Artist, Genius, Sorcerer by G. Arthur Brown

The cover of the text appeared to have droplets of water on it, so, using a napkin, I made an effort to wipe them away. I was shown to be a fool, for these were not water droplets at all, but merely an effect of the cover painting. I flipped through the internal notations, finding the artwork credited to one David Caldwell. A painting this convincingly three dimensional requires a considerable amount of skill. One of two conclusions would explain this:

A)    David Caldwell is a genius.

B)    David Caldwell is a sorcerer.

This is not an exclusionary disjunction, I decided. He might be both a genius and a sorcerer. But I was forced to consider that, although I did not know much of sorcery, it could be presumed that a work of three dimensional art is not an incredibly difficult thing to create by sorcery, so I deduced that if he were a genius, he was likely not also a sorcerer.

But upon formalizing this note I reconsider. As a hypothetical sorcerer operating in a society that does not readily acknowledge the existence of said black art, perhaps it would be ill-considered to commit acts which could only be accounted for by sorcery, thus giving up the game and revealing the true nature of his powers. It would then seem that an intelligent sorcerer may use his arcane abilities to produce three dimensional works of art that might otherwise be assumed to be created by non-sorcerer geniuses. If this is correct and he is a sorcerer, then he is likely a genius.

A conclusion would require further research.

His small terrier dog was harder to apprehend than I had presumed. Presumption has shown itself, once again, to be my undoing. In the process I was bitten numerous times. It becomes far more difficult to retain one’s composure when one is bleeding into the flowerbed of a well-known artist, possibly also genius and/or sorcerer. The prospect of climbing back over the fence was more and more daunting after each dog bite on either my hands or ankles. Surprisingly, the dog was able to lull me into a false sense of security in several instances, at which point I would bend over and try to snatch up the small creature. This is when he would occasion to bite my face.

The dog could be the familiar of a sorcerer. Conversely, it could be a rambunctious terrier dog attacking an invader of its home territory. It was, without a doubt, the most cunning animal I have ever encountered during my research. But could this be accounted for by mere innate animal intelligence? A conclusion would require further research.

Upon eating the dog’s heart, I was unable to come to a confident conclusion in the matter. It had taken considerable time to light Caldwell’s grill, and shortly after I had worked out the organs of the tiny beast, someone had alerted the police to my presence. In my head I am marking the case as open until I can complete the necessary investigation. As I fled the scene, I wondered if Caldwell also had a cat or a parrot or, possibly, a large lizard like an iguana. Hamsters and the like have such small innards that I have never found them useful in my scientific inquiries.


Copyright 2013 G. Arthur Brown