Chris died at a ripe old age of 82 and yet he had accomplished nothing with his life. No wife, no child, no best buds, he had only his artwork and his cat Mo and his dog Shoe. He left a dirty apartment and a crummy job as a doorman to whoever found his body. And yet, death was not the end.

Art, be it a painting or a sculpture, needs to capture the imagination of the audience or elicit emotion in a way that only a master can produce. Yet Chris had painted and sketched most of his life, he had only painted one masterpiece and it had been of his lost love Katelyn.

Kate was a beautiful girl of twelve when Chris had met her at school and yet for six long years they had known each other he had never asked her out once or even expressed his deep feelings. Chris was a coward in regard to love. A coward afraid of being rejected.

After hearing of Katelyn's betrothal he had hit rock bottom. He had recently been fired from his first job for making a serious clerical error in the books. Since no one would hire him at the time since his employer had slandered his reputation, Chris fled to his passion for art. Using what meager funds he had, he bought supplies. Crafting piece after piece Chris tried to sell them on the street corner by the Berry Hotel across from the Theatre. He was able to sell a couple of pieces, but the sums were so low the cost to produce the art was much more than what he could sell them for. Just as he was feeling defeated he saw across the street Katelyn.

She was in a dazzling red summer dress being escorted by a tall man. Just seeing her brought a smile to his face. And yet not a moment later the tall man stopped in front of the giant tree in the plaza and got down on one knee. The tall man proposed. Katelyn said yes!

"No!!!" It was a deep plea that would have resounded across the square if Chris could only have said it out loud.

He fled. Leaving his art in the street, he ran. He ran and ran and yet the pain he felt chased him. He ran until he could run no more. Night had already come and Chris was on the other side of the city. Seeing a bar open, he drank his sorrows. But, the drinking only made it worse. The barkeep offered him something stronger.

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Stumbling home with a bottle in one hand and a white pill in the other Chris took the pill. He soon felt a rush of pleasure. It was like all his worries were gone. Gone like rabbits fleeing a hound dog. Gone like leaves in the wind. But gone was his balance too. Falling the bottle broke and his hand was a bloody mess.

Picking himself up, Chris looked at his red hand and thought it was pretty. Pretty and painful. Stumbling past a white wall he leaned against it only to wince. For he and used his cut hand and reopened the wound. And yet he opened it some more.

This . . . this will be his canvas. A moonlit night, a bloody hand, and a wall produced a masterpiece of joyful beauty and sorrowful pain. It was of love lost. It was of Katelyn.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The gods or the universe or just fate can be cruel. For whatever skill, Chris had in art he would never produce another masterpiece like his mural of Katelyn. The public called it the Fleeting Red Lady. Beautiful and yet out of reach. She was there on the wall, but fleeting since the more of the mural you saw the less red it seemed to be as if the painter was running out of paint.

The wedding was just four months later and Katelyn never saw her self-portrait. It was from not a lack of trying. Chris was able to finally speak or rather write his mind. He wrote Katelyn a letter in verse:

Be it night or day my lady, I have always been in the shadows of myself.

It was on a midsummer night that I saw a frightful sight.

It was that you would be taken from my side. Forever to be denied.

My bleeding heart would give out if I did not let my desire be known.

For upon the wall, I wrote a story that is my own.

A story of fleeting love. A story of love lost.

Be it fiction or be it fact, I will let you decide that.

Chris left the address of the Fleeting Red Lady in his letter and yet Katelyn was too busy to ever see it. If she had maybe Chris's life would have been different since it was truly a masterpiece. One that touched many hearts. Kate thought his letter was sweet yet she had never seen him as a potential lover and a simple poem wouldn't change her mind about her fiancé.

The rejection that Chris suffered after Katelyn's marriage scarred him and his art. It was a wound so deep that life became grey and even though Chris put on a show. A show of happiness every time he opened a door at his new job. It was just acting. Many times Chris thought of ending his life and yet he had found a stray dog near his building. Its licks were able to heal some of the wounds festering inside and it needed him.

Time ebbed and flowed and Chris had many different stray cats and dogs stay at his home. It was one midsummer night after walking Shoe his dog that Chris passed away only to find that his life was just beginning.