The Investigator

[I’d recommend you read The Painter before you read this.  It can be found here.]

---

It’s been a long night.  We found this one dangling from city hall.  There’s a lot of paperwork to be done.

The papers have a name for them.  They call them “The Painter”.

But we know better.  We know exactly who she is.  We know everything about her.  And we can’t do a damn thing about it.

She doesn’t even try to cover her tracks.  We’ve known who she was since the second killing.

There’s been twelve more since then.  Well, it’s thirteen now.

It… well, I should be saying it’s above your paygrade.  But…

I don’t have control over this “investigation”.  Never really had.  I don’t know what’s so damn important about this girl, but somebody… higher than me wants her to keep on going.

Yeah, it’s messed up.

Complain?  To who?  The boss gave me the orders not to apprehend her directly.  He didn’t look too happy about it either.

Exactly.  It has to be someone pretty high up.

No.  I wouldn’t complain if I knew who it was.  The force is corrupt.

I’d love to quit.  But I can’t exactly do anything about it if I do.  At least here I can help out in some small way.

Here, take a look through the file.  I should warn you, most of it is pretty disturbing stuff.

I don’t know either.  I don’t know how she keeps them so clean.  None of them are the same.

You’ll see that a lot.  It’s her... signature, I suppose you could say.

There’s a bit of a psych profile in there somewhere.  You’d probably find it interesting.

Yeah, have fun with that.

Me?  I’m going to go get myself a drink.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

Rock Is My Life And This Is My Blog Post

As of today, I have been attempting to evade this "reality" thing I've heard so much about for eighteen years.  I could say a few words on how much this (fairly arbitrary, really) date means to me.

I could talk about how various friends have shaped my life.

There are countless other ways that I could make a poignant statement about how I've gotten to where I am.

Instead, I'm going to talk about how a song that is essentially two and a half minutes of double entendres changed my life.

I first heard this song when I was six years old.  I was hooked.  Of course, at this point, I was way too young to understand the song.  I'm fairly certain I didn't get any of the double entendres until I was twelve, but that's not the point.  I got Back in Black for my seventh birthday.  AC/DC was the first band I could be considered to be a fan of, and they would continue to be my favourite band for, well, a long time.

Before that, I really didn't have much interest in music.  Yeah, sure, I'd listen to it, but I didn't really have a good idea of what good music was.  I knew I listened to classical music, and the pop groups that everybody else around me listened to, but I never really figured out what I liked.

When I discovered AC/DC, though, I began to actually take an interest in rock.  My dad had (and still has) a huge knowledge base for this topic.  It was him who got me into The Who.

While Pinball Wizard was probably not the first Who song I listened to, it's definitely the closest I'm going to get to remembering.  While AC/DC was still my favourite, The Who were a very close second.  Eventually, I'd get into other bands, ranging from The Beatles to Queen, most of which my dad was responsible for introducing me to.

Perhaps the major exceptions for this were Iron Maiden and Nirvana.

At this point, we've jumped forward about seven years, to just before high school.  Nirvana and Iron Maiden (particularly Iron Maiden), would proceed to have a huge influence on my tastes since then.  It was at this point where I started getting into bands that were formed after I was born, even though neither of those bands were.

So why is music such a huge influence in my life?  I have absolutely no idea.  I do know that I spend most of my spare time listening to music, and that I have an insane amount of it.  My favourite bands have gone from being AC/DC, the Who, and Steppenwolf to being Rush, Rammstein, and the Protomen.

What song am I listening to right now?

Isn't it obvious?

In conclusion, here is a squirrel with a party hat cunningly (and perhaps comically) photoshopped onto it's head.

The Painter

It’s a nice night, but it could be better.

There is so much not right with the world.  There is so much ugliness.  I fix that, though.

I am an artist, you see.  I might not be the best artist in the world, but I do what I can.  It’s all about getting the right canvas.

Some nights, the canvas is easier to find than others.  Some nights, it just comes right along.

