Companionship is one of the most basic urges of humankind, any good psychologist can tell you. We long for some understanding of both ourselves and the greater world, so we search for it in other flawed beings, hoping for some iota of truth, or at least an affirmation of our belief that the human nature can never be understood. We desperately wish to gain another perspective, a new set of fingers to touch the universe with.

"When I watch people paint, it usually confuses me until I see the final product. I don't understand what goes on in the artist's mind," I said. "But I know exactly what your painting is saying already."

"Well, then, Miss Catherine, what is it saying?"

"It's not saying anything." I gestured to the corner of the bare room where Chadwick was standing with his canvas and his paintbrushes and his infuriating barriers. It was a perfect studio—the careful wood floors, the prism windows directing light onto the dust in the air. "This is not art. This is taking pictures the slow way. I've seen people capture the sound of birds in the morning on canvas, and you're just…" My words faded away, because I didn't really have an argument. He was painting, quite skillfully, but not masterfully. He wasn't painting like a man who was aware of himself at all.

"Some people take pride in being able to capture life accurately."

"That's a vase, Mr. Chadwick. It's not moving anytime soon. I wouldn't call that life." I sat down lightly, careful not to disturb the equilibrium of balanced things on the sofa. It hadn't been sat on in a while, was probably just for storage space now. It definitely wasn't comfortable.

"Why do you stay in Mixon?"

I drive through small towns a lot. I know the layout, the worn bricks of one story buildings and the town halls that used to be grocery stores that used to be post offices. I know that the downtown area is only wrapping paper on social interactions, that what really matters happens behind church windows and in private homes. Gossip spreads like influenza, considerably faster than the Internet connection, and the right family name can equal a title here in the royal court of corn and cotton.

What I didn't know is that the second a person makes it over the town limits and steps onto the crudely paved sidewalk, roots begin growing from his feet to the core of the town, buried deep in rich soil, and it becomes harder and harder to leave. Cities would crack apart at the fault lines if an earthquake were to occur. Towns like Mixon would not, and it's because of the intertwining lifelines it keeps below the ground and within city limits, like living spider web.

Each child of Mixon inherited the town as they grew. Those who did not were interlopers, strangers, only passing through until they weren't. But there are a few who never become so lucky. They are acknowledged with grudging smiles and a watchful eye. One of the deepest needs for any person is companionship. Take that away, and he will seek it elsewhere, under normal circumstances.

Chadwick was an anomaly.

His face was in shadow when he answered. "I'm quite happy here, Miss Catherine. I'm happy living here, and I'm happy painting vases here."

There are those who believe themselves incapable of friendship. Those who believe that second-hand smoke is just as dangerous as putting the cigarette in your mouth, and so hide themselves away to protect others from lung cancer. And there are those who believe that they are happier without using the world's definitions of things. There are those who strive to be different than the general population. These types usually don't make friends, not because they deliberately push people away, but because in the dictionary of the world, lonely and egocentric are quite closely related.

I expected him to say more, but the silence that followed slowly curled the edges of his preceding words, a piece of newspaper slowly capitulating to flames, the line of soft-spoken fire driving on, leaving the browned surface. The pattern on the canvas rolled a single orange tear all the long way down to the bottom, where it hung, suspended. He turned around, started painting over it, to make it exactly how it was. I didn't know how to voice my next words, so I just watched him mock creation for a little while.

"So you do this for a living." I didn't know what that meant. He simply nodded; maybe he would take it as a compliment, but it definitely wasn't implied as such.

Some may have considered the technique that he presented beautiful; certainly it fit his aesthetic. Every stroke was impeccable and lovely, keeping each hue completely separate from the next.

I imagined myself standing up, walking over to the canvas, plucking the paintbrush from his liver-spotted hands, scribbling it about the entire 18-by-24 plane, so all of the emotions that were supposed to be present in art swirled up like cake batter, thick and tasty. It would smell like clay and acceptance. There would be colors on my shirt and his floor, and I wouldn't clean it up.

The elasticity of the moment stretched on, longer and longer, until I couldn't move for fear of disturbing the equilibrium. The sunlight penetrating the window revealed all of the dust floating, existing, perfectly still in the air. Chadwick barely breathed as he pressed the fine tip of the paintbrush to the curvature of the vase. It was modeling in the corner of the room.

Like many art connoisseurs, I cannot paint. But if there were ever a time I wished I could, it was then. I wanted to be able to show him how to paint the view from where I was sitting, behind him. The artist, and the canvas, and the dust in the air.

