the painting was literal figure hunched walking a dirt road in rain its hues and tone spoke mute but vividly each brush stroke matched the images birthplace in the authors crippled heart
each leaf a burnished gold of autumn each a dying fragment of the withered tree even the mans footprints in muddy soil one can almost feel the squalid mud underfoot his uniform and helmet named him a frenchmen from the great war his boots rendered with bloodstain
figure hunched walking dirt road in rain a great dying had come to france that day swords drawn they charged into deaths embrace this man and his comrades in this awful place
the painting hangs in some museum an awkward moment for the viewer is he going into the storm of battle or going home after the tale is left untold it is just the tale of a man on a road in the rain a frenchmen in the world war a lone figure in rain