There was a factory of workers, a warehouse of hundreds painting beautiful pictures. In rows and columns they sat like a large classroom, viewing a photo that was projected on a theatre-size screen in front of them, and copied it.

Their paintings were sold in the major retail outlets for $50 each. Every painter’s quality was impeccable and precise, not a flaw to be seen … except for Chorea, whose eyes in her people sagged, and whose trees in her landscapes drooped, and whose paintings day after day failed to make it to the large supermarket floor. Her images would not behave themselves and look like the rest, and sagged and drooped so much so that the quality control manager was frequently on top of her.

“Copy. Copy. Copy,” he kept telling her … “This is not copy. Is wrong.” and dismissed her work one after the other into the trash.

Eventually Chorea was put on probation, and after a month with no improvement, she was fired, fired from the 8 dollars an hour job she was so desperately in need of.

Chorea was allowed to carry her last painting out, since the trash bin was too filled with her others, and her fellow workers shook their heads at her imprecision, at her drooping and sagging painting, as she walked down the aisle … and then left through the door, not to enter there again.

It was months later when some of those workers from that factory passed a super market and proudly saw their perfect work displayed for $50 … but next to it was an art gallery. In the window of that art gallery was a painting of sags and droops, a painting, which they saw was signed by the Chorea they’d known.

They huffed, “Not right.” but they couldn’t ignore its price tag of $1,500 … or a sign next to it that read, “Sold.”

Roger McManus