Some believe that friendship is when two people choose to be together, that ultimately, the presence of the other is valued above all else. Some believe that friendship is a tug-of-war, constantly fighting a never-ending battle for the sake of the fight. And some believe that friendship can be so much more complex than that.

"Some might consider your questions a bit impertinent," he said, still not taking his eyes off of the metronomic brushstrokes. "After all, I only invited you in for tea and a tour. You won't be staying much longer, I presume, Miss Catherine."

When I was a little girl, I always imagined the texture of flesh would be like Hubba Bubba gum. Having someone's arm to bite into would be like pushing past the membrane of freshly made Jell-O viciously to grab a handful, imagining all the while that it was blood, and to taste the strawberry on your hands for hours afterward. I thought that biting into a human tongue, all slippery and thick with sinews, would be immensely satisfying, if the pain could be equated to sacrifice in one's mind.

I suppose cannibalism would be an appropriate substitution for sex in a little girl's mind, but after meeting Chadwick, it think it goes deeper than that. I wanted to show him that when I thought about eating myself alive, it wasn't about the taste. It was about the satisfaction that comes with conclusion. It was about allowing myself to revel in one thing at a time, slowly and predictably, painstakingly, to see the teeth marks in my skin. It was the holding back, for an unbelievable amount of time, and right when you think you can't wait any longer, managing to hold out for a few more seconds. You get that same feeling when you run very fast for a very long time, too; when your throat is dry and your legs protest, but the sweet ache in your chest reminds you to keep breathing and to keep going, and never stop.

I wanted to show him that, without once thinking about the fact that he may have already seen it.

Barriers can be overcome all the time, in favor of friendship—distance, age, race, gender, old grudges and beliefs—but barriers that one chooses to erect themselves sometimes cannot be surmounted. Sometimes, the connection that seems to be felt between two people is only a shout across a river-calling out blindly, to someone who will not hear you.

My dad's old Jeep made it all the way from New York to Mixon, South Carolina before breaking down. It was almost forty years old, but I kept it around because it was a work of art in itself. Oil stains are the brushstrokes, and the old peeling paintjob the primer coat, long since lost its legitimacy. In some places the rust is showing through, taking its turn to be noticed, and all together it makes quite the pretty picture. So many different shades of colors, when you add the occasional gasoline leaks.

However, it wasn't much for driving. It's why I take the scenic route; small towns have the best auto repairmen. Always so eager to get their hands on dead machinery, to put the life back into engines.

I wouldn't have even left the mechanics' if I hadn't noticed the watercolor behind the counter. It was a rather excellently done replication of the outside of the shop. It was rather hard to not notice, after all—it filled the entire space behind the counter. If the door was opened on a summer's day, it would appear as though another entrance to another mechanic's workshop was inside the first.

"Was that a local's work, Mr. Joey?" I had asked, fully expecting him to deny any claims that any kind of art, even the kind that glorified his own business, was produced in Mixon.

"Oh, yeah," he said dismissively. "Mr. Chadwick Loadholt, lives uptown. Kind of a loner, you know? I didn't even ask for him to paint it, but he shows up here on one of his regular Saturdays with it already finished!"

"He must be quite good. It's great work; he captured every last detail."

Mr. Joey shrugged, which was predictable. "I wouldn't know anything about that." This was what told me that Chadwick wasn't exactly accepted yet. Small towns generally brag about what little talent they possess, but until a motive for a stranger's settling in was established, the outsider would be of a class to himself.

"Would you mind giving me his address?"

I introduced myself to Mr. Chadwick as Miss Catherine Graham, a traveler with a personal interest in his paintings. He was the perfect gentleman at the door, offering me a sweet tea, and a tour of his home. It certainly was beautiful, and only confirmed my suspicions as to his aesthetic. There were no cramped spaces; every floor was uncarpeted. The sparse furniture had a mismatched air to it, the kind that reminded one of pink and purple houses on a suburban street.

The fact is, if someone believes themselves unworthy of friendship of any kind, chances are that they will not accept someone else's word that they are. Something dark must have happened there, to forgo that one basic instinct—that packs are more effective when hunting than solitude. Sometimes, the change is irreversible, and we have to let that go.

In my personal experience, pretenses should be dropped after the visit has extended past the two hour mark. I asked to watch him paint.

I wanted to see both the Band-Aid and the raw wound beneath it. The suppressed talent there was unfamiliar, and therefore interesting. Many, many artists had the technique of splattering their insides onto a canvas with an ice cream scooper. The subtle nuances of art were often deliberate. The passionate things in that particular painting were not. They had slipped out by accident, or old habit. Chadwick was trying very hard to restrain himself from performing at maximum potential, and it was ever so interesting as to why.

