Daniel's face was splattered with specks of paint in various shades of white. The dried droplets iced little patches of the dark stubble that had taken over the lower portion of his face. He hadn't shaven in several days. He also had forgotten to eat, but he hardly felt his stomach grumbling; its emptiness was echoing the pure clearness of mind he had experienced since completing his color exploration. A euphoric state had followed the completion of the final full-length canvas, this one a mapping of whites and creams and eggshells. He'd cleared away any junk in front of the vanilla-colored walls of the front room in his apartment (which hadn't taken long, due to the fact that he had little more than an old chair and his art supplies scattered throughout it) and propped up each of his canvases in a progression similar to that of the rainbow spectrum. The effect was breathtaking. The room had been instantly transformed into another world, an alternate reality, where color was the singular inhabitant and Daniel was merely a foreign observer of its spectacular existence. It was like traveling to a different country where he hardly knew the language, was lost in colorful streets, and could only experience life from within. There were no walls or windows or ceiling in this place; it was pure color. And the normal separation of the hues apparent in the human reality was not law, here. Though Daniel had originally painted each color on its own canvas, here they were not distinct from one another. Here, they were all one and the same, moving together like so many waves in an ocean. Here, there was no term, even, for color. Daniel could not recall the title for each shade he'd so painstakingly explored, because the shades moving around him could not be tamed by words; they were not of the world from which he'd stepped—they were sunlight and black holes and the sparkling quality of spring air and the edge of flames as they disappeared and a million other things at once, playing into each other and defining the space around them. As a vast body of water is all itself at once, no matter where it is, so was the color of this place. It pulled Daniel in, and he hardly felt the body containing him. No amount of drugs or alcohol-induced stupor could have brought a high more powerful or welcome than the completion of this masterpiece that he could hardly claim as his when it clearly had always lived somewhere, in some dimension, before he'd envisioned and traced its outlines. This place he'd created, this surreal space—it was familiar to him, somehow. It was as if he'd been compelled to create it because he'd always known it, because it had made itself known to him in the primal stages of his existence and stuck somewhere inside his mind until now, when he at last could bring it to life.

He didn't know how long he stood, mesmerized by the enormity of the work surrounding him. Suddenly, it just occurred to him that this world into which he'd stepped had grown shadowed and, slowly, his mind returned to him. Night had fallen, darkening the apartment and consequently his paintings. He no longer was standing but was seated cross-legged, slumped over, on the hardwood floor. He had no remembrance of changing his position, and he had no sense of time. He was disappointed that color was subject to the passing of light. He momentarily considered turning on the overhead bulb but quickly decided against that; it would be treacherous to view his paintings in unnatural lighting. He had worked through many a night using the electric light, but now . . . well, he just didn't think it'd all look right in the harshness of electricity.

Besides, it was time he take some care of himself, and Daniel knew that he'd not be able to concentrate on anything else if he could see his work again. Moving his stiff limbs in the darkness, the man managed to get to his feet. He was achy and cold, and he was hungry. He scratched a bare arm and caught little flecks of paint in his fingernails; he realized he must be covered with paint specks. The aches and chill and messiness he could easily cure with a hot shower.

Hardly knowing what he was doing, Daniel managed to make his way into the bathroom, start the hot water running, strip his clothing off, and climb under the weak beam of liquid trickling out of the lime-clogged showerhead. All this he did in the dark, because he hadn't thought to turn on the bathroom light. It was as if his decision to leave off the light in the front room had determined the lighting status for the rest of the apartment. Some moonlight shone through the windows, so he wasn't in complete darkness. Daniel could see most of the things around him in various shades of blue, the more obscure of which faded into black and became part of the shadows. He soaped his arms and neck and face and scraped the paint off himself. He was somewhat startled and amused when he felt the stubble growth on his face—he hadn't realized he'd let it get so bad. It must have been a week or so since he'd shaved . . . and now that he thought of it, Daniel knew that he'd last shaven after coming home from a day of classes; he hadn't left his apartment since that day. He'd become so obsessed with finishing his color portraits that he'd missed school, hadn't eaten, and had hardly slept. No wonder he felt so exhausted. All his energy had gone into those enormous oil paintings!

