I held the world in the palm of my hands, and it crumbled in the melodic breath of change. So the world collapsed, crickets chirped and tumbleweed rolled on by like strange passerbys I'd come to be familiar with these awkward interims filled the voids, and silence became the only noise that was comfort to me. I played each silence like a symphony, conducting each one; a Beethoven masterpiece Van Gogh would have cut his right ear off in envy if he'd seen the way I painted my silences but none of them were starry nights just pools of darkness I had learnt to swim in, until I finally realised, I was becoming a bit more Sysyphean when I really wanted to be a bit more Achillean. And responsibility dawned on me like the sky on Atlas's shoulders, and flattened the demons I'd sheltered a while so with each day, I began to feel a little bolder, stronger more like a hoper, a hero with a new name. I no longer needed to paint forlorn silences but something sweeter so I painted a hero. Me. Artfully.