the song of love

just me being emotional about PK that's all

The first time PK sees the painting, he is ten years old, spending the summer with his grandmother. Nana Liebling lives alone and has trouble sleeping; late at night, when the temperature drops and PK must fumble in the darkness for the blankets he’d kicked to the floor, he can hear Nana Leibling’s rocking chair creaking downstairs, back and forth.

She calls the painting das Lied der Liebe. A print hangs over the dining room table, nestled between an empty vase and a portrait of PK’s grandfather.

PK hates it. He hates the textureless building and the huge orange glove nailed to it; he hates the severed statue head, its eyes blind and white; he hates the lumpy and imperfect ball that never rolls away. Nana Leibling pays him no mind when he complains about feeling watched during diner; nobody likes das Lied der Liebe, she says, but eventually everyone must sing it.