𝕁𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕃𝕚𝕜𝕖 ℍ𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕪

I told you my name was Rose. 

Not true My name is Jennifer

But Rose was softer. Easier to whisper. 

I told you that you were handsome. 

Not true. You are old. Probably older than my father.

But when I touched your wrist and tilted my head and smiled at you, you believed me. 

You told me that you felt like you could tell me anything. 

This is true. In the dark, when I held you, you told me about your son’s college applications, your stress with your company. 

I’d run my fingers through your hair, hum softly in understanding. 

You called me Rose gold. Told me I was everywhere. You couldn’t concentrate a work, could only think of me. 

Your sweet baby. Your sweetness. Your light. Your Rose.

I let you touch me. My designer heels are kicked to the side.

You finger at the lingerie you bought me. Tell me I deserve more. Deserve it all.

I quietly remind you of my student loan payment coming up. But stop there. Not the right moment to talk about the money. Let you touch my hair. My lips. 

A reward for how good you’ve been to me. 

I’m all tenderness for you. Radiating rose tenderness.

I bloom for you and leave my body.

Remind myself of how medical school is being paid for, how one day my husband won’t have to worry about my debt. 

Then, I get scared. Think of how I haven’t been able to keep a boyfriend. How I shrink away from men in my regular life. I shiver and snap back to reality. 

You’re holding me. Whispering into my ear about how you’ll take me to Paris. How I’m so beautiful. How I taste like flowers.

You tell me about how your wife wants to travel to Paris this summer but you’d rather take me. How she crowds you. I understand. I would never do that to you.

When you turn me the right way in the light, the makeup on my body glitters a dusty rose. 

You gasp. I sit up, lean my head back like I’ve practiced in the mirror, and let you stare at me. 

I think of my daughters. If I’ll ever be able to tell them this. You call out to me. Rose. I forget, for a split second, that you’re referring to me.

But then, I remember. Tilt my head back to you and smile at you like your Rose always does. 

You tell me to come here. 

In my mind I think of the car you paid for, my heels, my Birkin bag. I think of my therapist that warns me that doing this will hurt me later on. But money is money.

I almost started yelling the other day with Alpha – “THAT’S NOT MY NAME. STOP IT.”

Before the computing era, ILM was the master of oil matte painting, making audiences believe that some of the sets in the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy were real when they weren’t. They were the work of geniuses like Chris Evans, Michael Pangrazio, Frank Ordaz, Harrison Ellenshaw and Ralph McQuarrie ! Forever thank you, to their handmade art and the work of their colleagues, that made us dream of impossible worlds and fantastic places across Earth and the Universe.

There are more background paintings on this article, featuring comments by the masters/artists themselves ! 

Some of the following pieces were made by other artists 2: