Had his head not been created facing up and outward, he would have missed seeing the emergence of the woman with a bright crimson flower in her hair gradually appearing before him, returning his gaze. He was the first to arrive, his green t-shirt clad creator having arrived early for the event.
His memories of his own former existence, beyond his current chalk-dust appearance, were clouded and lacking in historical perspective. He wondered again at the woman still emerging beneath the creative hand of the neighboring artist. Her eyes emerged, then her full face—a beautiful image, he thought, despite the odd clothing adorning her, from an age and context unlike his own, an Asian woman whose time and place he could not quite comprehend.
His confusion over his own appearance gradually cleared a bit; he recalled that had been a star of the silent film, a clown bearing the name Charlie Chaplin, later also enjoying success in the talking film era.
But outside of his current chalky existence, he remembered nothing of the past or the future. The chalk could resurrect nothing of history or context. Lacking a body of flesh to connect him, this moment was all he could know.
As his artist-creator added decoration around Charlie, it gave him time to peer over his shoulder to view another woman, dressed in Western Victorian style more familiar to his own context. A playful, billowing hat crowning her head drew his attention. Her artist created her as a splashy showgirl, her beauty expressed in shades of pink. When her gaze connected with Charlie’s, he saw the two of them gliding on a dance floor, music softly cushioning them, the warm light of candles extending their stay long into the evening. If only, he pondered, they were breathing, living and loving—fully formed three dimensional creatures instead of sidewalk chalk.
A sudden splash of color above his head jolted Charlie. It was a thing, or a man, or—was it a woman? A body draped in shocking tones, a stretched torso, absent arms and a single enormous eye—or was it? Again, lacking context beyond this day’s chalk-appearance, there was no way to comprehend its abstract expressionism. The geometric human figure puzzled him; their worlds were distant, detached from each other.
Then, appearing from yet another stretch of colored chalk dust, Charlie noticed a woman—a mother with her children surrounding her. As the artist chalk-stroked the mouths of the children, they seemed to come alive, crowding, teasing and playfully challenging each another—laughter—lots of laughter. On this day of their shared chalk lives, Charlie concluded that this was the most beautiful sight within his view—it held a vision of hope and of promise.
The orange hues of early sunset announced the gradual end of the brief existence of Charlie and his chalk cadre. Soon, uncareful shoes eroded the chalk, smearing their limbs, their hair, their faces, their eyes into the concrete sidewalk. Silently as they appeared, their dust mingled, their figures retiring again into timelessness.
As they disappeared, the artist creators likewise disappeared, drifting apart and dissolving into the deepening shadows, having resurrected, if only briefly, the somnambulist activities of shared chalk-drawn lives.
But unlike their creations, the artists reserved one power, which set them apart from their art: the power of choice.
They alone could choose to end their drift, to stop the dissolve of the paths that had brought them together today as artists with a dream. Against the approaching nightfall, they could still choose to pursue, to explore the new friendships this day had held for them. And they could join with each other, bringing one another along, past tonight, and into tomorrow.