He painted her better than real, caught her in magic hour light, at an angle implying dimension. Mindful of the power of the unknown, he draped her with shadows to keep her secrets in. When he offered her a glass of wine, she reached through the canvas to accept it.

Pippa Phillips is a recovering academic whose words have appeared in Failed Haiku, Paragraph Planet, the Drabble, Pink Plastic Houses, and forthcoming in The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls, Akitsu Quarterly, and the Asahi Shimbun. You can follow her at @IpsaHerself.