The pastoral scene that adorned the wall of the alley was vibrant with colour.
The beauty of it would go largely unnoticed, located in a dead-end service lane well off the beaten track of shoppers and city folk. The artist, a girl in her early twenties, had always been talented. She had shunned the prospect of Art College, preferring to work her pictorial magic on any wall that presented itself, regardless of where she found it and without conscious care for who found it. She had always know that the lifestyle that came with her activities was not one that promoted good health. It had been a chosen life. Handouts and food scraps were all that fuelled her passion, and this winter in the city had been particularly hard. Survival was not at its best…
The truth of this could be seen by the bundle of rags at the foot of the fresco. The discarded takeaway food container and the empty choc milk carton that lay beside the bundle were the last. Although the morning sun crept along the wall, it heralded no life.
The bundle did not move.