she guessed. A portion of his work was forever emblazoned onto her right shoulder, a piece of his genius that she carried with her wherever she went. Yes, he was a magician, perhaps born on a tarot card instead of screaming into this world that many have come to loathe yet still holds so much wonder and awe and majestic power.
He met her in the rain; he smiled, he spoke, but it was a blur as if in a dream. Her bags were loaded into a once pristine yellow cab and soon they were off. The cold New York rain scattered across the windows as she envisioned his paint might have on a night when he had loaded himself sufficiently with any given vice and thrown upon his inanimate victim a vast array of color. Would she also become a canvas? She hoped, she dreamed, all while studying his arms as he pointed out various landmarks that she knew she should have been memorizing profusely. But she was mesmerized. Here was this modern Rembrandt, this entirely real and living color Da Vinci beside her, face transformed by raindrops and streetlights. Here was an idol within her reach. Would she play the card of the star-struck harlot? Or would she spend every moment learning everything that she possibly could from this mortal deity? Only time would tell...
