Josef Holznecht/The Painting
From Megaman Mush Wiki
Something happened to him at that auction.
It was an early Vegas night, so light still streamed in through the windows. The huge Austrian, standing alone in his hotel room completely nude, approached this more like a ritual than a piece of artwork. He would need many colors - a large pallet was hooked onto his cybernetic right arm. He had learned to use his left hand as well as he would have his right in his drifting year, evolving by necessity.
He had never painted before, never even thought of the concept of him doing it. But all painting is, is visualization. He closes his eyes briefly, and calls Her memory to the surface. It jumps up as though opened on a datapad. He opens his eyes, and there She is, superimposed on the canvas. He did not know the science of color, but he knew that he did not need to. He would not get much sleep this night.
Every inch of Her form committed in unnaturally perfect detail to the canvas is an inch that no longer held sway on his mind. He started with that dress, exquisite red melting to gold, a black belt and a ruffle of fur interrupting it midway. Long black gloves, so long... flawless skin... thin, perfect boots. He comes up at last to Her face, and his left hand tightens. He can see Her before him, but he cannot bring himself to try.
The large man who has never picked up a pen to draw in his life begins to fill in a background of everything that comes to his imagination. Beautiful flowers that don't exist, ivory clouds admidst perfect blue skies, dreamscapes of every color on his pallet. But still Her head remains, blank canvas glaring out as though the form was ommitted by the light of God Himself, a victory in some battle between Himself and Her that may not even be real.
He touches the tip of his brush to the very center, barely touching, creating not the face, but the suggestion of the face. A hazy dream of a crown, the long-forgotten memory of small bifocals. He paints not a woman but the concept of a woman in that emptiness. It's as though you only need to get just a little closer to see her... just another step and you can make it all out...
The pallet clatters to the floor as Josef Holznecht sinks back, fetching up against the foot of his hotel bed. The lights outside brighten as the sun emerges over the jewel of the Nevada desert, touching his dark blue eyes as they fall closed, to dreams of Her.
