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ArtistThe Cloudburst of Material Possessions: Leonardo’s deluge spirals through Rudolf II’s cabinet of wonders. Furniture, jewels and clocks rain upon Giulio Romano’s giants, crushed beneath collapsing Olympus in Mantua. Jamnitzer’s silver Daphne sprouts crimson coral amid shattered Palissy ceramics crawling with glazed serpents, frogs and shells. Through the wreckage rises the Orient, a luminous human Branch building a temple from dawn. Immersive Renaissance nightmare, turbulent chiaroscuro, intricate textures, monumental depth. No text.
The countdown to the end started after they found the New World paradise disguised as California. Naturally, somebody put a price on it.
By Tuesday, paradise required a down payment.
I arrived carrying a notebook and the unreasonable belief that the Pacific Ocean would settle my nerves. Instead, the sky opened and began returning everybody’s possessions. Grandfather clocks. Dining chairs. A bed large enough to accommodate a minor European dynasty. Everything came down through the golden clouds with the terrible confidence of objects that had finally located their owners.
“Market correction,” said a man beneath a falling wardrobe.
He was wearing a tie. This seemed significant.
To the left, two enormous men struggled under the wreckage of civilization. They had the muscles of Renaissance giants and the expressions of contractors discovering that the client had changed the plans again.
Nobody offered to help. We were busy protecting our investments.
At the center of the disaster stood a woman growing coral from her shoulders. She appeared calm, which immediately made her the most suspicious person in California. Around her feet, ceramic snakes slithered through silver dishes. A glazed frog stared at me with the patient contempt of a creature that had never applied for a mortgage.
I asked her whether this was the end.
“This?” she said. “This is what you bought.”
That was a difficult statement to enter in the notebook.
Beyond her, a luminous figure raised one hand toward the wreckage. Some called him the Orient. Others assumed he represented a development company. In California, a man surrounded by golden light could still be trying to sell you something.
He seemed to be building a temple.
The real estate people were already measuring the view.
We had crossed an entire continent pursuing the American Dream, only to discover it lying beneath a collapsed cabinet of curiosities, clutching a brochure for oceanfront living. Even then, nobody would pronounce it dead. There were tax advantages to keeping it technically alive.
By sunset, furniture was still falling. The giants were exhausted. The coral woman had acquired another branch.
I found a chair that had survived the descent and sat facing the Pacific.
For one clean minute, I owned nothing but the view.
Then a man approached with a clipboard.
