The artist’s tale
“Le broyeur de raisins” (the grape crusher)
In the beginning, while the sun was still low on the horizon, a man emerged from the gloom and found himself looking at the tools located at the end of his arms, those things called hands, and wondering what they were for?
As he wandered through the landscape, he noticed that his hand had reached out to pick a grape from a small vine. Placing it between his thumb and forefinger, he squeezed it and the juice ran down his forearm. He licked it off. The taste was good. “Well, well, well,” he remarked, “these hands are pretty useful.”
In his joy, he pressed more grapes, then more. With time and practice, he became an expert, admired as an exceptional grape presser. However, after decades of this routine, the wrinkles on his hands had become rough and his fingers numb. He longed to recapture the feeling of that first discovery when his hands had instinctively reached out to the unknown.
The grape crusher concluded that his hands were dying. He sat down, took the last grape out of the wooden vat and held it between his fingers, glistening, succulent and juicy. It was still alive. “I haven’t looked at you for so many years. I’m so sorry. I forgot about you.” He held it even closer and saw something he had never seen before. “But now that I think about it, maybe……. ?”
Bob Budd