Moderan by David R. Bunch - 2064 or Thereabouts




2064 OR THEREABOUTS

A wanderer and dreamer comes to Moderan man's Stronghold. What's this? How absurd! An artist turning up in the world of war, steel and machines.

"Yes, I have been of the wanderers," he talked on, "the lost and searching wanderers, who sometimes never find because we pick, to look for, a Dream too shining to ever be."

And the dreamer goes on:

"I have longed to make some enduring monument; I have hungered after the Great Painting; ever haunted by questions I have tried throughout a long failure to express the Life-Meaning, the essence of YOU and ME. And now, changing my course a little, I have come to do it as a single portrait, one of your great firm master calmly in his chair! Right here in this Stronghold!"

Moderan man, at bottom a worrywart, starts trembling. Even the artist knows if Moderan man is the one truly in charge of this Stronghold, such a trembling one will never do as a model for his ideal portrait. He wanders off to meet his fate.

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