Look and see. He knew where. He took the stoned path, now more grass or correctly just plain but lovely weed, to the wooden structure, where the magic had lived and died. He'd only been allowed in once, and so many years ago, it felt like a dream.
Smell. Hidden at the far woodsy back of the vast estate's fields, beyond the lily pond, and almost to the river where the gators lived to themselves, the structure of the dank, damp retreat looked the same. Musk, cologne spilled, mold. One room, perfect square, hipped roof, architecturally designed (for a shed? Yes, he'd had his ways with creation, and the money to boot). Most windows per square meter for maximal light, floor to ceiling their cast, and the windows could slide fully up the wall's height, for as he remembered the frogs, spiders, and gnats, three cats, two dogs, tamed deer, wild fox, and even one snake of some venom had crawled in, but to no one's care of a whiff.
The uncle? Drew inspiration from any and all. The music of nature, his cure. His muse. All alone.
Do. The nephew peered in, seeking a memory or a wish of what lurked behind the smeared window almost opaque in the darkness of the shady afternoon light. He'd come too late to see best, but the court had ordered a report by the morning and he'd had, well, all the other duties had sapped him.
Feel. He spotted uncapped tubes of thick oils littering the main room. Antique settee's threadbare fabric. Smashed gilt frame sulked. By the half-open, odd shape of what made for a bathroom door. Vague remnants of blood. Caked, clinging to its glass-knob handle. Microscopes could reveal such of the tired mess of colorful memory, but no cause for medical or legal worry, the red only a test of research for yet another interrupted work in progress, a novel mystery that particular year decades ago and still unsolved without its creator to sleuth, or so the nephew reasoned.
He had his own notebook today, that list from his pocket, to check off one last time, final receipts, all to submit to the court. Always a deadline, something his uncle had known from his work. But silence today.
Taste. The baby grand hid like the bad kid he'd been so many years before, the nephew mused, under layers of ill-stacked, unfinished musical scores scattered as if by a hurricane but long, long ago that ego's wind quieted, years before sheets of dust – mmm mmm mmm, even now in his mouth – had calmed the strident scene and would-be creator moved along to next medium or genre of project, it all to be abandoned as well and too soon.
Nephew, as keen-eyed attorney and legal heir to uncle-artist's all, noticed the broken glass. In the French door. Leading to the second entry. Nothing missing. Unless all are complete. He'd been advised what to do, jot it all down, take it all up where left off.
Know. Notebooks full of scribbles of sound, musings of far-fetched idea, spent pens discarded on the floor, and thin pencils snapped in two, strings of violin popped in a corner, harp's much the same opposite the scene, more brushes both new and unwrapped as well as more used, nubbed, garish from labor, hair-worn, and with every tint of crying rainbow bled dry and holding, even them clutching, at what might've been, could be in him.
Be. The nephew knew what to finish, his own artist's life postponed, there were funds enough, enough paints, papers, implements, instruments, canvases, colors, where to begin, what story to tell first, in word or by note, then he remembered, thought like a child, that day he'd interrupted uncle, glimpsed glory of creation to child's eye, uncle shouting No sneaking, driving him out, tripping over cats and dog, losing his grip on control of the moment, afraid of all art, banished self and surrendering to guaranteed normalcy, that greatest of art, all out of puerile urge, mistaken misunderstanding, forlorn the deep fear. Into a life like us, all the rest, well-meaning and stable, forty hours or more every week every month thirty-five years now. He thought back. Wise remembered, knew where to begin: love what you do. Every day, the dear life.
Die doing, live happy. Listen. For the music. And make some, hmm-make-sommm.
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