On a rooftop, as the day burns down, a painter has one canvas left. She does not sketch. She lets the brush run in long, unbroken strokes of rose and gold until a figure rises out of the colour, standing in a light that belongs to no hour she can name.
She lifts the canvas against the sky to see it truly. At the edges the rose has already dried to mauve and ash, the way a blush fades once it is noticed. The face at the centre is a stranger's. She paints it anyway, with the care of someone who has been waiting all her life to meet it.
