After I killed my best friend, I dreamt I’d “walked into” the painting he’d left for me in his will. It was in the style of some Dutch Master: a portrait of a young man reading a letter above a bowl of fruit. I snuck up behind him and read the letter. The letter told the man he would be murdered by his best friend. I killed the man and burned the letter. When I woke up, I went straight to the forest where I’d buried my former friend. I dug up his corpse and burned it. I took a train to the docks. I boarded a ferry and scattered the ashes over a dark sea. That night back at home I dreamt again I was in that same room in the painting. The man was there reading the same letter. “Your mistake,” he said, “was burning the body, not the painting.” When I awoke, I was back in the room where I killed the man in the painting. The letter was taped to the middle of a mirror. It had yellowed. The man was gone. Above the letter, I watched a shadow creeping over the spot where my face should have been.
David Luntz’s work is forthcoming or has appeared in Post Road, trampset, Vestal Review, X-R-A-Y, Bull, Rejection Letters, Maudlin House, Atticus Review, HAD, and other print and online journals. More at davidluntz.com. Twitter: @luntz_david.
Image: artsy.net
Check out HFR’s book catalog, publicity list, submission manager, and buy merch from our Spring store. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. Disclosure: HFR is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Sales from Bookshop.org help support independent bookstores and small presses.
Heavy Feather Review 