Tonight is a good example of that.  I barely had to do anything to get him to follow me.  Just a couple of drinks, and, well…

I look at him, sitting in the shotgun seat.  “What’s the matter?”

“My lips feel a bit weird.”

I smile.  The canvas is getting prepared.  “Oh, don’t worry, dearie.  That’s just the poison.”

The canvas starts.  He looks around wildly.

“Look, there's no point struggling. It's tetrodotoxin. Just sit still and be a good canvas.”  I haven’t stopped smiling.

The canvas stops struggling after a while.  I try to drag it in.  It’s a bit heavier than most of my usual canvases, but nothing I can’t handle.  This could prove difficult later, though…

The canvas has been inside for a while.  He is a… different specimen from my normal canvases.

But he will do.

I begin to prepare.  He is wearing a simple polo shirt and jeans.  I ponder leaving them on.  I’ve never tried using a canvas that’s got other stuff on it.  Eventually, I decide to prepare the canvas as usual.

Soon, the canvas is blank.  My paint and brushes are laid out neatly along the floor beside it.  I begin my work.

“This might tickle a bit.  I don’t know, though.  I’d imagine the poison would mess with how you feel things.”  I nod, mostly to myself.  I know the canvas is mostly conscious, but still.  Canvases don’t talk back.

I love painting.  The feel of the resistance of the canvas, the way the paint glistens before it dries, the sound of fading breath…

I spend a lot of time on this canvas.  Blues and greens mingle with deep reds and bright oranges.  The room is silent but for the sound of brush on canvas.  Sometimes, when I work, I lose track of time.  It’s always night when I begin to paint, but many times it is day when I finish.  Sometimes it is night, but it is the next night instead of the same.

I care about my work.  Tonight is one of the times where it is the next night.

Mother would be proud.

Mother was a painter too, but she died a long time ago.  Her work was some of the most beautiful I have ever seen.

I back up and look at my work.  It’s my finest yet.

The way the colours mingle.

The way the light strikes the swirls in just the right way.

Nothing is left uncovered.  There is no blank space.

I lean forward, and slowly, but lovingly, carve my signature into the canvas.  The ink may mess up the canvas a bit, but it is the most essential part.

The end result is a blood-red crescent moon.

To me, it is the most beautiful sight in the world.

My work is almost done.  The canvas is painted, the work is signed.  The only thing I am missing is a wall to display it on.  I carefully arrange the painting in the car seat.

I will find a nice, new place to hang this.

The hardest part of the painting is the hanging.  Sometimes, the canvas recovers from the tetrodotoxin by the time I have them where I want them.  Like this one.  I barely get the rope around him before he comes to.

There is a bit of a crack as the rope straightens out.

And with that, the night is just a little bit better.

The Hallway

I come to in a hallway.  I don’t know who I am, or how I got here.  All I know is this hallway.  It stretches down into the horizon.  I feel like I’m staring into infinity.

Suddenly, I realise I’m being watched.  I turn around, ready to fight.  I see a man.  Maybe he looks like me, maybe he doesn’t.  I don’t even know what I look like.  He is dressed fairly casually, wearing jeans and a t-shirt.  Try as I might, I can’t quite figure out what they look like.

He clears his throat, and speaks.  His voice is low, almost gravelly.  “Perhaps… you should open one of the doors?”

I start to say “What doors?”

But then I realise they’ve been there all along.  I don’t know how many of them, but I know that they stretch as far as the hallway.

There must be hundreds.

I look behind where I started, but the hallway doesn’t go that way.  I guess I can only go forward.

I swallow, and put my ear to the first door.  The sounds I hear confuse me.  I look at my companion.  “It… it sounds like someone is skinning a bear.”

He raises an eyebrow.  “You can only find out if you open the door.”

I pause, my hand on the knob.  “What if I were to choose not to open it?”

“Then you shall never know.”

I nod.  This makes sense.  I open the door, and I look inside.

I close the door immediately.

