Through the Waters

Through the Waters · Luminous Oil Witness

The Valley

Oil painting. A hospital room in ordinary morning light. An elderly Black man lies in the bed with his head on the pillow, his face visible and entirely at rest, eyes gently closed, like a man asleep after a long day. His wife, a Black woman in her eighties with short silver-white hair and a dark plum cardigan, sits upright in a chair pulled close beside him, seen in profile, looking at his face. Her hand rests over his on the blanket and a thin worn gold band is visible on her finger. The heart monitor on the wall is dark and blank. Ordinary trees are visible through the window.
Oil painting. A vast dark valley with enormous black slopes rising steeply on both sides and closing in overhead under a torn storm sky. An elderly Black woman in a dark plum cardigan and long skirt walks away from the viewer along the valley floor, upright and unhurried, a warm golden light resting on her. A small upright flame of gold light hovers in the air ahead of her. At the far end the slopes fall away and the storm ends, opening onto a wide warm dawn light, and a figure stands waiting in it.

Hers is the only one of these walks that reaches a far side, and the reason is specific rather than a promise about dying: the person she is walking toward already went through. The flame that has led every one of these pictures is finally not the brightest thing in the frame.

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