• A blank slate sits at the corner of the street. It sits and waits for the artists to come and decorate it with their beautiful paints of blood sweat and tears. I have seen them many times, etching their shadows in its surface and scrawling their names in overlarge characters, but come morning I never see their art again. That blank slate calls to me, waiting for my addition to its skin, but I never answer it. I am too afraid; what if I mess up? What if the artists laugh at my expense and go on painting their masterpieces while I sit and cry? Not that it matters. I will go out and I will bring to life that blank slate until water pours from the heavens and it is washed away.

    I am content with my paper and my cloth canvases, but what of those brave warriors who dance in the dark and leave bright streaks of color in their wake? I want to be one of them. I want to play tag with the city, to run with the shadow of the day. I want to flee the light with them, baying like a pack of dogs and leaping over all obstacles that stand in our path. But will my paper and canvases ever forgive me after I've forsaken them for concrete and brick? We will find out soon enough; I can hear the rattle and hiss of the warriors' weapons and I can resist its siren song no longer.

    The trees held ghostly shrouds in their branches today. Tattered strips of white waved at me from up in the sky as the world exhaled, making me wonder what spirit emerged from the shadows in order to adorn all things in snow. Those to whom the trees belonged did not seem pleased with their new garments, but they could do nothing but wait for them to be breathed away by the wind. Watching the shrouds get carried to heaven was a curious spectacle indeed. I wondered how long it would be before it was my turn to become a spirit dancing through the night and decorating the world in white.