Second Chances: The Return of Gollum

Chapter 46

For the next few days, Sméagol spent a lot of his free time in the music room, recording, editing, and mixing. Hayley and I bought a whole bunch of empty CD cases and cardstock paper, as well as a white, knitted onesie with, not just the tail and zipper he loved so much, but big fluffy angel wings in the back. He was over the moon when we gave it to him! He happily zipped himself into it, giggling, squealing, and bouncing with utter joy. We took a picture of him in the field with just the blue sky in the background. He truly looked angelic in that picture––a warm, loving smile on his face, a kind, loving gleam in his eyes, and even a halo above his head that seemed to be an effect of the clouds and sunlight.

We typed up the list of songs he'd recorded, and printed them out for the back cover of the CD. We helped him burn the songs onto the CDs, and even created a fitting design for the discs––a pattern of white hearts with wings and halos against a sky blue background. He then wrote an uplifting, heartfelt message of love, which we would print onto the back of the cover art photo... in his handwriting. This way, when people opened the case, they would see that beautiful message. He decided that his album would be called Love Sméagol. Very simple but very heartfelt and sweet.

This album was all his original songs he'd made up on the spot or written in his free time. They were all songs of love, encouragement, kindness, and comfort. All of them were slow ballads with just the piano and synth, creating a beautiful, warm, angelic lullaby sound. Well, in fact, some of the songs were lullabies. It was an incredibly heart-touching and beautiful album that Sméagol was proud of, and so were we. By the time we'd finished everything, we had multiple boxes filled with copies.