The Man in the Painting

Have you ever had that one painting or picture in your house, where the eyes follow you? Well I know I have. These paintings are known as linear perspective. This is a trick in art, an illusion. There is a trick to stop this illusion — to look dead in one of the two eyes in the painting. After doing research about these paintings, I decided to use this trick on my painting that possessed linear perspective. I stared the painting right in the eye. I slowly shuffled across the floor, but the eyes still followed me. I thought that maybe I didn’t do it right. So I did it again, only this time right to left instead of left to right. Still nothing. This aggravated me, that website lied. I looked up five more websites, and they all said the same thing.

I walked downstairs to my kitchen to grab something to eat, when I saw another one of these paintings. I decided to see if I could use the trick on another painting. It worked! The illusion stopped. I didn’t know what I did differently, but it worked. I decided to run upstairs and try it on that other painting. I did it exactly how I did it before. I shuffled across the floor and looked it in the eye. I stopped halfway through. I knew it wasn’t working. I wasn’t frustrated, I was scared. Why was the painting changing still?

I decided to remove the painting from the wall. It was held by one nail and the frame (even though it looked very heavy) was light. The back came off in two pieces. The stand, and the cardboard. After that, was the raw fabric in which it was painted on. There was nothing suspicious about the back of the painting. Just the painter's name written in cursive. I decided to look up this artist because I had nothing better to do.

The artist went by the name of El Pintor del Color, translated to The Painter of Color. I thought It was an odd name too. Well I looked him up, to find only one search result. A website with a lot of his work on it. The one strange thing about all the paintings was they were all Linear Perspective paintings. Furthermore, they all had one brown eye, and one colored eye, in a greenish color. I looked over to my painting to see the same thing. I found this odd. Maybe it was to make it impossible to stop the illusion.

At the bottom of the website there were two names. Jose Sanchez, and Adamo Bacci, as well as a date, 07 May 1990. Two very distant names. One of them was obviously El Pintor del Color’s real name, but the other name was a mystery, and the date. It was obviously the date the site was made, right?

I decided to look up this “Adamo Bacci” to see if I could find any background to this character. When I typed in his name into a google search, Google instantly corrected it to Jose Sanchez. This was weird. I tried retyping it into the search bar, but Google did it again. I just decided to look up Jose Sanchez instead.

Wikipedia apparently had a whole page on Jose Sanchez, but only one site about El Pintor del Color. The wiki page said his birth and death. He was about 40 when he died mysteriously. He was bludgeoned to death with a broken off stool leg. He was found right outside his home, still on his property. No one knows who killed Jose Sanchez, but it said that Adamo was brought into custody after being suspected of the crime. There were equal amounts of evidence that Adamo killed Sanchez, but enough to prove he was innocent.

The article also stated that an eyewitness said they saw the whole thing, and that Adamo was the killer. Two other witnesses say he was away from the crime scene. The odd thing is that all three eye witnesses say they saw him in three different locations. This was getting strange, and even deeper than the painting.

As I kept reading, I found that they found fingerprints of Adamo’s on the stool and doorbell, but also found fingerprints in the two other locations in which witnesses say they saw him that night...

Wait, I am so sorry. I have yet to mention what my painting looks like. You will understand why I found this picture odd when I describe it to you. The painting was of a man with a red vest coat over a green shirt. He had a century collar and was old. Sixty-five years old at least. He had a five o’clock shadow and slight sideburns. Big ears that poked out of his red Santa-like hat, but instead of white tufts, they were bear fur. Lastly, he had crossed arms, two different colored eyes, and his arms were crossed on a table. If I didn’t know better I would say he was a clown. He was wearing century clothing. The odd thing is, the painting was made only about 20 years ago.

What Followed​​

As I started to look closely at the painting I found something very interesting. The man’s sleeves were slightly ripped, and the man looks as if he is trying hard to conceal something on his other wrist. The shadow the wrist cast wasn’t only grey, but the sleeve looked red, and uneven. This worried me. I thought back to the trial, and continued to read.

At the end of the trial, Adamo was proved innocent, and the case continued. The killer was never found. Adamo was even brought back to court because there was enough evidence to. The second time they went to court, he was pronounced innocent once again.

The three places Adamo was seen on the same night at the same time were, Jose Sanchez’s art gallery, a sports bar named The Place for Sports, and at the local golf course. You might be thinking what I was thinking. Who goes to a golf course at eight o’clock at night? I instantly thought LIES to myself. I believe the bar. Many people go to bars at night. In fact, if you don’t go at night, you're probably an alcoholic. And the art gallery. Now we don’t know why this Adamo Bacci is on the site, so we don’t know why he was at the art gallery. As I am assuming, he was some sort of model, but I can’t be sure.

Coincidentally, the night before I wrote this, there was a murder. I didn’t think much of it. I was shocked and whatever, but it was like all public violence, which I’m not a fan of. Not even watching them on TV is interesting. But this one was different. The person was murdered, then their house was set on fire! The only object to survive the fire, was a painting, out of its frame. Yes a piece of flammable fabric. Not much was told about this painting, But all I needed to see was the green and brown eyes to understand what happened.

The person who died looked very familiar, and then they said his name. Adamo G. Bacci, age 72. I was shocked, very shocked. Who killed Adamo? At first I thought Adamo had killed someone, but no, someone killed Adamo. I didn’t know where that left me.

I sat around on the computer all day, waiting for something interesting to show up about the murder, but nothing happened for another two weeks when finally, a breakthrough! The man who had killed Adamo was caught. They blurred his face, and refused to tell his name. All of Adamo’s family were at the courthouse ready to cry over the loss of their family member when the killer entered the room. Everyone gasped, and some even smiled, but the killer’s face was one stone cold expression. One family member almost got up to hug the killer, but he stared her down, back into her seat.

The face of the killer was still blurred, but I was getting really suspicious. I was just waiting for someone to say it.

The man walked over to his lawyer and they both sat down. For about a half a second, the killer looks at the camera. This is when I paused it. I stood up, and stared at his pixelated face, and walked left to right. The eyes didn’t follow me, but the entire face did! I already knew that the illusion doesn’t work in real life which sent a chill down my spine. I pressed play on the remote and continued to watch the trial on TV.

I guess if you don’t want your face blurred on TV you can make it so that people at home can see what you look like, because right after the killer sat down a man walked over and whispered something into his ear, then gave the camera man some kind of signal, and the face was unblurred.

I almost jumped through the roof when I saw what the killer looked like. It was Adamo! In the flesh, or was it. The Judge walked in after everyone was seated. Then the court session began, with “Will you all please rise for Judge Edward.”

As the Court went on the Judge said, “Adamo G. Bacci, you are accused of the murder of... Adamo...G...Bacci...” Then the whole room when silent. Then the Judge said very slowly, “How...do...you...plead son...”

The Judge was almost implying, if you get this question wrong, you are stupid as hell. Like he was special or something.

Then, slowly, Adamo said, “Guilty as charged.”

I almost fell backward in my chair, because they showed you Adamo’s charred body at the crime scene and showed it to live TV!

Then I thought a little... If he was golfing, murdering, and drinking, where's the third Adamo...?

Where would he strike next?

If there were four people to start with, who would the last one get to?

Was the last Adamo evil like the others?

Was there more than one in the first place?

Why was a painter even killed?

Is Jose Sanchez even dead?!?