The Decipherment

PART 9

  Isabelle Aimery, a successful Parisian cryptologist, stood in her subconscious mind. She had explored her whole mind. She had seen her ideas, dreams and thoughts. After wondering helplessly in the layers of her subconsciousness, she had found something that might help her to go back to reality. Among her thoughts, she had found a code. It was something she had given little thought to – but it was there, among the bits and pieces of everything she ever thought of. She was s smart cryptologist; she was good at what she did and hence, she had cracked open the code without much difficulty.

  The secret message she had found hidden in the code was the name of a very famous painting made by one of the greatest artists who ever lived. The year of its completion was also mentioned in the code. Isabelle knew the painting. She had seen it as a young child. Her father was a big lover of art, and it was he who had shown her the painting for her first time.

  At that time, she had been unable to understand the meaning of the painting, but later in life she had studied it herself and gotten to understand it better. It was now one of her favourite pieces of art. She thought it was more beautiful and creative than the famous Mona Lisa created by another master mind, Leonardo Da Vinci.

  Although Isabelle understood most of the things depicted in the painting, there was still one thing that troubled her. She didn’t understand why the artist had used light to express ideas – as was the general view proposed by most art historians. As depicted in the painting, the mountains and water in the background are lit by sunlight, whereas the objects seen in the front: the ants, watches and the head in the middle –all are in the shade.

  Isabelle knew that the artist, Salvador Dali, was not just an artist – he was also a philosopher. He never truly explained the meaning behind his artwork. To think like the way he did, to perceive reality in the way he did and all-in-all, to see the world in the eyes of Dali – it would be a naïve thing to do. Sure, every mind is exceptional in its own way and is a genius of itself. But molding its mentality according to someone else’s genius is something a mind can not do well. Every mind has its own individuality as far as its creativity and genius is concerned.

  Isabelle wondered if this had something to do with positivity and negativity. She did not let her mind think of anything positive or negative, afraid it might actually happen; since all the thought of in her consciousness would emerge out into her subconsciousness, thus taking material form.

  Could she really return to reality if it meant figuring out the meaning of this painting’s peculiar aspect of light and dark? Was it that simple? But then she reminded herself.

  Sometimes, the simplest things are the hardest of all

  But if it really did mean getting out of here – back to her life, then she would do whatever was needed to be done – even if that meant understanding the meaning of an old painting!