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    An Artist in This Life
    An Artist in This Life
    An Artist in This Life
    Ebook61 pages57 minutes

    An Artist in This Life

    By Mike Ward

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    About this ebook

    Two men look out over the Mediterranean in the summer of 1947. They are both famous artists. The years have been good to them and they both made their names in the Paris art scene of the 1940s. In this story of alternate history we look at the lives of both men. One man would have ended up with the same life but in our world the other man had a completely different destiny. What made the difference was that one day the man with the different destiny begged God for something he really wanted. He got what he wanted and this altered his immediate destiny but the long term destiny was still there and as we look at the loops and intersections we once again get a glimpse of what might have been.

    Read on and find out what his destiny would have been.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMike Ward
    Release dateMar 2, 2016
    ISBN9781310752193
    An Artist in This Life
    Author

    Mike Ward

    Mike Ward was born in Glasgow, Scotland and currently lives in Florida, United States with his wife and two children. He is the author of two novels, two non-fiction books and six series of novellas:Parallel Realities seriesThe House on Mars seriesJacksonville Jack seriesStephen Haggerty Assassin seriesLisa Molin Assassin seriesDangerous Scotsman seriesHe is also the author of 60 short stories and novellas

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      Book preview

      An Artist in This Life - Mike Ward

      An Artist in This Life

      by Mike Ward

      Cover photo taken in Jacksonville, Florida by Mike Ward

      Copyright 2016 Mike Ward

      Published by Mike Ward at Smashwords

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

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      #ExcerptfromTheBankerWithaFaceFullofEvil

      An Artist in This Life

      AD passed the wine bottle over to Picasso. Help yourself, he said. This is damn good stuff.

      French, I hope, said Picasso. None of your Austrian bullshit red wine like that first bottle you ever gave me.

      AD smiled. I’d forgotten about that. God I was so young then and so poor too.

      Picasso laughed. Still full of yourself though. You thought you were going to be the best painter in the world. I thought you were an arrogant little Austrian shit.

      You told me so. If I remember correctly you also told me the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been gone for 25 years. I was more volatile then. I wanted to throw you down the stairs and kick your ass down the street.

      Why didn’t you? Picasso asked.

      I needed connections. I wanted you as a friend. Even if you were an arrogant Spanish bastard.

      Picasso laughed. Touché, he said. You were right though. Our friendship has caused us both to prosper. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we’d never met.

      That’s simple, AD replied. I would have become just as famous and you would have ended up as a street cleaner.

      Picasso picked up the wine bottle and mimed pouring it over his friend’s head.

      Okay, okay, AD said. You would have been famous and maybe I would have been a street cleaner. He looked serious for a moment.

      You have too much talent for that, Picasso said.

      This is one hell of a tough profession to be in, AD said. You need a lot more than talent. You need connections and you need to be in the right place at the right time. Look at all the artists who died penniless and now some shithead is paying a fortune for their work.

      Picasso looked serious for a moment. Those are the same shitheads who pay a fortune for your work and my work. Be careful who you say that around. Have another glass of wine; you’re not normally as melancholy as this.

      AD sighed. Sometimes I have a nightmare that I didn’t make it into the academy in Vienna. I applied more than one year running you know. Vienna society is very class conscious; my family was poor, my father died early. There was a lot against me.

      Picasso was about to tell his friend that he made it and why worry about old stuff now but he felt that AD wanted to talk. What would have happened if you didn’t make it into the academy?

      I would have become bitter. Painting is my life. It fulfills me in every way possible. I’m rich now but even if I wasn’t I would still be happy if I could make enough money to live as a painter. If I didn’t have that I don’t know what I would have done.

      Why is this so important to you? Picasso asked. It seems to me that you are too fired up about it.

      I keep having this nightmare more and more often, AD said. Every time I dream that I get up in the morning and go down to the academy to see if I have been accepted. I go down knowing that I will be accepted but when I get there my name is not on the list. In the dream I feel so much despair that it is almost unbearable. AD’s face contorted in anguish.

      What happened in real life on the day you were accepted, Picasso asked.

      There was a professor I knew in the art department. We had breakfast together at a café near the academy. Then we walked down together. We checked the list and my name was on it.

      How did you know before that you would be accepted? Picasso asked.

      The professor told me. He was my mentor while I was at the academy.

      Is anything different in the dream? Do you have breakfast at a different place?

      Yes, AD said. "I’m on

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