Bapašaba

Janko Petrek

The gallery is situated on the outskirts of the town, in an old neighborhood designated for sanitation. It is a small kind of a place, whose spirit is slowly coming close to the last of its days as it is worn by passage of time. The paintings exhibited here have been mostly painted by unknown, predominantly local artists whose names will soon become meaningless to everyone. One day, there will be a housing development with busy shops and nice sidewalks standing in the gallery´s place.

Already now the gallery has almost no visitors – we could even say none except one man, who comes here, as it seems, regularly. He is a steady visitor, and be it not for him, the gallery would have already been closed down since long ago. This visitor comes here every day, when the gallery is open. He does not tally inside long. It appears that he come here to look at only one single painting. Other works are of no interest to him. The forementioned painting has naught in which it would excel. It has no interesting style, paints or even motif; it only portrays a simple moon above a dark night countryside. The visitor does not even look at it long, but only comes, gives it a fleeting glance and goes away again.

As if the visitor just wanted to make sure that the moon still shines, and whether the countryside is still dark as before.