There lay in the lowliest neighborhood of the city the lowliest of the street; a damp, dingy alleyway, packed with the huts of On this lowly street resided the lowliest of houses, a slum covered in mold, distinctly reeking of the open, overflowing sewer, rusting tin roof, a mish-mash of rubbish for the walls.

And here this rotting slum lived an old man, whose daily meals were inadequate if they existed at all, and whose existence was so dismal that it was that the beggars of the city lived better than he did.

This little, wizened old man could no longer work for a living, for he was weakened by emaciation, but he was by no means infirm. For- and by no means was this exaggerated- he was an extraordinary artist.

Portraits of all things imaginable, the richest aristocrats to the poorest slum dwellers, from colorful fields of flowers to the filthy alley-ways, all of it was captured in the greatest of details. A majesty, a beauty, the greatest art the world had seen! The bright strokes of his yellows and oranges resplendent of the shining sun, the deepness of his blues and purples accenting the dark features of his tragic portraits, all skillfully combined into a magical world existing only on his canvas, by the genius of his brush. Those hands brought light and color into the miserable existence to which he was changed.

I had the great misfortune of living in that very alley-way in which the old man resided. In fact, I was his closest, his only friend, perhaps, in his miserable life. Nobody can be blamed for this, as he was a very cold man. No warmth, no light in his eyes, very cold indeed, in fact, quite the opposite of his paintings. So hostile was this man that despite my pleas for reason, which he would reject immediately, he would never sell his paintings, or for that matter, even consider the thought.

Knowing him from childhood, I had grown used to this behavior, and his hostile demeanor. He was relatively pleasant around me, and I did feel genuine pity for the man- what loneliness he must feel at his age, after all- but there was little I could do.


Summer had brought down all its energy upon our little alleyway, such that few could bear to be outdoors. The intense heat heralded the return of the mosquitos, the flies, and made the sewage around us fester like never before.

At that hot hour, a large, luxurious car drove in to our dingy alley.

From the car came a man, a businessman, extravagantly dressed, clean and neat. From his pocket he pulled a document, and reading from it, explained to us that he had bought out our land. We were to vacate our homes immediately. The bulldozers would arrive the day after tomorrow.

Most of my neighbors accepted this, heads hanging, defeated. But not the artist. No, there was a glimmer in his eyes, not one of joy, but one which chilled my bones at the sight.


He raised himself, and walked back into his little house.

That night brought me no sleep, try as I might. His eyes refused to leave my brain. I started off for a walk, to lift the stress from my mind.

As I did so, I noticed that the lamp was still burning in the old painter’s house. Rather peculiar; rarely did he stay up past sunset. I peeked into the window.

He was painting away at his canvas, his back towards me. I saw, to my great shock, that he was painting that aristocrat- the brute who’d come that afternoon. Something was wrong, though.

The brute was dead, and around him, the most hideous shades of black and red. He was tormented, mouth contorted in a scream, body eagle-spread, covered in reds, limbs broken-oh, what a horrible sight!

I thought nothing of it at the time, for I thought that it was simply his way of expressing anger.

The next morning. I went off to do my daily begging along the main road, as I had always done.

It couldn’t have been long after ten that morning when it occurred. I was begging when I began to hear screams coming from up the street. Cars were jammed, and people rushed along the pavement to the sound. Intrigued by this strange events, I went along with the crowd.

What a grim sight awaited me! There was a luxurious car there, now completely wrecked, smashed to shards upon the asphalt. Nearby lay a corpse, bloody, broken, eagle-spread.

Horrified, I realized that the man was none other than yesterday’s brute! He was there, in the precise position in which he had been painted last night, the same hideous shades of red and black gore around him, mouth contorted in a scream. I tried to steady my heart.

So what if it looks like the same? It couldn’t be! It just looks similar, nothing more than a coincidence. It’s just an illusion of my eyes!

Unconvinced by this explanation, I resolved to clarify the mystery.

I set out from my house that night, creeping back to his little shack. Looking in through the same window, I found him to be working away. But this painting was no less gruesome than the first.

There were bulldozers, like the ones scheduled to clear the land the next day. But from them came flames, a most ferocious pouring of bright, vivid flames! They engulfed the machines, the metal melting. And their drivers- charred bodies, enveloped in fire, twisted by fire. But there were no heads on them- only burning torsos.

