depending on how far you opened the circuit, how carelessly you loosed the creative current.
Shane recognized this tendency even in himself, the tendency to fall into the art with reckless abandon, to let it into his mind like some sort of impish demon. Thus, he’d set up firewalls in his mind; borders and boundaries, hand-painted mental signs that read, “This far, and no further”. The foreman in his head was an expression of those boundaries, as was his shift and his general rejection of the fabled artist's muse.
Of course, Shane
was
working with the muse as of late, perhaps for the first time in his adult life. But he wasn’t her slave. He’d ignored her siren call the entire day, in fact, spending it out on the forgotten footpath, clearing it and exhausting himself so that he probably wouldn’t even paint tonight. He grinned to himself as he finished, tossing the spade into the wheelbarrow behind him and arming sweat from his brow.
“That’ll show her whose boss,” he muttered to himself, looking back at his work. “Shane Bellamy, that’s who. The man who tamed the muse.”
He tromped along the path, past what he had cleared, and moved into the sunlit area that curved around the gully. The hydrangeas were very thick, but he kicked through them, clearing his way, and found the hump of the buried bench. Using both hands, secure in garden gloves, he stripped the vines away from the bench, snapping the stems and ripping out the roots wherever he could. He didn’t intend to completely clear the bench; he just wanted a place to sit down for a moment. The wrought iron of the bench was contrived to look like curling vines and leaves. Despite the decades of rust, it seemed solid. Shane finally turned and plopped onto it, sighing. It leaned backwards, but held him easily.
Even in its state of overgrowth and rusty dereliction, it was extremely pleasant. Shane immediately understood why Wilhelm had placed the bench here. Its position provided a high, clear view of the boulder-strewn gully as it dropped away toward the river, a hundred yards beyond. Trees clustered along the furthest edge of the gully, but they looked relatively young compared to the woods on either side. It seemed possible, even likely, that the view of the river beyond the gully had originally been completely uninterrupted.
Shane imagined Wilhelm sitting on the bench, perhaps with his wife at his side, watching the huge steamships paddle up the river, splashing and chugging, leaving trails of black smoke in the sapphire sky. Maybe they’d drunk tea from hand-corked bottles, carried in a whicker picnic basket.
It was certainly a nice image, and yet Shane didn’t think it was exactly accurate. Maybe that kind of thing had happened early in their marriage, before they’d come to Missouri, but by the time they’d built the house, Shane had a strange suspicion that those halcyon days were over.
He was probably wrong, of course. These were simply more of those idle narratives, concocted when he was working on the painting of the manor house; mere creative daydreams, no more accurate than uninformed guesses.
He rested there, his arms spread out on the back of the bench on either side, smelling the wild, woodsy smell of the hydrangeas and cut weeds and deepening autumn. The wind blew high in the trees, making them shush and whisper, sending down a snowfall of turning leaves.
As Shane moved to get up, he saw something glint in the thick growth near his feet. He leaned over, and then squatted in front of the bench, pushing the vines and leaves aside. There didn’t appear to be anything unusual there.
He was about to climb to his feet again, weary and hungry, when he saw it again; a shimmer of sunlight on dull metal. He reached for it, felt around in the thick undergrowth, and finally touched something hard and smooth. He gripped it and began to pull it out.
It made a noise, a sort of loose clatter, and for one bright second Shane’s mind provided
Shane recognized this tendency even in himself, the tendency to fall into the art with reckless abandon, to let it into his mind like some sort of impish demon. Thus, he’d set up firewalls in his mind; borders and boundaries, hand-painted mental signs that read, “This far, and no further”. The foreman in his head was an expression of those boundaries, as was his shift and his general rejection of the fabled artist's muse.
Of course, Shane
was
working with the muse as of late, perhaps for the first time in his adult life. But he wasn’t her slave. He’d ignored her siren call the entire day, in fact, spending it out on the forgotten footpath, clearing it and exhausting himself so that he probably wouldn’t even paint tonight. He grinned to himself as he finished, tossing the spade into the wheelbarrow behind him and arming sweat from his brow.
“That’ll show her whose boss,” he muttered to himself, looking back at his work. “Shane Bellamy, that’s who. The man who tamed the muse.”
He tromped along the path, past what he had cleared, and moved into the sunlit area that curved around the gully. The hydrangeas were very thick, but he kicked through them, clearing his way, and found the hump of the buried bench. Using both hands, secure in garden gloves, he stripped the vines away from the bench, snapping the stems and ripping out the roots wherever he could. He didn’t intend to completely clear the bench; he just wanted a place to sit down for a moment. The wrought iron of the bench was contrived to look like curling vines and leaves. Despite the decades of rust, it seemed solid. Shane finally turned and plopped onto it, sighing. It leaned backwards, but held him easily.
Even in its state of overgrowth and rusty dereliction, it was extremely pleasant. Shane immediately understood why Wilhelm had placed the bench here. Its position provided a high, clear view of the boulder-strewn gully as it dropped away toward the river, a hundred yards beyond. Trees clustered along the furthest edge of the gully, but they looked relatively young compared to the woods on either side. It seemed possible, even likely, that the view of the river beyond the gully had originally been completely uninterrupted.
Shane imagined Wilhelm sitting on the bench, perhaps with his wife at his side, watching the huge steamships paddle up the river, splashing and chugging, leaving trails of black smoke in the sapphire sky. Maybe they’d drunk tea from hand-corked bottles, carried in a whicker picnic basket.
It was certainly a nice image, and yet Shane didn’t think it was exactly accurate. Maybe that kind of thing had happened early in their marriage, before they’d come to Missouri, but by the time they’d built the house, Shane had a strange suspicion that those halcyon days were over.
He was probably wrong, of course. These were simply more of those idle narratives, concocted when he was working on the painting of the manor house; mere creative daydreams, no more accurate than uninformed guesses.
He rested there, his arms spread out on the back of the bench on either side, smelling the wild, woodsy smell of the hydrangeas and cut weeds and deepening autumn. The wind blew high in the trees, making them shush and whisper, sending down a snowfall of turning leaves.
As Shane moved to get up, he saw something glint in the thick growth near his feet. He leaned over, and then squatted in front of the bench, pushing the vines and leaves aside. There didn’t appear to be anything unusual there.
He was about to climb to his feet again, weary and hungry, when he saw it again; a shimmer of sunlight on dull metal. He reached for it, felt around in the thick undergrowth, and finally touched something hard and smooth. He gripped it and began to pull it out.
It made a noise, a sort of loose clatter, and for one bright second Shane’s mind provided
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