If he'd neglected his studies and his physical needs, he'd probably forgotten the end-of-the-month bills. He'd no doubt failed to pay his rent. But even more importantly, he'd have to get some money. What was this night? Friday? Saturday? If it was a weekend, and if it wasn't too late, he still had the chance to make the rest of the month's rent. He'd need to hurry, though. Fortunately, the shower water had begun to go cold, which forced him out of it and back into some dry clothes. His hot water lasted less than five minutes at times, and he alternately dreaded and appreciated it, because the cold always shocked him but also kept him from wasting time and water.

After bundling up a bit, Daniel left his dark apartment and entered the dim hallway, where a fluorescent bulb fizzled and the old carpet rippled up in various places which posed as tripping hazards. Some neighbor, an elderly woman so covered in packages she looked like a bag lady, was unlocking her door with some difficulty a few yards down, and Daniel called to her to ask what day and time it was. He heard only "Saturday. Going on nine" and didn't see the scrutinizing expression on the face from which the words had come. All he knew was that he still had time.

The cold didn't affect Daniel much as he walked through it. His mind was only on his destination, and within twenty minutes he arrived. The place was a little bar squeezed between a residential apartment building and another, larger bar whose multiple windows blinked with neon lights advertising various brands of beer and weekend specials. The bar Daniel entered, unlike its neighbor, was unpretentious. It had a wooden door with a single window and only one blinking sign that read "open." Inside, Daniel muddled through a throng of people already gathered in spite of the early hour. The place was narrow—maybe fifty feet in width—but it went back pretty far into a darker area, where a flat platform lent itself as a stage for random local bands. Daniel made his way to the stage, where some guys were setting up speakers and wiring their instruments. He didn't stop to speak to them, though; Daniel was no musician. Instead, he passed it and pushed through a door leading to a back room, where a couple of people were putting things into lockers and chatting. They stopped when they saw Daniel, and one of them, a man of about thirty-five, grinned.

"Danny! Good to see you, man! Shit, you look like crap. Like you haven't eaten in days."

Daniel hadn't eaten in days but felt a pointless discussion would ensue if he mentioned that. Brian wouldn't be able to understand it. "Could you use me tonight?" he instead asked.

Brian's grin widened. He was probably the most good-natured person Daniel knew (although he really didn't know many people). "Can I use you? Of course I can use you! You know I can always use you. Any night you show up business doubles, so you know you're always welcome. Something about you, boy—you're a good luck charm."

Flattery rolled off of Daniel like water off a duck's back. He hardly heard Brian. "Great. So I'll just go on out, then. Thanks." And he turned and went out the door. He'd heard only that he was welcome to do a job, and his mind was focused on the task at hand. Daniel moved through the people lined up and waiting for the bathroom, past the band (which had succeeded only in tangling the wires of all its equipment since he'd passed them before), and, with agility, scooted around the edge of the bar and behind it. There was a woman there—he thought her name was Molly—and she was busy filling orders. She was often there when he came; perhaps she was always there. Daniel didn't know. Bottles and bottles of liquor were stacked on the shelves behind the bar, and beneath them were rows of glasses. At the bar itself were several sets of taps for beer. Daniel was quite familiar with the scene. Every so often he'd come to the Burwin Tap to bartend. The job had sort of fallen into his lap one night when he'd wandered into the bar late at night. The bartender at the time had gotten sick, and Brian had been the only one there; Daniel had told him he could make a drink or two if he was paid for it and, because it had been so busy and Brian had been desperate, he'd agreed. What the owner had figured out was that not only could Daniel make a drink, but he was also incredibly fast and good at it. He knew every mix in the book, and although the Burwin Tap was mostly a beer bar, when Daniel was there, mixed drinks practically served themselves. Brian Burwin had had offered the guy a job, but Daniel hadn't been interested in regular work. A few days later, though, he'd returned, looking to make some fast cash, and Brian had remembered him. The same routine had gone on for a while now, and Daniel was welcome with open arms when he showed up. He asked only for tip money, so Brian loved having him around.

