As everyone in these parts knows, strange stories and myths always seem to spill out of these sleepy little river towns where the bakers are up bright and early, as the writers tend to be just getting to bed, and everyone knows at least the face of everyone else. And in one of these sleepy, little towns was a young woman named Christine, who was known as a more serious type of girl than average, a bit enamored of books and learning. Many in her town, in fact, were quick to use the words “strange” and “peculiar” to describe the girl.

    
     Christine wore a fantastic pair of glasses that made her look both smart and intimidating to the town’s children. This was good, because Christine was the town’s schoolteacher, and she loved her vocation very much. She often wondered aloud if it was she who inspired the children, or if it were rather that the children inspired her. Regardless, she was regarded around town, despite her “oddities,” as very skilled in her profession.

    
     In addition to her glasses, Christine often wore long and light dresses that seemed to always be blowing around her ankles. Over her dresses, she would usually wear an olive green, baggy sweater that buttoned up the front with large brown buttons made of wood, and had two large pockets that opened up to the sky above, which in this town was usually a very brilliant shade of blue.

    
     But the reason many townsfolk called Christine odd wasn’t because of her glasses, her dresses, or her sweater; it wasn’t because she pronounced large words like she was eating candy; it wasn’t because she had never been courted by any of the young boys in her school. After all, these things were surely rare, but not uncommon. Most towns have a young woman with these curious traits. Her peculiar “difference” was that she carried around a tiny painter in the over-sized left pocket of her olive green sweater.

    
     The tiny painter traveled everywhere with Christine and would define the shade of the sky everyday from the orange mornings to the purple evenings. As Christine walked through town, one could hear the tiny painter commenting on the various flowers in town, often giving them brand new names like calling lilies “manifest destinies” and daisies “planes of pi.”

    
     The tiny painter lived with Christine in a little house he built on her windowsill, so that he could have a spectacular view of the river at night, something he cherished very much when the moon was full. Where the tiny painter came from, no one was sure, but he was kind and small enough that no one felt threatened enough to ask.

    
     Before bed each night, Christine would read the tiny painter stories from her books, and when she would wake up the next morning, he would usually have a finished painting waiting for her, pulled up from his interpretation of the story. The tiny painter also made several portraits of Christine, which he would title by number. And so it went for a very long time so that Christine and the tiny painter were a fixture in the town as much as anyone or anything else.
                                                                                   

     The townspeople had grown so accustomed to the pairing that it came as a startling shock when Christine abruptly left town with a man of the river who was “just passing through” on his way to the south. Apparently, the river man had managed to fall in love with Christine and convince her to travel with him around the rivers of the world—all in one night! The only reason that anyone knew what had happened is that Christine woke up the town’s leader after midnight to let him know he would need a new schoolteacher, and then she was off.

    
     A day later, the house Christine had lived in burned to the ground. And, of course, there was a lot of speculation about what everything meant for several seasons after. Some said the mysterious river man was actually the tiny painter and that Christine kissed him to turn him to regular size, and that they decided to run off together to Paris or Venice, where Christine could read stories while he painted great works of art. Others said that the tiny painter grew sick with grief and burned down the house and snuck away under the cover of night to find a cave to spend the rest of his life haunting.

    
     But the most common version is that Christine only needed the tiny painter to keep her hope and love alive until the “right” man came along, and that once he did, there was no need for the tiny painter anymore. In fact, Christine totally forgot the tiny painter existed and knew only the man of the river in her heart. It is said, the house burned down to clear the traces of Christine’s old life.

    
     And the story goes on to say that in every generation, there will be a young woman in the town who will be considered “strange” and “peculiar” and that the tiny painter will visit her until she meets her one true love.