Pure Colour

by Sheila Heti

They will always think that those born from a different egg have their priorities all wrong. But fish, birds and bears are all equally important in the eye of God, and it wouldn’t be a better world if there were only fish in it, and it wouldn’t be a better world if there were only bears. God needs creation critiqued by all three.

The heart of the artist is a little bit hollow. The bones of the artist are a little bit hollow. The brain of the artist is a little bit hollow. But this allows them to fly.

They just had no idea that the world would become so big, or the competition so stiff.

Here in the first draft of existence, we crafted our own second drafts—stories and books and movies and plays—polishing our stones to show God and each other what we wanted the next draft to be, comforting ourselves with our visions. On good days, we acknowledged that God had done pretty well: he had given us life, and had filled in most of the blanks of existence, except for the blank in the heart.

It’s true that the world was failing at its one task—of remaining a world. Pieces were breaking off. Seasons had become postmodern. We no longer knew where in the calendar we were by the weather. We once believed that two thousand years ago was long in the past, but then we realized it was actually quite recent—just thirty generations before us. We were still at the stage of perfecting our tools: the bronze age, the iron age, the industrial age, the computer age.

For art is not made for living bodies—it is made for the cold, eternal soul.

I agree! I do believe though, that art has a way of warming the soul.

She didn’t think of herself as someone who another person could see, evaluate, and finally judge.

Ahh the terror of being perceived.