They had returned home, all of them, and Elodie to her room, in which she sulked for a moment after being told off for leaving Dora alone in the market. she walked impatiently around her room, itching at her forehead and rubbing her palms as she conjured up something to do.

her first idea was to go down to the beach, but Dora and Alexander had found their way down to Corrosol after they had returned from market, and so, to avoid crossing paths with them she remained in the house. Her second idea was more plausible however took more time, to take out her easel and oils and do a brief landscape whilst the sun was out. she wandered around her room briefly, scavenging her mind for a third, something she would enjoy, that wouldn't waste her time. during her passage of through she bent down next to her bed and pulled out the basket with the paraffin, linseed oil and the paints themselves, and placed them on her bed. as she finished her trail of thought and looked down at them she realised she might as well paint, and so she clambered into her closet to retrieve a canvas and her easel.

the wood fell into her arms, sharp and bruised, scratching against her milky skin. it was heavy but she still carried it outside, tripping lightly and regaining her step as she carried it up the path towards the green lawn which overlooked the small bay of Corossol. She dumped it and scrambled back down the stone path (flanked by trees) to her room and carried up the basket, under one arm, and the canvas in her other hand.

The steps were still wet from the rain. she pleasured in the various textures and shapes of stone she felt under her foot as she ascended through the lushness towards the lawn yet again. 

the space of the lawn seemed so much more open in the day. it was fresher, greener, brighter. the air rested in it and was whipped back up over the hill towards the Atlantic. the plants and flowers bowed at its edges and birds played in its corners. It was a spot of clearness in the cramped hills of St Barths.

Dropping the basket down onto the grass ( narrowly missing her own toe ) she arranged the canvas onto the easel and fitted it securely into place, leaving the sea as the view behind it. bending down to the basket she reached for something to dispense her paints onto but found nothing, so instead she pulled out the newspaper at the bottom of the basket and pulled it out, securing it to the ground with a rock. she emptied titanium white, cadmium lemon, ultramarine and cobalt violet. she mixed them all with a little linseed oil and applied them bashfully to the canvas with her small paintbrush, moving them in their wetness with her fingertip which she wiped off on her wrist. She opened the paraffin, it's toxic bitterness wafting up into her nose. It was a familiar, almost delicious smell, like the taste of coffee.

"so you paint?"

Alexander must have come up the path behind her. His voice seemed more controlled than normal. She didn't turn.

"Yes I paint."

She could tell he was walking up to her by the long shadow that had formed on the grass beside her.

"are you any good?"

He had made his way next to her, comparing the scene she was painting to the canvas.

"I like to think so," she replied. He sat himself on the sun chair to the left of her, leaning over his bent knees, elbows resting on them. Looking down at him for a moment she noticed how his wet curls fell over his eyes and his white polo shirt clung to his chest.

"It looks sparse. I can't see th-"

"I just started," she interrupted.

"I would hope so," he chuckled, " although one could pass it of as the whole piece. The very concept of incompletion is interesting, albeit overdone, and verging on pretention."

She reached down to the newspaper and picked it up, scooping some paint up onto her brush. She applied it thickly, in 'u' shaped strokes along the sea as to resemble the waves and crevices in which light would get caught and sparkle. Following a Monet like style that vaguely resembled Autumn at Argentieule was how she approached the landscape, a mix of brawny brushstrokes and delicate colour. Alexander watched her all the while, intrigued by the intense conversation her eyes held with the canvas.

It wasn't a long painting, in the traditional impressionist way. The landscape before her would change, the sun in its position and the water in its way and so she had to work fast, simplifying reflections to slithers of white-darts and the forests to marbles of green.

"It looks better now," Alexander said as he noticed her applying the final layers of paint.

"Thanks."

"How long have you been painting?"

She pushed a strand of hair away from her mouth. She had to be cautious with her hands, they were now covered with oil paint, which wasn't easily removable due to its opposition with water.

"Since I was given paint."

He smiled to himself.

"A logical answer."

"My mum gave them to me."

"You have a close connection don't you?"

"What are you some psychoanalytic now?"

"I'm a lot."

"Sure you are," she scoffed.

"Not a painter though. I have no lust to have a discussion with a canvas, I have no connection with pigments or tone and I do not ache to make the aesthetic. And yet, I wish I could."

"You seem to have an awfully boring job, considering your scholarly language."

"I suppose so. But my job isn't my life. I also write. Poetry. Painting of a page."

"Write me some," Elodie said as she added the final slobbers to her landscape. He chuckled.

"No."

"Why not?" She said looking down at him and he rubbed his palms.

"It's mine."

"And?"

"I don't like to share."

He stood up and came behind her, looking over her shoulder at the work.

"It's nice," he said and turned and walked off, across the lawn and down the stairs, without another word. Elodie remained at her canvas, needing to leave but not wanting to as to not seem as she was following him. So she sat down and admired her work and watched the scene as it changed in front of her.

Alexander was a strange chap. Irritatingly peculiar in his way, vexingly charming, so much that even though she ground her teeth at his behaviour she couldn't not praise his intellect and allure. It was as if when he wanted to engage in an intelligent conversation with her she would allow him to and yet when he wanted to see her flustered she couldn't do anything yet get a bit ruffled. It wasn't that she strongly disliked him, although she made it seem like that. She thought parts of him did seem cruel, yet others interesting.

For some reason she decided to lie down on the grass and close her eyes. The reason wasn't the bright light that was scattered through the mountain lawn nor was it the fact that she didn't want to go down and talk to people - be it Alexander or her mother. She just decided to.

she ignored the sunlight that penetrated her eyelids and immersed herself into the nothingness that she found when she rolled her eyes to the back of her skull and stopped herself thinking about anything. She liked the feeling, the strain on her muscles and the deepness of the pits, the sensation of sun on her bare legs cradling her into a foetal position. It was if she was on the earth of a forest two hours after a downpour with a fire next to her; damp warm ground, almost like blood. She loved it, the feeling. The feeling.

She let herself fall, she liked it. She felt safe with the other people away. She liked the strangeness of doing things like this. Lying down and letting your mind carry you. All humans are corrupt, she thought. She didn't want to control her body, she wanted it to control her. To drive her off a cliff if it wanted to - oh how could she be sure she would die? Surely there was a possibility that she wouldn't die. As phyrro's skepticism said nothing, absolutely nothing, can be proven to be true. So she should isolate herself to no beliefs and no opinions if she were to follow his writings, and so never be corrupted by a dogmatic head. But she would die so easily then - for she would walk off a cliff with no fear and fall, and she would die, and yet it shan't matter, she would be dead.

(what the hell are these head rumbles going on about?)

what about god, she thought. Logic isn't the way to prove its existence, Aquinas. Why don't I take Spinoza's god she thought? It would certainly fit my idea of beauty and perfection - the world. I don't want a god that is based of our flawed humans, she thought.

At this point she seemed to start to fall asleep. Maybe it was because of how late she was up stroking Russo yesterday or maybe it was the trip to the market. Her hypothalamus sure wanted her asleep as it shut of her senses one by one, a sniff of her nose the last sign of life other than the movement of her chest as she laid on the grass. She didn't know if anyone came up and watched her and she would never know. In fact, the whole world could just not exist whilst she was asleep. Whilst she wasn't there to observe it. It might have been gone. If something only existed when there was someone or something to observe it why is it that this lawn seemed to exist when no one was observing it. Who was observing it then?

Maybe it's god, she thought.