"Good to see you, Dan," chirped Molly over the din as she turned to the register to ring up an order. "Place will get packed soon enough. How you been?"

Daniel caught only her last words. "Good," was all he said. He wasn't trying to be rude; he was attempting to get his bearings—some things had been moved around since he'd last been there. Within seconds, though, he was ready to take his first order, and with that, he was on his way to filling the rest of his rent payment.

Late into the night—around twelve-thirty AM—the Burwin Tap remained packed. The band of the evening was still going strong, but ever stronger were the drinks Daniel had been mixing. People kept buying more. And unlike some bartenders, who began to slack on drinks in the assumption that those drinking them would be too intoxicated to know the difference, he refused to sacrifice quality; any drink he made had to be like any piece of art he made—as close to perfect as possible. If he was a perfectionist, however, he didn't realize it. His tendency to excel in every aspect of his personal conquests was an idiosyncrasy of which he was unaware. He made perfection look easy, as a matter of fact, and it unnerved those around him unless they were on the receiving end of his perfection. Even Molly, the other bartender, had begun to regret being outshone (and tipped less) toward the end of the evening. Daniel didn't notice her resentment; he noticed only the business of taking orders and making drinks.

The music around them was harsh-sounding. Daniel had felt the music rubbing against his brain since they'd begun a few hours ago, but he'd been able to ignore it. As his own exhaustion from lack of sleep started to make itself more evident, though, his ability to tune out the band had begun to waver. His head was pounding, but he was trying his best to pretend the pain didn't exist.

"What?" he nearly yelled to the young man across the bar attempting to place a drink order (it was extremely difficult to hear, and much lip-reading was going on, but this man was drunk, and his speech was clearly not coming out properly).

The man's face mouthed words—something about vodka. He was a younger man, with longish hair and an unkempt goatee and moustache growing on the bottom of his face. Drunkenness didn't suit him.

Daniel hardly heard the man's order but made an executive decision to just make a really good vodka drink. He nodded as if he had understood and turned to get to work. The bottles seemed to glow, at this time of night and after so many hours of focusing on them. Daniel rubbed the back of his forearm against the bridge of his nose, pushing against the pain pounding there as if to delete it with some pressure. There were times when his head hurt so much—times like this—and he hated them. Such times reminded him that he was subject to trivialities of the human form: trivialities like headaches. He filled half a glass with vodka, watching the clear, deceptively pure liquid move from the bottle with placid eyes. Then, he mixed some fruity mixture in and turned back to the man who'd ordered it, taking in exchange some money. As soon as Daniel had taken care of the payment, he shoved the vodka bottle back to its place above the counter and grabbed a bottle of gin. Without even considering the clamor of voices behind him, the forceful din of the band, the heat and tiredness he suddenly felt wash over his thin body and the drumming pain behind his nose and eyes, he poured and took a few shots of pure alcohol, hoping it would hit him fast and he could bear the rest of the night, however long it might last. Breathing deeply several times, Daniel felt a good warmth—a tingling and blanketing warmth—flow through his veins. The gin had hit him quick, mostly because he had little (if any) food in his stomach. It was exactly what he needed in order to keep going. He pinched the bridge off his nose once more, relishing the relief his thumb and forefinger gave the nerves beneath, and opened the eyes he'd closed after taking the third shot. He could carry on; he could do this.

Looking back to the bar, Daniel nodded to another man who was eagerly awaiting his poison. Several yards away, at the very end of the bar, sat a young woman; she, unlike the majority of patrons at the Burwin Tap, was entirely sober, and she had watched the man making drinks with strange interest, though he hadn't noticed her scrutiny in the absolute least.