Doc Shua, (Joshua S. Levin, Ph.D.), was on course for life as a statistical actuary, when his car broke down in the high desert mesa between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. With his shirt pulled over his head to provide the implication of shade, and a third of a cup of melted ice from an old soda, he made his way in search of assistance. While scuffling his way over the prickly pair and sage, he was stung through his sandles by the rare and beautiful scorpiones chromatomia. Shua slipped into a hallucinogenic fever and eventual blackout. He awoke in the presence of currandero Don Pablo Kline-Rodriguez. Owl had directed Don Pablo to the unconscious Shua, and with the help of the desert spirits, he was able to retrieve him, keep him breathing, and truth be gold, give him a decent shave and a haircut. When he awoke, Doc Shua told Don Pablo of his visions. They became convinced that the scorpion had been waiting for him, and that he would have to give up his dream of living with death and numbers. Handing him a brush and a box of pigments, Don Pablo blew out the evening candles saying, “you’ll have to paint your way out of this desert.” Shua awoke the next morning at a truck stop with his car and a blanket that was crudely painted in the image of a winged armadillo crushing a rainbow scorpion in his scaly maw.