Sleeping in is a specialty of the artist. He considers his conscious / sleep cycle as a kind of proprietary secret recipe. He never reveals when he goes to bed or wakes up. He never, (well, usually never) discusses his dreams with others. His diligence is considered rude and off-putting in general conversation. But his rhythm, his cycle, his movement is his own. And the artist has convinced himself that these things are unique and special and contributory to his expression.

Also, the artist is naive. And vain. And banal.

His "Sketch of a Specialist" has become an obsession. The night before last, on his journey toward drunken stupor, he found himself in a familiar predicament. Inebriated, but present. On the stool of a new establishment. In a dark setting. A familiar bartender, inquiring for needs and wants. A voluminous set of choices. The artist, feeling particularly indifferent toward consumption this night, has enlisted the help of the specialist.

Now, a specialist is not a usual encounter. A specialist is someone who has earned the trust of, and established a reputation with, the artist. And the artist is cynical, skeptical, untrusting. So this is a moment of particular importance, of particular impact. The specialist, here, is the whiskey sommelier, the alcohol expert, the entre poi of intoxication.

The artist has lent this savant his trust. Something about this servant has intrigued the artist. It's something about his combination of expertise and hubris, combined with his humility and servitude. The artist had expected vanity and profanity and obscenity and ignorance. So he is surprised when this butler administers to his needs in such a swift and elegant manner.

There is a commotion around them as they engage. But it all falls to silence as they continue to dance around alcohols and ethers, to embrace florals and fragrances, to manifest conversations regarding aging, and wood treatments, and barrels, and selection, and tasting, bottling, and cutting. This exercise culminates in a romantic tango of linguistic affection for the whiskeys they are considering. Ultimately, the artist is led onto a path of discovery by his new guide. And his guide, in turn, is led into discovery himself about the artist and his path toward discovery. It is artist vis a vis artiste.

The first sips are brilliant and spicy. Vibrant and invigorating. The artist senses immediate inspiration. But he also experiences the gravity of the spirit. He feels the pull of this ephemeral beverage, and goes back for more. And more. In some time, he has become satiated. This pursuit is reaching the finish line, so he downs the crumbs and heads for home.

The artist’s mind has relaxed. His thoughts wander, slowly, as he considers the evening. As he contemplates this whiskey discovery, and what it might mean, if anything for himself, he escapes into a world of music. His playlist lands on “Funny Little Man” by Aphex Twin. The groove and quirky melodies and vocals create sparks of lightness in his mind and his emotions. “Come on you little funny man” rings in his ears, like a kind of robot elf serenading him. The usually joyless artist smiles as the song continues like the ghost of a clown in the way it entertains him. As the song continues, the artist suddenly has a sense, or maybe even hears, a much lower voice say “Come on you little funny man”. It’s similar to an experience he might have on LSD or some other psychotropic substance. It feels like a lumberjack whispering in his ear. He only senses it one time, as the song continues.

Few playlists would follow Aphex Twin with Merle Haggard, yet this is one of them. “Green Green Grass of Home” kicks on with Merle’s rich baritone describing a dream of escaping jail and going back to his roots. The artist has felt comfortable listening to Merle Haggard as if his voice were like the loving arms of his parents embracing him. The combination of thoughts of parents, home, and the sweet burning on his tongue from the whiskey has brought on a nostalgic mood. He remembers a recent dream.

He had awoke in his bed, alone. His phone was playing a conference call with his former art teacher, and several of his commiserating student colleagues. He couldn’t decipher what they were saying on the call. But he got up anyway. Next, he was observing some unknown young cousins putting on dresses. Next, his aunt was looking for his help. The bathroom sink was backing up. She showed him the sink, with standing water, as she poured a blue-ish drain cleaner into the sink. The water swirled down into the drain, built up a bit, then drained out again. His aunt was surprised by this; the artist was relieved. He didn’t know anything about resolving plumbing issues.

The next moment, he was in a room, with his father. And then, also his uncle. Both deceased in waking life. The artist had an epiphany in his dream. He recognized that they were both dead, and so this must be a dream. This recognition of lucid dreaming excited him. However, although he was experiencing it lucidly, he wasn’t convinced of it. He had a brief conversation with his father, but he can’t remember what was said, except that the exchange started normal, and then became strange. His father kept repeating some phrase, like a glitchy robot. He asked his father, “What year is it?”

