This is the wall that started it all. We call it the Picture Wall – an honoured title, not a description, you will understand.
My sister and I began painting this wall, at our mother’s, the week our paternal grandfather died, in 2004.
Christa had carried ideas for this painting for at least two years, and when we got together for the funeral, she sketched out the basic shapes, and went ahead with the solid yellow and shiny black sections.
She and I had talked about doing this together, even though I had never bothered to paint in this manner. But I had done much graphite drawing, and thought I’d go ahead and try my hand at something else.
After seeing my first attempt with acrylics…
…Christa agreed we should work together.
So by afternoon, we had a waist high stone wall, the yellow sky, mountains, and thoughts of knotty and ancient willows, and dragon flies. The picture seemed magical, and thrilled with fantastical suggestions.
Everything went well at first, with her showing me techniques as we went along, and with each of us doing the parts we had the clearest mental pictures of.
Then, all at once, things changed. Somewhere into the picture, death had crept. We could feel it, like the oppression before summer thunder.
And the painting was going all wrong. That’s not what I wanted, thought Crystal…then voiced it to me as she continued putting red highlights on the stones. “That looks like blood. That’s not what I wanted.”
Like Abel’s blood, I thought. Yes, like his blood, crying out from the rocks. Cain had been cursed for that death.
Then, in a rush, I felt a presence standing beside me. “So I wish curses on my husband’s murderer,” said a female voice into my mind.
Immediately I could see other Beings, spirits of evil intent, who would stop at nothing short of destroying our progress on this wall. They grabbed at Christa’s brush, pushing and straining like frenzied children, in attempts to blotch the truth of what had happened…why the spirit-woman was standing at my shoulder, speaking of curses. Christa pressed on, ordering these spirits to let go, and kept painting. They stamped in indignation and tried numbing both our minds.
At last, we had to stop, and began to pray for God’s aid in getting this project on the move.
He gave us several impressions and pictures, and suddenly, we realized we were dealing with a real murder, indeed, somewhat like Cain’s work.
To be continued…
Part 8
Part 9