He agreed politely, and invited me into his studio. However, my questions and observations seemed to tighten his armor, rather than penetrate the cracks in it.

"I must admit, I have personal reasons for wishing to stay, Mr. Chadwick." I said. "I see something in your art that I haven't before. Not this piece of art, obviously," I gestured towards the orange creation again, "but the one I saw downtown. There's something in you, Mr. Chadwick, and I think if you could find that energy, and let it loose a bit, you could be really amazing. You could be real."

"I think not, Miss Catherine," he said softly. He set his paintbrush down on the palette, careful to dab at the tip so as not to drip paint anywhere it wasn't supposed to be. "If you'll come with me, please. I want to show you something."

Some people don't think it worth the struggle to keep someone close, when it will all be snatched away from them one day without a backwards glance. Everyone knows that everyone dies, and sometimes, a person will know it right to the core of themselves. They will know death intimately, and will wait for him by the doorstep.

Before my grandfather died, I would ask him to talk about my grandmother for hours on end. She died before I was born. I guess my granddad assumed that I wanted to know her, even post-mortem, but that wasn't the reason. His face, when he talked about her, underwent the most fascinating transformation. He was both absolutely joyous, in an out-of-breath way, and tremendously sad, and when his face tried to contain both emotions, it twisted up in the most endearing little side grin that I'm sure he never saw in the mirror once. I pitied him for that, because I loved him unconditionally when I was a child, but I think I loved that little quirk of his mouth more.

The realization took some time, but I think the moment I saw that painting in the shop, I knew the man behind it had the potential for a little smile like that, and I considered it both my honor and sorrow to witness it up close.

In the back hallway hung a portrait of a woman who wasn't so beautiful in real life as she was portrayed in the painting. Her hair was blown back, the wind behind her in the swirled gray of the background, and her eyes were unhappy, though she was smiling.

"This is Ella," Chadwick said from behind me, and the question Who was she? died on my lips. It was unimportant of her exact identity or relationship with him; she was someone important who was now gone.

"I had cancer before she died. I was supposed to be terminal; I suppose I still am. I moved here because I knew this town would be peaceful." He looked at me, and I saw myself. "All I really wanted was for her to speak at my funeral. But she got there first."

But when a man has had all of these friendships, and has watched all of them shatter, he doesn't need companionship. He needs a crutch, a person to love him and who asks for not even love in return. Sometimes, a man like this doesn't need anything but someone to mourn him as he walks away.

"Why did you stop painting, though?" I asked. "Lots of great artists draw inspiration from drawing closer to death. If you loved it, why didn't you?"

"I wasn't the painter," he said, eyes still focused on the polite smile framed on Ella's face. "She was."

That's all a person ever really needs, isn't it? Someone to mourn him as he dies.

"Miss Catherine." A voice accompanied a knock at the doorframe. "Might I have a word?" I looked up from the various flowers people had sent over, wishing condolences to a man they hardly knew.

"Of course." It was the man with the sympathetic face, the man whose family had run the funeral home for too many years. Death was not a sad event anymore; death received condolences, then it was quick to work, planning the funeral and making the deceased look as pretty as a wax figurine.

"You are planning to deliver the eulogy, yes?" I nodded. "May I see it?" I handed over the index cards I had been fingering for the past hour, alone in this room with the flowers. They already had the scent of death; none of them had been properly watered.

"Forgive me, ma'am, but is this a eulogy about…friendship?"

"Yes, it is. I believe it's something the people of this town need to hear."

"I might ask, on what authority do you have to deliver this speech? You only met him a couple of days ago. What makes you special?"

"Nothing. I'm just a parallel soul."

"He does have friends at the funeral coming to speak. They may not approve of a stranger coming in and suddenly claiming to know him better than they did. And ma'am, I was told to inform you by Mr. Joey that your car has been ready for quite some time, and he's ready for you to pick it up. If you were to leave now, no one would begrudge you. There's nothing keeping you here."

At some point, when chewing Hubba Bubba gum, especially the kind that comes in a circular container and a spiraled strand of chewing gum that will never run out, the taste does begin to matter. Concentrating on how it feels around your teeth doesn't distract from the fact that it tastes stale on your tongue. So you put more and more into your mouth, stretching it to its limits, trying to find that perfect balance again.

I learned that when people care about you, they don't want to see teeth marks in your forearm. So you stop, pull back, and try to find a place that's just as satisfying, but less visible. It's impossible, of course—the fact that people know what you've been doing to yourself is half of the reward—but you carry on, I suppose, as best as you can.

"You're right," I said, laying the sheaf of papers down on the table next to the pink roses and the magnolias. "I should go."