The Smile Snatchers

Struggling artist Zaheer has always been captivated by the smiles of children. Then, one day, the afflicted children of the world begin to visit him in dreams and Zaheer nevertheless tries to help them in the only way visions, trying to warn him about a calamity looming on the horizon. Worried that he is losing his sanity, he knows: through his canvases. He is convinced that the unhappiness of these youngsters is a threat to the future of humanity. This absorbing tale of stolen smiles and the power of art is shot through with mystery and foreboding.

Zaheer climbs the weather-beaten steps and opens the door to his studio. The air is filled with the aroma of paints, spirit, glue, canvas and wood. The room is in shambles, but for Zaheer there is a system in the disarray. To one side, against the wall near a large window is a cluttered work table with a lazy susan holding paints, gesso, glues and inks. Next to it is a paint covered mug with the insignia of his old art school barely visible, into which have been thrust dozens of paint brushes of various types and sizes. Next to the mug lies a palette made of thin wood on which he arranges and mixes his pigments. Above the table is a bulletin board covered in torn green flannel. Here he has stuck photographs of his two sons and daughter, as well as a postcard of the "Mona Lisa", all secured with thumb tacks. The rest of the room is filled with a desk, shelves, chest of drawers, and stacks of finished and unfinished landscapes, still lifes, street scenes and seascapes. Different sizes of empty canvas and long narrow planks of wood litter all the surfaces and spill onto the floor. Tucked away up in a corner is a bird's nest in which, improbably, a live pigeon sits.