I love my job.
Someone managed to change something. They shouldn’t have been able to. But, that is the company’s problem. Someone needed to die, again.
Killing someone is not an easy thing. Killing them again is even harder. Killing them the same way as before.
That is art.
Her name was Mary Harris. Nineteen years old. Strangled.
19:23 exactly. My hands are already around her neck. Not too soft. With passion, as before.
19:24 she is dead.
On the dot. Man, I’m good. I stand up and look around. The room hadn’t been wrecked. That is always an annoyance. A simple strangulation. I look down at her. Turning blue.
“Sorry, darling,” I lie.
I would feel sorry for her, really. Her savior is in jail. Her killer is still unknown. But, I don’t. I feel hungry. I’m a professional. Only professionals know when they are hungry.
I study the room. I study the body.
One of her eye-lids is shut. I bend down and open it wide, just like in the picture. Sadness and terror, it says. I smile.
“Now, that is art.”
Flash-365 
Whoa!!!
More? 😉
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The time travel series will be a recurring theme as the year goes on. Any stories labeled “Time Travel Inc.” and you’ll probably see the murder artist again.
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Looking forward to it! 😉
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Smashing as ever! 👍
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Cheers. Glad I haven’t lost my steam just yet.
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Looks to me like there’s plenty left. I’ve been struggling to keep up with everyone’s posts lately (life, eh?) but I felt compelled to give this one a read. I’ll be catching up the rest of your stuff soon with any luck
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A little bit too convincing this one, Ben. I’ve just remembered I’m washing my neighbour’s hair throughout the month of March… 😉
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Hahaha. I knew I should have kept this one to myself.
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Same theme, but more elaborate, in The Decorator by Boris Akunin, English translation on Amazon (I checked).
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Cool. Glad to see I’m not the only one with weird sadistic ideas in their head and access to a computer. I’ll have to check it out.
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Of course! As long as those ideas are developed the right way, and you seem to be going in the right direction.
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I’m shivering!
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Deaaaaththhh Luuuuussst
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Ahhhkkk, that’s horrible! Well it is fiction of therefore it is brilliant Ben. As long as it is not real !!!! I have a story from my childhood in mind .. no idea if it was real or a scary story, but she’s present in my head. A photographer who stretches the wire rope on the streets and cuts the head of motorcyclists…for a good photo … that goes in the direction.
What is kiminell what is art. Is art allowed to be criminal?
Hmm a life for art yes, but only his own!
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wow. That is an intense story. I love the idea of it as a story…terrifying as a reality though.
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yes, it is, but do not care, perhaps it was only a spine-chiller. But in fact I will not google,…too risky….
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haha yes, I agree
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