The woman first appears as a few golden lines against a dark canvas.

A shoulder. Two breasts. The curve of a waist. A body emerging from the darkness—or perhaps disappearing into it.

I paint her for hours, yet I cannot give her a face. Whenever I raise my brush toward her head, my hand stops.

Near midnight, I wash my brushes and turn off the studio light.

“Dance with me.”

I turn around.

The golden figure lifts one arm from the canvas.

“Who are you?”

“Dance with me.”

Her hand crosses the narrow distance between the painted world and mine. It looks warm and alive.

I take it.

The studio disappears.

We stand in a dark field. There is no moon, no wind, no path—only the earth beneath our bare feet.

She moves first. When I follow, a white flower rises from the ground between us.

We turn. More flowers open.

They climb our ankles and circle our legs. With every step, the field grows brighter.

Then I hear a deep breath behind me.

An elephant stands among the flowers.

I am a child again.

An elephant is standing in my schoolyard. Its body is enormous, its presence impossible. Around me, other children laugh and call to one another.

The elephant among the flowers raises its trunk. White petals fall around us.

The woman spins once, and the flowers rise to cover her body.

I open my eyes on the studio floor.

Morning light rests across a new painting. A naked woman appears among white flowers. Her face is hidden, but I recognize the curve of her body.

I do not remember painting her.

I have paint under my fingernails.

The following night, I wait.

At midnight, the woman returns.

“Am I the one painting you?” I ask.

“You dance with me.”

She offers me her hand.

This time, when I touch it, a butterfly flies from between our fingers.

Then another emerges from her hair. A third opens its wings on her shoulder. Soon they surround us—yellow, black, white and blue—their wings beating to a rhythm I can feel but cannot hear.

We dance inside their restless cloud.

“How do you learn to move like this?” she asks.

I am fourteen now.

I wake before sunrise. I feed animals, carry water and prepare for performances. I travel through the night from one town to another, then begin the next morning again. There are no real days off when something alive depends on you. If it moves, you move with it.

Sometimes I perform before thousands of eyes without saying a single word.

“How do you speak to them?” the woman asks.

“With my body.”

She smiles.

“Then your body is your first language.”

The butterflies settle on her skin until she almost disappears beneath their wings. When the final butterfly lands over her heart, darkness closes around us.

I wake in front of my easel.

Another painting stands before me: a naked woman surrounded by butterflies, some resting on her body, others escaping the frame. One of them seems to move as I approach. When I touch it, it becomes still.

On the third night, water seeps from the bottom of the canvas.

It spreads across the studio floor, cold around my ankles. The woman steps out of the darkness and offers me her hand.

“Dance with me.”

The water rises to my knees, then my waist. The walls disappear beneath it. A bed floats past us, its pale sheets opening and closing like waves.

We sink together.

Below the surface, her hair moves like black grass. There is no music, yet she guides me through the water as though we know this dance by heart.

“What was your first canvas?” she asks.

“A television box.”

I am nineteen now, standing in my mother’s garage. I have no money for proper materials, but there is an image in my head that refuses to leave. I find the cardboard box from a television, cut it open and spread it across the floor.

“What do you paint?”

“A woman floating on the water.”

“Is she alive?”

“I don’t know.”

The image changes.

Now I am alone in British Columbia, between jobs, with almost nothing. I tear pages from an old sketchbook and join them with duct tape. I always find something to paint on. Cardboard, loose paper—whatever the world is willing to give me.

The woman draws me closer.

“Do you save the drowning woman?”

Before I can answer, her legs begin to change. They join beneath the water. Dark scales spread across her skin until a long tail forms below her waist.

I try to pull away.

She holds me against her as we turn once more.

My lungs begin to burn.

I wake gasping.

The studio floor is dry.

On the easel is a painting of a woman lying across a bed beside a human figure. Her lower body becomes the tail of a fish, disappearing into the folds of the sheets as though the bed itself contains an ocean.

I place the three paintings beside one another: the flowers, the butterflies and the water.

In every image, the woman looks more familiar.

At midnight, the woman appears again.

“Dance with me.”

“What do we paint tonight?”

She does not answer.

Beyond her, there is no field, no swarm of butterflies, no water. There is only a vast white surface covered with pools of colour.

We step onto the canvas.

Blue gathers between my toes. Gold climbs her ankles. Black and white flow around us. Every turn leaves a curved line behind. Every movement of our arms becomes a brushstroke.

We are no longer dancing upon the painting.

We are painting it with our bodies.

The surface softens beneath my feet.

I begin to sink.

I tighten my grip on her hand, but she starts the final turn. The colours rise around my legs, waist, and chest. I try to stop, but the dance carries us forward.

Then she releases me.

I fall through the canvas.

When I open my eyes, colour surrounds me. I try to lift my arm, but it moves only as far as the wet paint allows.

The woman is no longer beside me.

I see her on the other side of the canvas, standing in my studio. My brushes lie before her. My unfinished paintings surround her.

She picks up the brush I use every day.

I call to her, but my painted mouth makes no sound.

She dips the brush into the colour.

For the first time, I am inside the canvas.

And she draws the first stroke across my body.

YF, August 31, 2026

Note: This story is a work of the writer’s imagination, shaped by a conversation and interview with the artist Madison Thompson. While the narrative itself is fictional, it draws on aspects of her life, artistic journey, and creative perspective.

For more information about Madison, please visit her website and social media profiles linked below: