The Artist

Digby, a carny caricature artist, stands outside his tent trying to drum up business – just the right business. He sees a young couple approaching and goes into his pitch. The wife convinces her husband what fun it would be to have their caricatures sketched. They pay Digby and enter his tent. The newlyweds sit in Digby’s posing chair, the woman on her husband’s lap. Digby withdraws a pencil from his special box and begins to sketch. Soon, the newlyweds don’t feel well. Then they become immobile. Digby watches, pleased, as the pair’s bodies undergo the expected dramatic changes, including their eyeballs dropping out of their sockets and their skin shriveling to reveal white bones. They drop from the posing chair, their jewelry falling from their now-malformed fingers. Digby hopes that things work this time. He pockets the jewelry – including a sizeable diamond engagement ring – for later pawning and places the unfinished caricature on top of the bodies. The newlyweds’ remains buck for a time and then are gone. Only the paper – now white with no sketch – remains. Digby picks it up, and it twitches in his hand. He strokes it like a kitten. The newlyweds are still alive, but barely. He lights the paper on fire and drops it into a metal trash barrel. He squeezes his eyes shut, steeples his fingers in prayer, and pleads with Anna to come back to him. He can’t keep doing this. He is a murderer many times over! Nothing happens. Anna does not reappear. Digby opens his book on incantations. Yes, he is following the spell to the letter. His Anna’s return is the most important thing in the world. He’ll just have to keep trying.