Up, Up and Away
An elderly woman with a walking stick shuffled into the gallery. "Do you know where the people who were here before have gone?" She meant the fur shop. "No, I'm sorry. I have no idea where they have gone. Perhaps you should ask at Centre Management?" She ignored this suggestion and just stood, and gazed around her, seemingly dumbfounded by the paintings on the walls. "Is this an art gallery?" she croaked. I told her that it was. "My daughter is an artist," she went on, "But s he died before anyone noticed her work. And no one's interested when you're dead." "Oh dear," I said, "I'm very sorry to hear that. And what sort of paintings did your daughter make?" "Oh, she made all sorts," she said, "Rivers, trees, butterflies, everything." She paused for a moment and then said, "Yes. She tumbled out of a hot air balloon over the Grampians."