He thought asking what the current year was would inform him if it was a lucid dream, or some other kind of experience, maybe involving time travel. Next, the artist was outside, on a hill. There were a few people milling about. He asked them what year it was. Someone told him it was 2018. He wanted to believe them, but continued to ask more people. The third person did not tell him what year it was. Instead, they insisted that the clock tower in the town was their adversary. As the artist looked past the hill, into the town down in the valley, he could see a clock tower, which had sprouted arms and was terrorizing the town’s citizens and destroying property, like some demented Godzilla-style Cogsworth.

The artist felt empowered to defeat the clock tower giant, but as he approached it, he woke up. He was in that familiar daze where your mind has to reset to reality after enjoying what felt like reality in the dream. But soon it faded, and his eyes closed, and he spent the remainder of the night in unremarkable sleep.

***

The next morning, the artist awoke, remembering the specialist, and his strange dream. It was a curious juxtaposition of ideas. On the one hand was the dominant expertise, on the other was destructive forces. Regardless, he had that familiar feeling of inspiration sprinkling into his mind.

Pencil in hand, he began to draw. In his mind, the clock tower giant and the specialist bartender were becoming the same being. He started by imagining a bar where this clock tower giant was employed, but would only serve when the clock struck particular times. Instead of destroying the town, the clock tower giant would also contain beer kegs and taps, like a self-roaming bar to himself. He would pull glasses from a cabinet in his chest, and select taps from around his waist to fill the glasses, and distribute the ale to the town folk.

The town was to be represented by rolling hills and cottages. The simple citizens of the town would be commuting between their houses and the mobile Clocktower pub master.

A small river, winding through the town, would be the life blood of the Clocktower, wherever it was. The Clocktower would drag the river with his large pots and dump the spoils into an opening near what would humanly be an ear.

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The tower would also visit the town mill, to gather the grains. The corn, barley, rye, oats, and rice all went into an opening near his other “ear”. The grains would be filtered, malted, and roasted.

The roof of the Clock was also like a kettle. The valve on top was slightly open to release steam. Inside, a large pot held the water and grains, boiling them to extract the sugars and flavors. Below the pot, a fermentation cone would catch the wort. Over several days, the wort would combine with yeast to create the ale. Much like a human (or other mammal), as well, it would recede into the woods to excrete the remaining grain mash.

While the Clock was brewing ale to be consumed by the surrounding town folk, it was also angsty and unpredictable. At times, a real Jeckyll and Hyde. This scene was somewhere in between, with the Clock handing out ale in one hand, while destroying a house with the other.

The work of pencil on Bristol Vellum was coming together. It almost could be mistaken for a scene from a storyboard - for a movie about an enraged clock-brewery-beast. The town men were so enamored with the brew that they would risk their lives for a pint. Women and children running to save their own lives.

***

“The Clocktower” never made it out of the artist’s studio, which was really also his bedroom. He had essentially completed it, but was never really satisfied with it. He couldn’t identify if the problem was his emotional connection to the piece, his technique, the lack of color, or just the obscenity of the content. Whatever the reason, it was soon supplanted by several other incomplete canvases, all of which were also air-gapped from his emotions.

Strangely, the concept did not leave his mind, however.

The artist, later, returned to “The Clocktower”. As he took in the structure of the images, and the lines and shapes, he tried to retain some separation between himself and the work. In a way, he sensed something like a denial. But denial of what? The denial was similar to fear. But fear of what?

As he continued to gaze at the work, he couldn’t solve the puzzle. He looked into each corner of the work, at the way he had depicted the clock tower, and the town, and the people, and their needs. The clock tower had a menacing look, but a somewhat benign appearance (despite the ravaging). The town was pastoral, but aggressive. The people were happy, but remorseful. These duplicitous meanings were everywhere he looked.

Finally, after many minutes of deciphering only the layers of meaning, he looked away. And in that moment, something happened which surprised him. As he looked down at the floor, and then at the wall, he blinked. With his eyes closed, he saw a brief image of his father. It was like a negative camera image, white on black, with a slight glow. He blinked again and it was still there, but more faint. He forced himself to blink again, but this time it was gone. And that is when he felt something in his body. A strange out-of-body sense, like he was floating slightly above he floor, and his brain was numb. His initial impression was one of overall numbness, but seconds later, a warmth flowed from his pelvis, and simultaneously down to his feet and up, through his stomach and chest, to his head. As it passed through his throat, he felt like he might throw up. In the next second, his eyes welled up, and he collapsed on the floor. His body contracted into a fetal position. His eyes shut tightly. His fists and muscles tightened, in an attempt to control what was happening. And then, suddenly, without warning, an irrepressible cry escaped his mouth, and evolved into an animalistic moan as his eyes leaked tears, for several minutes, into a puddle on the floor below his head.

