Aphrodite Mask

I met her by accident on a collapsing bridge, just moments before the catastrophe history chose to erase. She introduced herself plainly – a gold digger with a Pandora smile, singing false heavens, a song about a place that never existed.
Later, I understood – her pulse carried sparks like stolen fire, electric currents intertwining with mine, and deep in endless throat we became temples, whispering lessons of sacrifice and prejudice, as if caught in a midlife crisis of existence itself I watched my own time shed like hair falling to the ground, while she changed her faces like masks at a Dionysian feast. I clung to the red – the red of blood, of desire, of quantum entanglement, even as the wax of Icarus’ wings melted beneath her comfort-seeking sun.
Among the clouds, she saw that the palace of ease was only a cage, and that creation – creation is the eternal flame Prometheus never stopped guarding. And when all illusions turned to ash, only the name remained.
I believed hers was Evelyn.

The work was created using the enhanced NEXT 2.0 algorithm based on a photograph of a watercolor painting, and then further painted in Clip Studio Pro and Procreate.