KEYWORDS: painting, picture, felix, thing, enemies

Felix and the Painting

David Berg

—A DreamMadrid—5/1/78DFO1290

1. WE WERE PAINTING THIS BEAUTIFUL PAINTING all around the outside of our bedroom, like a huge mural. It was painted on the outside‚ but you could see it on the inside also, & it was beautiful‚ & everybody could see it. I don't know why we were painting it, but Felix was standing outside looking at it & liked it. He really liked it, he thought it was pretty, he liked us, he liked the picture. (Felix was one of our Fish—our landlord!)

2. BUT THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN, SOME OF OUR ENEMIES CAME ALONG & STARTED PAINTING BAD UGLY PICTURES ON TOP OF IT, & tried to mess it up & make it look bad & ugly. They splashed ugly paint all over it like those horrible modernistic painting, real satanic & diabolical. They laughed, "Ha, ha!" when they were finished.

3. "WE FIXED YOU‚ WE MESSED UP YOUR BEAUTIFUL PAINTING!" Poor Felix was standing there watching, & at first was real puzzled & sort of bewildered, rather mystified & didn't know what to do.

4. THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN HE GOT REAL ANGRY, JUST FURIOUS, & HE BEGAN TO DANCE like these ballet dancers on TV‚ almost like an angry flamenco dance, real fast & furiously! He started at this corner of the room, & it was the most beautiful thing! You know how they do all those fancy tricks with flowing color, like magic?

5. —WELL, HE BEGAN TO REPAINT THE WHOLE THING, real fast, while he was whirling around, fast & furiously, & was repainting the whole picture clear around! He repainted the whole thing, like some of those magical things you see on TV with the colors flying & mingling until the picture looked prettier then ever!

6. HE WENT, "HA!" TO OUR ENEMIES WHEN HE WAS FINISHED, & came in here in the room & sat down with us. When you looked out through it from the inside, it was all aglow. He sat down with us & smiled & we all admired his painting. He was so proud of himself, like a Boy Scout who had done his good deed!

7. IT WAS ALMOST FUTURISTIC‚ BUT BEAUTIFUL‚ not some of those horrible insane pictures, & he did it so fast, whirling & pirouetting around. He painted with his whole body, & he had even painted the most beautiful picture of all, & he sat with us & we all admired it. It was like his painting was the most beautiful of all, & we were all amazed at his talent!

8. EVERYBODY WAS AMAZED, THE WHOLE COMMUNITY WAS AMAZED AT HIS BEAUTIFUL PICTURE, & he was so pleased with himself‚ really happy he had done it. You don't suppose we are having that much effect in this community‚ do you?—Just little old us? I'm hiding out, not doing anything. (It was Moraleja, Madrid.)

9. AT FIRST HE WAS STANDING OUTSIDE ADMIRING IT WHILE WE WERE PAINTING IT, but after our enemies attacked, he himself painted a new picture more beautiful than the first. He was so happy, & he came in & sat with us.

10. THEY WERE PAINTING A BAD PICTURE OF US, trying to cover up the picture we had painted, but he repainted everything so beautifully. Maybe in a way, that's already going on, like we've been a testimony, & he admired it from the outside. But then our enemies attacked & tried to blacken our testimony‚ but he repainted & made it over better than ever, & came in & sat with us, like he was one of us, & we were all so proud of him.

11. THERE WAS A BIG CROWD OUT ON THE STREET‚ just like everybody was watching what was going on, looking through the hedges. He just sort of kept spinning around, & he painted the whole thing over in nothing flat, & then when he got done, he smiled & came in with us, & we were so happy! (—And when the persecution really came there, he really did defend us! GBH!—But we finally had to flee!)