Another one hit the pile with a harsh slap. "No, no! None of them are right!" His bellow echoed in the near-empty rooms. "I wanted it pure, clean. Can't you understand?" He directed a thick, callused, trembling finger at the toppled stack of photographs. "Every damn one is ruined! They're useless to me!"

He swiped his massive palm at the pile, scattering them over the empty, tile floor. A few of the pictures came up in his hand, clenched between flushed fingers. "See?" He waved the pictures in the air, finally holding the still long enough to get a glance. "This one has a telephone pole in the foreground. This one has an airplane in the sky. This one has a goddamn house in it, for Christ's sake!" The pictures were hurled to the floor with the others. He launched a solid foot at the end of the bulk of the stack, sending the glossy 3x5's fluttering through the air.

He finally paused in his tantrum, panting until the soft tapping of grounded pictures ceased. His demeanor suddenly changed, like a light switch had been flipped somewhere behind his eyes. They lit up and began moving over the littered floor. "Oh, oh!" Why didn't I -- yes! That's it! If I can't have purity, if unspoiled nature doesn't exist anymore --" He laughed gleefully, like a child just given a pony for a birthday.

The next month his exhibit was the talk of the gallery set. He had worked as if possessed. The centerpiece, and the center of media attention, was the piece titled Heresy. From a distance it was a view of Mt. Rainier's peak, emerging from storm clouds, the base of the mountain aflame. Upon closer inspection, the image was made of hundreds of tiny pictures, all of the mountain, all containing man-made objects. In the vast majority of the pictures, the evidence of man's interference was on fire.


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