Free Tagged by Eric Walters

Chapter One
    â€œWatch your head,” I said as I pulled the wire up to enlarge the hole in the fence.
    Julia slipped through the opening.
    â€œYou always bring us to the loveliest places.”
    â€œIt will be lovely.”
    â€œYou’ve seen it, Ian?” Oswald asked as he followed behind us.
    â€œNo, but they’re always good, so I don’t know why this one wouldn’t be.”
    We slid down the concrete slope of the little waterway. At one point it had been a real river with mud banks and plants and fish, and it would have twisted and turned. Now it was as straight as an arrow, trapped between two concrete banks, with no life, more like a sewer than a stream.
    â€œHow do you even know there’s something down here?” Julia asked.
    â€œIt came to my Twitter feed.”
    She shook her head sadly. “I can’t believe you spend so much time on there.”
    â€œ I can’t believe that you haven’t signed up.”
    â€œI haven’t got time to waste on it.”
    â€œIt’s not a waste. It led me here, didn’t it?”
    â€œAs I said, it’s a waste of time. I’m not seeing anything except nothing, so I stand by my comment,” she said.
    â€œIt’s under the bridge.”
    â€œThat makes sense,” Oswald added. “That’s out of the way, hidden from the road and prying eyes.”
    I thought I was starting to see something. There was more and more and—
    â€œWow,” I said.
    There it was, a painted cliff with a flock of sheep at the top, two tumbling down, one at the bottom, half of it painted right to the waterline of the real river and the rest of it underwater and unseen. Two more sheep were floating downstream, just their legs showing. There was one sheep at the top with a word balloon saying, Didn’t anybody learn to swim?
    â€œWell, what do you think now?” I asked Julia.
    â€œIt certainly is big.”
    â€œI wasn’t asking you to measure it but to appreciate it.”
    â€œIan, at this point all I can appreciate is that it’s big,” she replied.
    I turned to Oswald. “What’s your opinion?”
    â€œShe’s right—it is big. But in my opinion, it’s pretty good.”
    â€œPretty good? It’s beautiful, amazing and incredible,” I said.
    â€œThis might be the best one. It is a real piece of art,” Oswald agreed.
    â€œAnd what exactly do you know about art?” Julia challenged.
    â€œI know what I like.”
    â€œYou like lasagna, but that doesn’t make it art.”
    â€œFirst off, I love lasagna, and second off, there is an art to cooking. Edible art may be my favorite kind.”
    â€œHe’s right,” I agreed. “Food can be art. There was this sculptor who only used raw meat.”
    â€œMy butcher does that,” Oswald said. “You should see the display case in his deli.”
    â€œNo, I’m serious. It was at some fancy museum in London. He made these sculptures out of meat, and then the meat rotted over the next month, and people watched the changing sculptures.”
    â€œThat is seriously disgusting!” Julia protested.
    I laughed. “I imagine it didn’t smell so good. Lots of people protested against it.”
    â€œI would have protested that too,” Oswald added.
    â€œYou would have?” Julia asked.
    â€œSure, that was a waste of good food that could have been eaten.”
    â€œTypical Oswald, thinking with your stomach.”
    â€œTypical Julia, feeling with your head.”
    It was rare now for the tension between them to rise to the surface like this, but it still did. Friends who had become boyfriend and girlfriend trying to become just friends again—it didn’t necessarily work so well. I kept that in mind whenever I thought that maybe Julia and I could be more than friends. It wasn’t worth the risk.
    â€œBeauty and art are in the eye of the