once upon a time, in a land that time has forgotten, there lived a painter named gaston.

gaston had been painting since he was a very little boy. it was his favorite thing to do. anytime anyone went looking for him, they would find him curled up in a corner somewhere with paper and paint.

gaston painted when he didn’t have paper and he painted when he didn’t have paint. he painted on trees, he painted on stones, he painted on the hillside. he painted with charcoal, he painted with crushed flowers, he painted in the air with dandelion seeds. he even painted in his imagination.

one afternoon, gaston stumbled upon a small still pool of water. the pool was surrounded by a grove of impossibly tall and straight birch trees.

the whiteness of the birch captivated him and he stood motionless, staring at the crystal clear water.

all of a sudden, gaston realized that more than anything in the world, more than anything he had ever wanted in his entire life, he wanted to paint that pool of water blue.

he thought the scene was perfect exactly as it was, and yet, he really wanted to see what would happen to the pool if he painted it.

he could see the exact shade of blue that he wanted to use in his imagination. it was remarkable. it was almost indescribable. it was as if someone had taken every shade of blue that had ever existed, and some that had never existed at all, and then made a single blue that somehow brought to mind all of them.

gaston could see only two problems with his idea. first, he had no idea how to paint on water. second, he had no idea how to create the shade of blue that he envisioned.

{to be continued in the story club}