Countess Margaret du Dupont stepped back from “Abstract in Blues and Greens,” to study the work as a whole.
“He was a fine painter,” she inclined her head towards the canvas. “But he lacked that heart, that ravaged passion that would make him one of the masters.”
“And that means, what?” Lady Ashbury asked. “That he didn’t suffer for his art?”
“Exactly, my dear,” she deadpanned. “He didn’t die young.”

I hope you enjoyed today’s flash fiction story. I’m writing these micro-stories in one minute from a prompt word (today, I happened to have two). I’m allowed to edit them as much as I want after the minute alarm chimes, but I must be done with the bones of the tale at the one-minute mark. To see my one year’s worth of one-minute stories from 2010, head here.