He laid there for many minutes. He sobbed. He adjusted. He lost his motivation and his hope and his drive. He felt a weight upon his body that kept him down. He stared blankly when his eyes were clear. He let his mouth drool upon the floor.

He wanted to get up, to get out of this mood. But he couldn’t wrestle himself to do so. He continued to lie on the floor. He adjusted his arms and legs to allow his joints to release pressure on his bones. After what seemed like hours, he pulled himself together.

He wanted to just climb into bed, pull a light cover over himself, and allow his exhaustion to take him under. As he got up, he sat on the edge of the bed. His mind was blank, nearly numb. He stared into where the wall met the floor for several minutes.

Once he regained control of his senses and intentions, he went to the kitchen and fixed himself a drink. It was just cheap bourbon with some ice. Back in his room, he sat up in his bed, placed the bourbon on the nightstand, and opened his journal. He began to write:

“Today was strange and uncomfortable. When I got home, I decided to look at the Clock Tower work. I thought I might find something in it. There has been something about it which I connect to, but can’t identify, and tonight, I think I found that thing.

I thought that it had been a depiction of a dream I had. And, in many ways, it was. But I had never faced the idea about my father in the dream. I always knew he was there, but I also had hidden him from my mind, from my heart.

Today, when I looked at this work, he came to me. He entered my mind. I blinked, and he was there. And then, he was in my heart. And I couldn’t escape it, the grief, the pain, the longing, the missing. And it overwhelmed me. It was like he had died all over again, right before my eyes. I was consumed with the emotion of his loss.”

When the artist’s father had passed, he felt it deeply. Although, only for a week or two. It was the surprise of it as much as the loss itself. His father had been like a pillar - like a foundational structure keeping the sky from falling. That’s not to say he hadn’t been critical or demonstrative. His father had been like a force of nature which could not be stopped with emotion, reason, or brutish confrontation. The artist had a conflicted respect for this aspect of his father. He never liked the way his father intended to steamroller him. He wanted to be the insurmountable apex his father could never champion. Yet, in the end, he always felt like the slight ant below his fathers tires. And while this made him feel low, he understood it as a kind of power. And as much as he resented the power being used against him, he longed to wield that power against others, to put others under his thumb.

Ultimately, however, this was not a skill he possessed. He had made a few attempts since then to express this power, this force toward others. Instead of rolling over, they put up walls, and then launched offensive strikes of their own. The artist always lost the battle, and was a recluse in his tomb, rebounded in his emotion, and restrained in his motivation. How many losses does one sustain before they cease to play the game?

***

The next morning, the artist slept in, and in, and in. Without being overly tired, he was simply unmotivated to start the day, this day, any day. The night before he had stared at the ceiling, leaving his light on, in his bed, with a light cover over his legs and torso. He was tired, and unable to focus for more than a few seconds on anything in particular. Yet, within moments, he was always anchored by an idea of his father, as a tormentor, as a villain.

The clock tower was leaning against the wall across from his bed now. As he blinked, and blinked again, he saw it differently. Now the clock tower was his father, and the town his home, and town people himself and his family. The clock tower was now a belligerent beast, chasing after its mortal prey, who were doing what they could to escape its clutches; its wrath. And this was motivation.

The original clocktower had been expressed as lines of concrete and stone. But suddenly, the graphite streaks dug deep into the face of the tower, exposing a hidden grimace and spiteful eyes. The ale glasses in the tower’s hands became daggers, and the beer became a deep maroon of blood, and the town people were fleeing in surprise and fear. The bright sky became a dull grey-blue night, and wicked, sharp winged, birds took flight like apostles of the tower. The frantic reimagining had destroyed the pastoral impression, and replaced it with something from Dante.

In the end, the penciled landscape had been transformed into something both beautiful and honest, calming and terrifying at the same time. The layers of expression reflected layers of sentiment and understanding. But, ultimately, the ruin and decay is what the observer was left with. One could make out the pastoral layer, but could not appreciate or understand its persistence in the face of the destructive power of the clock tower, of the father. It was a scene, washed in the acid of the artist’s experience.

The voice in his head was saying something again. It was like laughter. When he looked at the clock tower, the laughter became more intense. Looking away from the work, it disappeared completely. Looking back at the clock tower ... he could almost make out words. Something that sounded almost like “you’ll never understand”, followed by more whispered, booming laughter.

Despite this, the artist was still unfulfilled with the work. It now felt cheap that a simple emotion had overcome him and enraged itself onto his canvas. So, "The Clocktower" went back, behind the canvases, below the frames, out of sight, out of mind.