This week’s prompt is

‘The light’s rubbish. He looks like celery.’ Pa Vinchy threw his paintbrush onto his palette and kicked the easel.

‘Bugger off!’ The easel hopped away, rubbing its left side, the canvas slipping to the floor.

‘What the actual f…?’ The canvas’ words were lost as it landed face down on the tiles.

‘That went well. Prima Donna, or what?’ The paintbrush rolled in a circle, upsetting the red and the green. The paintbrush pointed at Pa. ‘See what you made me do? Now even your pigments are browned off.’

‘I’ll have you know,’ Pa regained his previous poise, ‘it’s Prima Don, if you don’t mind. I’m projecting my inner entitled male this week.’

The canvas rolled over, its edges lifted by a little zephyr. ‘Gerrof you little sod.’

The zephyr withdrew. ‘Sorreee. I was just venting. No need to get into a flap.’

The easel eased itself upright and repositioned the canvas. ‘Look, you overpriced decorator. Does it matter what skin tone He has? No one knows what pigmentation God has anyway.’

Pa leant so close that the left side of the easel knotted its brows. ‘Why don’t you keep your clever dick ideas to yourself, you piece of peri-kindling. Have you not heard of the Inquisition? They might not know, as an actual fact, whether God hails from Halls of Asgard or the backside of a fireguard but that doesn’t stop them pontificating as if they knew. And if they say God is Italian, then God loves his mama, eats his pasta like a good boy and has an olive complexion. And if I can’t get the tone right, I’ll soon find out why both God and the mafia organise their legions in similar ways.’

The easel, canvas, paintbrush and unmixed pigments considered this conundrum. The zephyr, which was still gyring slowly, said, rather breezily. ‘What happens if you get it wrong?’

There was such a sharp intake of breath that most of the zephyr split into small streams before reforming unhappily in a miasma of halitosis.

Pa Vinci swallowed. ‘For artisans they’d get bricked into a wall, but for me, a painter and artist…’ His voice failed him.

The easel tapped him on the shoulder, trying to confront him. When he spoke, his voice was a creak. ‘They’d paint him into a corner.’

As that awful notion took hold, each of Pa, the easel, the canvas, the paint brush, palette and pigments blanched. Even the zephyr felt the impact as all colour drained from it; it couldn’t even make a sound as it sussurated away, now just white noise.