Ending with Odilon Redon

I am not certain as to the ending of the story. The story begins sad and then moves through varying degrees of melancholy. It is like the absence of light after a particularly languid sunset, the day bleeding out incrementally, leaking brightness, replacing it with a gathering dark.

A story that is mostly grey needs some kind of uplifting end. That is the rule of contrast. This story that ends badly was barely worth the effort of reading.

There are a handful of days till the proclaimed completion date and I am still toying with possible endings. Some of them are quietly sad, some have the kind of hook that splits you open and spills you out like fish guts. Some of them are sudden and unexpected and inexplicable. All of them are a fade to black and a little white box with the words 'the end' written inside it. All of them close the lid and leave us with our going over of things as in that picture by Odilon Redon that I was going to write about but didn't.