They came and asked questions, asked before the paint was even dry. Which, it was oil-based and as such taking like decades to dry itself out, but nonetheless: it wasn’t like they had to ask the questions.

The painting was large and gruesome, veiled after-the-fact in some thick nondescript curtain of rough material. It sat in the center of an empty room, what could have been a living room, or sitting room, or whatever you’d prefer to call it. The room surrounded the painting, saluted it. Hundreds of square feet of empty space stared blankly at the painting and, when it was covered, at the sheet.

The claim was that people don’t simply disappear, which was quite obviously a lie, flat and outright.

I told them, magicians do it all the time.