The Split Second Read Free

the right place, it is but a playground for the imagination. The Maestro stood before a tower of white, surrounded by the materials of his ancient craft. To his left were cans containing indigo, lapis lazuli, violet, and cadmium yellow. To his right, jars of Emotion—Joy, Gratitude, even Bittersweet—which, when painted across the surface of the sky, could literally be experienced by anyone who took the time to view it.
    “The way I see it,” said Fixer Drane as he looked over the Maestro’s shoulder, “it takes three minutes for the paint to dry, seven to roll the canvas for shipment, and six to get across the In-Between to Realization. 2 That leaves you only thirteen minutes to paint the whole thing.”
    Becker looked back over his shoulder where Set Dressers and Junior Scenics eagerly awaited their master’s commands.
    “Can it be done?”
    “I am Figarro Mastrioni.” The Maestro licked his fingers and began to twirl his mustache into a handlebar. “Zere is nothing I cannot do!”
    With a single snap of his fingers, his minions were in action. They grabbed their brushes and cans while Figarro himself picked up a roller and began to lay a base of disappearing blue.
    “Fixer Drane,” the Maestro stepped onto a scaffold that was slowly raised into the sky, “this friend of yours—ze one who needs ze Confidence . . .”
    “Yeah, he’s a Briefer. Back when we were at the IFR, I was going through a very hard time because I was only ten and I was a lot smaller than everybody else. But there was this one guy, Harold—they called him ‘C-Note’—who was always telling me ‘BD, you got the skills to pay the bills!’ Things are tough for him right now, and his Case Worker wants to tell him the same thing.”
    “Well, considering the issue of Time, not to mention what you have done for me this day . . .” Figarro flipped him a fat paintbrush, then pointed to a squeeze bottle of Confidence itself.
    “Perhaps you would like to get your hands dirty as well?”
    Los Angeles, California
    Inexplicably, the bus had still not arrived at the corner of Marengo and Clement, where now over a dozen seething passengers waited for their ride. The only bonus was that the smog had lifted, clearing both the air and the sky above.
    “Finally!” shouted Albie Kellar, as the local “E” slowly rounded the bend at last. A mock cheer went up, and people started to gather their things, but Anna stayed seated. She was hoping el tirano would get on the bus first, so she could make sure to be sitting as far away from him as possible. But as Albie started to get in line, his eyes accidentally drifted upward . . .
    “Wow, look at that.” Painted across the horizon were the beginnings of a spectacularly setting sun. Streaks of blue, yellow, and purple wove in and out of a drifting web of clouds, seeming to bathe both the heavens and the earth below in a shade of magic pink. “Do you see what I’m seeing?”
    Albie turned to the lady on his left, but she had beaten him to the punch. Anna’s eyes were already filled with tears, for if she tilted her head just right, the sky no longer looked like a sunset, but like waves crashing upon a shore. The sand stretched across the horizon and the foaming water looked so real you could almost smell the salt and hear the gulls squawking overhead.
    “Es hermoso . . .”
    On a shore just like this one, she had spent many a day with her grandfather, when she was only a child. Her abuelo and she would play hooky from work and school, collecting shells and talking about her dreams for the future.
    “It is a big world out there,” the old man would say, pulling Anna close. “And it can be frightening too. But you must explore as much of it as you can, if you are to find out what is inside you.”
    All these years later, Anna had forgotten what had inspired her to leave all she knew behind. But as the orange disc of the sun slowly dipped toward the west, she realized just how much she had already