“Ah, like the Emperor’s Underwear,” I say to MindReader, as we sort through a box of my things that has come from MadFather’s. They come periodically, do these boxes; 26 years of memories moving out slowly, year by year.
“The Emperor’s what?”
“The Emperor’s Underwear.”
“Er, I think it’s The Emperor’s New Clothes,” MindReader says.
“No because he believed it was underwear. But he wasn’t wearing any! Is well known mythology thing.”
MindReader pulls out some of my old paints. “A mythological story about a man who doesn’t wear pants?”
I sniff. “All mythology is weird. Like that Medusa lady with the hair snakes.”
“The Emporer’s New Clothes isn’t mythology anyway,” MindReader says, holding up a painting I did.
“Oh my God,” I say. “Do you remember when I bought those paints?”
It was autumn 2009. I was looking for a sedentary, fulfilling task to undertake. I went to Hobbycraft, spent £40, and decided I would be An Artist. I would wear white linen trousers, eat organic apples, burn patchouli incense and paint sunsets in MindReader’s shirts.
It didn’t exactly go to plan.
“Ha, yes,” MindReader says, holding up my ‘sunset’.
It is a piece of A4 canvas, the bottom three quarters of which are painted a crude orange and the top quarter of which is painted bright blue. There has been a vague attempt to merge the two colours, and the point at which they meet is painted a sloppy, messy brown. “It’s beautiful,” MindReader says with a laugh.
“What kind of artist would you say I was?” I smile as we regard the sunset.
“Definitely surrealist,” MindReader says.
