It was…quiet. It was never quiet, not around here. Keith breathed a sigh in his empty house–as happy as he was at the family he’d made for himself, between Tara and his three sons, that also didn’t leave him very much time at all for himself. The place had been getting quitter, however. With his two oldest sons in their second and third years of college–at the state school a few hours away at least, and his youngest son, a senior in high school, out with Tara running errands on a fall Saturday for a few hours, he had the house to himself. He had it to himself, and he had absolutely no idea what he should be doing with his chance. It was funny, really. He so often wished for more private time, and now when the chance came, he had no clue how to spend it. He sighed–not really a bad problem to have, he supposed.
He was interrupted by a loud, heavy knocking on the front door. Curious who it might be, he walked to the door and opened it, finding a strange man on the porch he had never seen before in his life. He was none too clean, dressed in a pair of stained camo cargo shorts and a wifebeater, with a thick overgrown beard. He was carrying a large…something under his arm, wrapped in paper. Something rectangular and flat–but he had no idea what. “Hey! What’s up? I’m your new neighbor down the road there, just moved in a few days ago. Name’s Marty.”
“Oh, uh…hi. I’m Keith…Keith Ireland. Nice…to meet you,” he replied, not taking the man’s hand when he extended it out to shake. How someone who looked like this could possibly afford a house in a neighborhood where Keith lived…something seemed a bit odd about this, and he wasn’t about to let him inside his house. “Where…which house did you move into? I wasn’t aware anyone was moving.”
“Oh, just a few houses down.”
“I didn’t see any moving trucks or anything though.”
“Really?”
Keith just raised an eyebrow at him.
“Well look, I just wanted to say…hi. My wife, she’s an artist, and we always have too many things of hers, so we like to give our new neighbors some of her artwork. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to keep it or anything–her stuff isn’t for everyone, but it’s nice, right?” He held out the paper wrapped picture to him, and as strange as this was, Keith didn’t want to seem mean, especially if the guy really was his neighbor. He could always take a look, and then give it right back. He tore open the paper and flipped the picture so it was facing him. It was a sizable canvas, probably at least three feet wide, landscape, but there wasn’t much at all in the picture itself. In fact, it wasn’t even a painting–it was a photo. It looked like one of those cheap portraits you might get a Sears or something, but the only person in the picture was Marty, centered but small. Like it was supposed to be a family portrait but he was the only one who showed up. He looked closer, trying to figure out who could possibly see this as valuable, and discovered that the background of the photo…it was moving. The backdrop pattern…it was alive, twisting and ebbing back and forth–he couldn’t look away even if he’d wanted to. It felt like the pattern was growing in his field of vision, almost giving the illusion of falling into the photo, his mind emptying.
Marty watched his “neighbor’s” eyes grow dull and his jaw go slack, and he walked around him, stepping inside the threshold of the home, looking at the family portrait. The photo was indeed shifting and twisting, in one particular place–a figure coming clear standing beside Marty–quite blurry, and yet if you squinted you could see that it was Keith appearing in the image. The focus became a bit sharper, but never came fully clear, Marty taking a moment to inspect Keith, see how he’d changed all these years.
Keith obviously hadn’t recognized him, but they’d both been very different back in high school together. They even, at one time, been friends–with a few benefits. Keith was bi–and he’d let Marty suck his cock on a few occasions, but when they’d gotten caught, he pinned the whole thing on Marty–claiming he’d been “corrupting” him. Marty had no one after that–he’d gotten expelled from school, and kicked out by his family. But now, well, Marty had a little revenge planned for his old friend. He’d gotten by as best he could, but Marty had made a few new, strange friends along the way…including a warlock who specialized in revenge spells. He’d made the portrait Keith was currently staring at–and which was absorbing his image. It was Keith’s fault that he’d lost his entire family after all. As far as Marty was concerned, that meant Keith could provide him with a new one—a better one. One Marty was going to design just for himself.
It had been long enough now–the rest was up to him. He landed a heavy hand on Keith’s shoulder, making him start and jump, his mind snapping back to awareness, eyes blinking, trying to understand what had just happened to him. “What do you think bro?” Marty asked, “Ain’t that a good picture of us?”
Keith’s eyes moved from the portrait in his hands, and looked beside him, at his…his brother. His brother Marty. Something was still wrong with his mind–it felt like part of him was…missing. His eyes slowly tracked back to the picture, at the blurry image of himself in there. It looked like…like he was screaming in there. Marty pulled him back by the arm and shut the door, plucking the picture from Keith’s hands and pressing it to a nearby wall, where it adhered immediately. “Come on bro, the game’s almost on–I know you hate missing a game, right?”
Keith found himself nodding, even though he’d never in his life enjoyed watching football, and stumbled sleepily after his brother into the den, finding the portrait looming over him on a new wall in the den–it had moved somehow, haunting him–as Marty pushed him down onto the couch in front of the TV, grinning wide.
Bracken's Corner 