PICASSO

To say he saw the great painter on the beach would be an extraordinary overstatement, but to all intents and purposes it was him. In his later years perhaps, but still that figure was a famous one, in his deep blue boyleg swimmers. He wandered up through the surf with that nearly orange skin, those mournful gravy eyes, that slight stutter to his step. He shook the water off his arms, stood for some moments, and then turned back to the ocean, perhaps considering.