It was fall late in the afternoon and the light struck a high contrast as it usually does at that time of year. I was just an innocent bystander looking out for a visual thrill. I wasn't disappointed. There's nothing like the crisp air, raw wind and strong light to focus your attention. My eyes were bulging. It was a tough job for a private eye painter. The water shimmered like a Vegas casino. The sky looked like a stained glass window about to break into a thousand pieces. The darkness fought with the light like a twisted serpent fights with an imaginary ghost. The shadows played tricks like a magician pulling straws out of kid’s soda can.  I found this apple tree, tortured from the wind-swept coast, but that wasn’t enough. The light danced all over it like it was alive, the light I mean, because the tree was deader than a door nail, or so I thought. Then it got cold and dark and the image made his escape like a bank robber switching the lights off before his get-a-way. All I could do was go back to my digs and use the crusty brain cells to reconstruct the evidence. I stared like a scare crow at my notes, used my knowledge from the school of hard knocks to reason out the rest of the crime scene. There were islands lurking in the background, a boat went by as if nothing had happened. The flowers survived the blast, how did they do it? But the apple tree, I wasn’t so sure. Just when I was about to give up the twisted serpent gave up the fight with a mighty jerk and all that remained was the apple tree. I knew it. But I couldn’t tell if it would be dishing out the apples anymore.

This image and more is coming to the Blue Hill Library for the month of January 2014 in a one man show by Paul Trowbridge (private eye painter). More details later.