Gitte arrived during the “Mona Lewisa” session. She waited and read with a smile. Old soul. Ol’ friend. She’s visiting NYC from Berlin. We talked of funeral pyres and current popular burial trends in Germany. Gitte read a book of modern Italian romance stories while I worked. I painted her portrait like how an old soul would be painted. Maybe like someone stoic. Like somebody who has to exist in this world today, living in a city, but really belongs thriving in the past somewhere else, sometime, long ago when the world was a much different place.
I’m a twenty-first century man, but I don’t wanna die here.