The Man in the Paint

"Is he your neighbor?" I hadn't seen the man at all when I painted them, but there he was in all of my paintings outside my window. He wasn't always in the same place, or even doing the same thing, but it was unmistakably the same guy in each painting which was terrifying. He was dressed fairly normally, glasses, modern style hat, trench coat. Was older than a young man, but wasn't an old man. I had never seen him before and did not recall him.

"Maybe? You know my people skills."

"You mean your complete lack of people skills, still its weird he's in every painting and you didn't remember him. Maybe you just created a signature for yourself this guy." It seemed kind of plausible in that it didn't and I actually signed each of my paintings because I'm egotistical and figured I'd be able to sell them.

"I hope so otherwise it could be something bad." Val looked at me weirdly.

"What do you mean something bad? Its just a guy in a painting, you're a jumble of horrible memories and such, this is probably someone you killed and your now just being sad about killing him." I scowled back at Val. How dare he imply I don't feel bad for every person I have killed. I mean I totally don't, but still how dare he imply that!

"It could be some kind of lingering spirit I'm painting in that's actually haunting me and I only see him when I paint him."

"Trezlan that's the stupidest thing you've ever said and that's saying something." I told him to get out and he did, but when he was gone I got an uneasy feeling. Like previously I'd never felt my paintings were anything but fairly boring scenes of life outside my window, now all I could see was the man. Everywhere I walked in my office it felt like he was looking at me. I blamed Val for this, it was his fault and I just knew he had somehow cursed the canvas's he'd given me to give life to this weird ordinary guy who showed up in everything I painted. It was enough to drive me out of my office and attempt to paint somewhere else which of course did not help, but that's the next entry as this unfortunately is only going to get weirder before it gets better.