If I could only draw, and knew how to paint

Title taken from Jerome K. Jerome's "Three men in a Boat [to say nothing of the dog]" (Published in 1889, by J. W. Arrowsmith).

["If I could only draw, and knew how to paint, I could make a lovely sketch of that old wall, I'm sure. I’ve often thought I should like to live at Hampton Court. It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble round in the early morning before many people are about. But, there, I don’t suppose I should really care for it when it came to actual practice. It would be so ghastly dull and depressing in the evening, when your lamp cast uncanny shadows on the panelled walls, and the echo of distant feet rang through the cold stone corridors, and now drew nearer, and now died away, and all was death-like silence, save the beating of one’s own heart".]

The story itself is of Metasebia Seifu: an emotionally crippled, "Hampton Court, USA" resident Ethiopian-American, whose life revolves around answering the one important question: what to do after work.

Book cover by kind permission of Artist Yenatfanta Abate: http://www.seleshe.com/