She then found a light switch behind a thick door she opened before me.

"Here, choose what you like from this lot!" she instructed me with a freezing voice that might belong to women's concentration camp warden.

Just one look across the room convinced me that none of my work was to be found here, and none of it ever will.

"I followed your writing in magazines," her purple eyes lit up with a trace of compassion, but I might have been mistaken, "all things considered, I think you would be just the man to make a selection between these works, all done by authors of your generation...find me something provocative, something new... The exhibition opens in two weeks, right after the Rey retrospective."

Before she left me, she just added:

And there, on the concrete floor were two piles of paintings, mostly oils and collages...I immediately discarded the left one. It was consisted of a dozen or so uninventive, saccharine work done by young Academy graduates, in other words, full of mathematical games, lines and clean surfaces, technically very polished, but without a trace of any soul or spirit. I recognized almost every work in the right pile. They were done mostly by the people from our crowd. All prostrate there, before me, each revealing inner most intimate emotions, most wonderful dreams, open, vulnerable—waiting for my betrayal.

The storage area was so huge I remember thinking it was a crying shame it had been left empty and deprived of use. So I started to pull out works from the right pile, and I placed them all along the walls creating an exhibition of my own. I tried to find comfort in the thought that it was just about that one exhibition; after all, what's a little rejection to a good artist? I also, in panic, tried not to answer this question.

Finally, feeling tired and sick to my stomach, I managed to make a selection of twelve works, just a moment before Mrs. Golden May Bug showed up:

"Oh, but what's this," she shrieked, "This is too much, this is far too much...you missed my point completely, I'll be needing just a couple of those, it couldn't have been that difficult!"

I must have given her no sign of comprehension, for she herself went to that right pile, and without any doubt picked out two collages:

"This will do!" she concluded and placed them on the left, inferior pile.

"But why do you want to mix them up?" I was troubled and utterly confused.

"Why, these are the works for the exhibition, you only had to add a few more," her hair danced impatiently, "I'm surprised at you, one would think, considering you are well-versed in these matters, you'll be able to recognize the work of young Miss Valentine..."

"...daughter of the Minister of Culture," I felt a sudden surge of nausea, "and this one is by the son of the renowned painter, Mister M..."

I just could not stand it anymore; I just bolted out of there. I decided I needed a drink, so I dropped anchor at the first bar terrace, it happened to be a place where the tables were scattered around all over the sidewalk. I drank my first beer in a single gulp, and just as I was beginning to feel the sickness oozing out of me in drops of heavy sweat, something hit the chair I was sitting on.

I turned annoyed—a little fight would be just what the doctor prescribed.

"Pardon me, please, excuse me!" uttered the man in the wheel chair trying to wheel himself out of a stalemate.

My rage melted in an instant, I stood up clearing the way for him.

As I stood there waiting for him to move, I took a better look at his face. Pale yellow skin, heavy rings under the eyes, thin, messy hair...it was..

"Xoratio!"

For a moment it seemed he resented me recognizing him, he squeezed out a courteous smile with great pain and effort, but accepted my invitation for a drink. And when the waiter arrived with a glass of plain lemonade, red and white stripped straw sticking out of it, Xoratio appeared somewhat more alive. He inquired about my career. I congratulated him on the forthcoming retrospective.