Limbs giving way, collapsing to the ground, I steadied a frantic heart. Escape, it said. Flee from this madman.

No, better that I stay. I was his friend, and so long as I did not betray his trust, he’d have no reason to make me his victim. He needed to have no hatred towards me.

The machines drove in the next day. We all came to see them at the entrance, packed with our belongings. All of us except him.

“I need but a few minutes more,” he quietly told the first driver to come in. They stopped their machines, and waited impatiently for him to finish. Fear and curiosity drove me to creep up to his window and observe the woe he was about to bring.

It was the painting from last night, and he was adding something- the faces! They were the faces of the men waiting outside, the construction workers. Now, in his demented portrait, they were the pained, burning figures, charred in their melting vehicles.

The moment the last detail was added, there came a terrific blast of heat, and in a moment’s passing, the bulldozers had disappeared behind an overpowering flash of flames, bursting from the machines. Molten metal, oozing upon the ground, and in them, the charred, incinerated bodies of the workers, arms thrown to the heavens, bodies twisted, oh, what a grotesque scene it was!

Perhaps that might have been the last of the terrors, if it hadn’t been for the fool standing behind me. I suppose that he too was curious about the old artist, so he crept behind me, watching the whole dastardly act.

Immediately he went about to all the neighbors, spreading what he had seen, tarnishing the name of the old artist. Speaking of witchcraft and evil, of the Devil and Satan’s spawn, of all evils in this world and next, his words enraged them all.

Yet nobody seemed at all perturbed by the murders. Exploiting the magic of the old artist was of a greater priority. If only the fools had known what this greed would bring them to!

Evening came. I came into the alley, arriving from my daily begging, when I saw all my wretched neighbors, in a mob outside the artist’s house, brandishing knives. At once I hurried over to calm them, but they would listen to none of it and threw me roughly to the side. Soon after, the old artist joined me, flung into the dust. Their leader came over to him.

“You know what we want”, growled he, “Give us a world of riches, gold and jewels! Paint us with gold in our hands, or it shall be your life!” Having said this, he brought out the paints and canvas, and instructed my friend to begin. The mob stood guard in a large circle around us.

He began to paint himself in the middle, and then drew the mob in a large circle around him. Finally, he came to the last figure in the circle, but the mob’s patience had run out.

“Enough!” They cried. “Give it now, or die!”
Frightened, he took his brush, dripped in gold paint, he wiped several strokes across the sky of the painting.

Gold poured in rain from the sky, nuggets of the stuff, falling upon the ground. The mob guarded us not a second longer; half ran off after the riches, the greedy scoundrels, grabbing up all the gold they could into their arms. But the artist did not stop; he was still furiously painting away.

But he had not given enough gold, and the remaining half, probably too shocked to seize the moment, took up their weapons and lunged towards us, most probably to seize the gold paint and gain a greater share of riches for themselves.

Quickly, as though panicked by their sudden actions, the old painter took up his paintbrush, dipped it in red, and- I shall never be able to imagine his demented reasoning behind this- and quickly traced a thin red line through the mob, a large red circle.
The scoundrels’ bodies were instantly cut in two, some beheaded across the neck, some sliced through the abdomen, some across the waist. Blood spurted out in torrents, gushing over crimsoned gold. Fragments of bodies lay scattered around the floor in a hellish scene resplendent of war. The stench of blood hung heavily in the hot air.

And the painter, my friend- dead! His own weapon had sent him swiftly to his death. In his fearful rush, some paint had splattered on his figure, bringing about his end.

Several days after the massacre, I returned to the scene to observe the demolition. My house was already razed. I was told that the painter’s house had not been touched, as of yet, so I went inside so that I might answer those questions which had confounded me those few days.

The house indeed appeared to be untouched. But there was a difference.

Across the house, there lay blank canvases where his paintings once were.

I looked about, but no, they were as blank as a dead man’s memory. Only one remained, likely tossed in by a worker. Upon first sight, it shook me to the bone, sending fear through my blood.

During those final moments of his life, as the gold rained down, he had been trying to paint another figure, that last figure in the circle of his victims, before death prevented him from doing so.

He knew about my nightly prying. I had betrayed his trust.

He couldn’t let me live after that.