After talking to Red Ela immediately disregarded his advice and went and looked up The Garden of Earthly Delights online.  He was certainly right that there was a lot of action in the painting. It had three panels.  The first panel didn’t have much going on; it was just three people standing in a garden with a lot of animals milling about.  The second and biggest panel had so much going on it was hard to make sense of it all.  Hundreds of lithe nudes danced, swam and played with mythical beasts.  Mad, impossible structures soared in the background.  Ela realized that when Red called it a “Fantastic Painting” he didn’t just mean that it was great; he meant that it showed a fantasy.  The third panel was the most interesting and the most horrific.  There were nudes and mythical beasts again however now the beasts seemed to be tormenting the humans.  Musical instruments became instruments of torture.  It was utterly bizarre and disturbing.  It was grotesque and alien and hard to look away from.  It inspired Ela in a sideways manner.

Ela decided that she too wanted to have a painting that showed a lot of people doing things.  However she didn’t want to have an enormous, anonymous cast.  She would have a limited number of people who showed up repeatedly.  Ela also wanted to have a world that was a bit of an escapist fantasy without going all the way to dancing with mythical creatures.  Hers would be a modern setting, but not too modern.  She started making some sketches.

***

The next day Ela went to Black’s to show him some ideas that she had.  Seated in his little back office, she pulled out the first sketch.  “So in this one” Ela explained “the centerpiece of the painting will be a beautiful tailor made suit.  It will stand above and in sharp contrast to the surroundings.  The suit will be in a squalid little work shop run by a withered old couple.  The old man will be trying to sell the suit to a well to do businessman while the old woman labors on creating the next piece.”

Black made a face at this idea.  “I don’t know, that sounds kind of like a piece of socialist propaganda.”

“Propaganda isn’t the word I would use.  It shows the struggle of the proletariat.” Ela responded, trying to sound as offended as she could.

“The idea it’s kind of depressing, I don’t really want that on my walls.  What other ideas do you have?”

Ela pulled out another sketch.  “Alright so maybe you’ll like this one more, it’s a bit more fun.  So here at the bottom we see Peter Graves holding a sub-machine gun and if we follow the action up to the top we see that he’s pointing his gun at a giant killer grasshopper.”

“I’m not sure if I understand that idea.”

“It’s a tribute to the classic film The Beginning of the End.”

Black looked unhappy.  “I’ve never heard of this film.  Do you have any other ideas?”

Ela did have another idea, it was the only idea she actually wanted to do.  Those first two were only presented so that Black could reject them.  “I do have one other idea.”  Ela pulled out another sketch.  “This one will be a story that happens in a tower.  The hero will be a detective looking for a jewel stolen from a museum.  Everything will be in the tower, the police station, the museum, the suspects, everything.  On each floor we’ll see the detective in a stage of the investigation.  However the floors won’t be in any kind of order.  Therefore how the story turns out depends on the viewer’s interpretation.  Different people will have different ideas about which floor he goes to first, second, third, and so on.”

This idea had Black’s attention “How many floors will the tower have?”

Ela shrugged.  “I’m not sure yet.  I’d have to think about possible directions a detective story could go.”

“This idea seems better than the other ones.  Did you have any other suggestions though?”

“Oh umm, I don’t have a sketch of it, but I did have another idea about two giant… cocks.  And one of the cocks would be really withered and grey and sad looking…”

“No, no.”  Black cut her off.  “Let’s do the one about the tower.”

“I think that’s going to make a great painting.”

“I hope so.  I’ll need it ready in one month.”

Ela’s eyes widened at this.  “A month?  A large complex painting like this could take quite a while to do right.”

Black furrowed his brow.  “So you better get started then.  It has to be ready in a month.  If I don’t have by then I’ll be forced to pick something out of a gallery instead.”

Ela didn’t like the demands he was placing her.  At the same time though she had never sold a painting before and she wanted to rise to meet this challenge.  “I’ll need to be off then.”

“Fine.  Oh and I’ll need you to take care of this as well.”  Black handed Ela a list of cosmetics to be bought in Germany, as though she didn’t have enough to do already.