Every day, the blind old woman had paid him to come to her house and paint the sun. So he did.
He had spent hours delicately forging suns the color of fire and roses and sunflowers. No two suns were the same. One would consist of a tessellation of triangles, another of wispy swirls, a third made entirely of interconnected dots. His favorite was a perfectly-round sun made of specific, intricate patterns set against the blackest of nights. Once, he painted the sun as the eye of a bronze woman, and a midnight-black raven as her companion with an eye like the moon. At the end of every day, he found himself exhausted—he had poured all his energy into all his artwork.
Inevitably, at the end of every week, the old woman would hand him an envelope of cash. The money she paid him was so much that he didn’t have to work another job.
He had asked her why she had him paint the sun. “I keep them because I do not want to forget what it looks like,” she would answer. Eventually, he learned to stop asking.
One day, he became frustrated with the old woman. After he had finished for the day, forming an abstract orb that barely looked like any star, he crept out to the hallway. Rather than leaving as he usually did, he waited.
At first, the blind old woman pushed her wheelchair toward his easel and stopped directly in front of it. Then, with an accuracy shaped by habit, she carefully removed the canvas from its stand and gently set it in her lap, a smile growing across her face. He followed her soundlessly down the hallway, through a labyrinth of rooms, under arches and covered windows. When they finally stopped, all he could do was stare.
It took a few moments, but he swore he saw every one of his paintings hanging on the walls, and each of his suns was glowing just bright enough to light the room.