My companion looks smug.  “Well?”

“There is someone skinning a bear in there.  It is another bear.”

“Oh dear.”  He shakes his head.  “Perhaps you should try the next door?”

I nod, and move on to the next door.  It’s not like there’s anything else for me to do.

“This one sounds like someone is attempting to bathe a cat.”  I open the door.

“What is it?”

“It is a cat bathing a person.”

I repeat the process one more time.  “This one sounds like hyenas at a feast.”  I open the door, and find a royal court, laden with food.

All the members of the court are hyenas.

This continues for many more doors.  I grow tired of being right, but at the same time, being wrong.  Eventually, something occurs to me.

“What if I were to open a door without listening first?”

All I get in response is an encouraging nod.

I try again.  This time, I do not listen.  I grab the handle, take a deep breath, and turn the knob.

I see a young boy.  The only thing I can tell about him is that he is blonde.  He is shivering.  The room is clearly much colder than the hallway.  I want to ask my companion if we can take the poor child with us.

He rests his hand on my shoulder.  “We cannot take from the rooms.  We can only close the door and move on.”

I nod, saddened by the knowledge that he is correct.  I begin to wonder why I am seeing these things.  I open the next door, and the next.  I see more children, getting progressively older.  On some level, I know it’s the same boy, but something seems wrong.

I can only see one feature of him at a time, and I cannot remember them from one door to the next.

While I can’t remember his face, or his blonde hair, or his brown eyes, I can remember what he does.  I can remember how I see him go from being a boy huddled in the corner of a frozen room to stealing food from a store.

I see a lot of stealing.

Eventually, something seems… different.  It’s the same boy, but… his hair is black.  I think that’s different, but I cannot remember.  I turn to look at my companion, to ask him what he knows, but all he does is smile and point to the next door.

“Please, continue.  We have many doors, and not much time.

Over time, I see the boy fall in with a gang.  I see him get more and more involved.  He gets older, he get taller.   

Eventually, he stops growing.  I imagine he’s an adult now, so I can’t call him a boy.

The man gets into fights.  It starts off simple enough, just the occasional bout in a bar.

It turns into much more.

I see him pull a knife.

I see him lose an eye.

His face has scars, but I can’t keep track of them.  Some are new, I think.  Sometimes, I think I recognise one of them.

I think he has become a hitman.  A wanted criminal.

I start to panic.  I think what might have happened if we had taken him with us.  I am about to confront my companion when I feel his hand on my shoulder.  The hand is heavy and calloused.

“These are things we cannot change.  It is too late for that.  This is a story, my friend, nothing more.”

“But why can’t I remember any of this story?  Why can’t I remember what he looks like?”

“You simply need to open more doors.”

And so I do.

Oddly enough, I don’t feel time passing.  I merely see it passing.

The man is getting older.  Perhaps he is in his early thirties.

He is successful at what he does.   I don’t know how I know this, because the only one I see is him.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take.  I turn to my companion, to plead with him to let me stop opening these doors, and seeing what has happened to the boy we saw so long ago.

I can see him now.

He is tall.  His hair is jet black, and very clearly dyed.

His face is a network of scars.

His hands are calloused, and have specks of blood on them.  I know that if I asked him, he would call them MacBethian stains.

He is missing one eye.  The remaining eye, now lonely, is brown.

I realise that I have been travelling with the boy all along.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were the boy?”

“Have you ever considered looking at yourself?”

I stop completely.  I never have.

I look down.  I recognise but one thing.

I recognise my hands.

I know that if I had a mirror, I’d recognise my face.

I know who I am.

I sink to my knees, sobbing.  How did my life go so wrong?

And yet, there are two more doors.

Two more deaths.

I open the second-to-last door.

I am not prepared for what I see.

I see myself.  I am lying on the ground, in a pool of my own blood.  I am very clearly about to die.

But this can’t be the end!  There’s one more door!

I reach out, and I fumble with the knob.

I open the door.

There is no room behind it.

I step through.