(Translated from Japanese)

Spring in Montpellier blurred the air with warmth and dust.
On weekends, the flea market came alive—
fabric stalls, junk dealers, vendors with piles of forgotten things.

Weiss moved silently through the scattered crowd,
his eyes searching for something no one else had yet noticed—
a piece of space left untouched.

A faded canvas.
A warped frame.
A crumbling, half-torn border.

From among them, he picked up a dull, beige canvas.
When held to the light, the weave still breathed faintly.

Nearby, an old man wearing a worn-out hat sat on the ground,
his wares spread across a threadbare cloth:
dusty figurines, rusted spoons, stacks of books no one glanced at.

The man looked up at Weiss and rasped,
"...You thinking of buying that?"

It was less a question than a murmur—perhaps he simply wanted someone to talk to.

Weiss said nothing, holding the canvas up to the sun, studying the texture of the weave.

"Heh... You've got an eye, maybe."

The old man muttered, lowering his gaze back to the clutter before him.

Weiss purchased the old canvas and a battered frame,
then left the market behind.

As he made his way downhill toward the center of town,
a small bookstore caught his attention.
A wooden door worn with age.
A faded sign.
Dust-covered antique books lined the display window.

Weiss pushed open the door.
A dry bell tinkled overhead.

Inside, the shop was narrow.
Books piled to the ceiling formed a kind of maze.
He wandered between shelves, letting his fingers drift.
Literature. History. Poetry.
He skimmed through a few, but none caught him.
Only the feel of paper between his fingers remained.

Then—
In a quiet corner of the art section,
a thick, dust-covered book called to him.

He reached for the spine, its gold lettering barely legible.

—Max Ernst.

As if drawn by something unseen, Weiss opened the book on the spot.
Page after page unfolded strange visions:
deep forests, writhing crowds,
rough, grainy textures—
a still, dreamlike terror, suspended between reality and hallucination.

Weiss held his breath without realizing it.

He loved it.

That was all. No reason. No logic.
Just the feeling that this world fit his senses.
He accepted it without resistance.

He closed the book and quietly carried it to the register.

＊

That night, in the dim light of his lodging,
Weiss set up the old canvas and began to paint.

He wasn't copying anything in particular— just letting the imagery from the book sink into him.

Forests. Spirals. Winged creatures.

He mixed colors on a chipped plate,
applied them with fingers, brushes, even cloth.

Each line felt raw and unfamiliar.

Over the following days, he returned again and again to the same spot in the bookshop,
taking notes, sketching, staring for hours at Ernst's peculiar worlds.

Something in those images—
something hidden—
called to him.

It wasn't imitation.
He was looking for the why inside the pictures.

Why did they feel so alive?

Why did they frighten him and fascinate him at once?

And then, one evening,
as he sat in the corner of the shop with the book open across his knees,
he noticed something strange.

A gap.

Between the years 1914 and 1918—
no works were listed.

No paintings.
No drawings.
No record.

Weiss blinked. Checked again.

A blank space.

The war? Of course.
But still—

A gap in time.

A space that no one had filled.

And in that moment, something sparked in him.

He thought:

If no one else has drawn it...
then maybe I can.

＊

He walked back to his lodging with hurried steps,
as if afraid the idea might vanish if he took too long.

Once inside, he stretched the old canvas across the frame.
Not quite tight, not perfect—
but enough.

He prepared his paints, laid out the brushes.
Then sat.

A deep breath.

Before him: the void.

No references.
No sketches.
No plan.

He stared into the blank for hours.

Then, without warning,
he dipped his brush.

And he drew.

Lines that didn't copy.
Colors that didn't imitate.
A world that never was—
but could have been.

When he stepped back,
he didn't know what to call it.

It was incomplete. Maybe even ugly.

But it was his.

And perhaps—

just perhaps—

it belonged in that forgotten space between 1914 and 1918.

The gap.

The blank that had once been empty—
now held a trace.

His trace.