Chapter 15: Another Artwork!

Chapter 15: Yet Another Artwork!

Karen’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Then,

came a brief silence.

Strangely enough,

the other party did not hang up either.

"You interrupted my artistic creation..."

This phrase continuously and rapidly repeated itself in Karen's mind, down to its timbre and cadence.

Karen did not believe he had dialed the wrong number,

nor did he think this was someone playing a prank,

and he was certainly not naive enough to believe the other person was truly an artist performing some traditional art in a crematorium.

Sometimes intuition was a vital thing, for it saved you from sorting through tedious details, delivering you directly to the heart of the matter.

Though reason told him this was too bizarre, and utterly absurd,

Karen, after that brief silence,

pinched his own throat with the fingers of his right hand,

and spoke:

"Then, do you require some valuable artistic advice?"

"Oh?"

The other party uttered a sound of intrigue, seemingly not expecting the person on the other end of the line to give such a response, and then, he laughed.

Karen heard the laughter through the receiver, a man’s laugh, slightly dark and piercing, as Karen continued:

"Or perhaps, you actually lack confidence in your own art."

"You are very interesting. What a pity. Had you called a little earlier, I would have been willing to listen to your opinions, but unfortunately, not this time."

"Why?"

When asking this question, Karen closed his eyes, for it was an answer he could deduce without even asking.

And from the other end of the line came the exact answer Karen had anticipated:

"Because this creation of mine is already complete, with only a few finishing touches remaining, which causes me some distress. Can you understand that kind of distress?"

Karen replied, "When I studied painting as a child, the teacher would point out a corner of my canvas that was too empty, needing something to fill it. Even if what was added had no direct relation to the painting as a whole, added merely for the sake of adding, it was precisely that which became the most vexing part."

"Yes, yes, exactly that kind of distress. That is exactly how I am right now."

"That is actually a sign of inadequate skill," Karen said. "That is why I failed to become a painter when I grew up. A person who cannot even manage the composition before painting, and must patch up the gaps at the very end, what kind of painter is he? What kind of artist? How could he even begin to speak of art?"

After Karen finished speaking, the breathing on the other end of the line suddenly grew rapid.

A psychiatrist knew exactly how to soothe a person's emotions to avoid triggering a patient; conversely, they naturally knew and excelled at finding where the painful spots lay.

Karen continued:

"You think you are an artist? No, you are not. You are merely an arrogant and narcissistic fool. Please do not insult the word 'art'."

The sound of grinding teeth came from the other end of the line.

Clearly,

Karen's words had cut him deep.

Yet Karen, holding the receiver, felt somewhat helpless himself, for he could do nothing right now—he could not even call the police, because to do so required hanging up this call first.

At the same time, he could not go to the basement to find Aunt Mary, nor could he go upstairs to find his grandfather, as the telephone cord was not that long.

Shouting for someone... would surely be heard through the phone.

The voice on the other end spoke: "I am deeply disappointed in you. When the call first connected, I even thought for a moment that you were someone of identical aesthetic tastes assigned to me by God. Sadly, you are not.

Perhaps it is because you are too young,

your understanding of art is far too shallow. For art knows no hierarchy."

Karen responded calmly:

"But art does know skill."

"Clack!"

On the other end, the phone was slammed down with immense force.

Karen lowered the receiver as well,

frowning in perplexity:

"How did he..."

Karen released his right fingers; because he had pinched his throat for too long, it ached slightly, forcing him to stroke it gently as he coughed dryly a few times:

"Know that I am very young?"

The final sentence shifted from its previous hoarse, deep tone back to Karen's original voice.

...

"Knock... Knock..."

"Come in."

The study door opened, and Dis, sitting behind the desk, looked up at Karen standing in the doorway.

"Grandfather."

"What is it?"

"The Hughes Crematorium seems to have run into trouble."

"How do you know?"

"Because I just called them, and the person who answered seemed to be the killer—the psychopathic murderer from the Crown Ballroom."

Grandfather laid down his fountain pen

and asked:

"Have you called the police?"

Karen shook his head.

"Call the police," Grandfather suggested.

Karen actually had no intention of calling the police, because the man on the other end had already made it clear that this artwork of his was complete.

Which meant that if there was a victim, they were already dead.

Calling the police just to collect a corpse?

Karen felt it was rather pointless, unless the killer tripped and broke his leg on the street while leaving the crime scene, just as a police car happened to pull up right in front of him.

"Are you worried that this might be a joke?" Grandfather asked. "There is no need to fret; even if it is a false report to the police, it is merely a small fine."

Karen shook his head once more.

"Then, what is it you wish to do?"

"I want to go to the Hughes Crematorium right now and take a look."

To go and look upon his new creation.

Dis raised his teacup, took a sip, and gave a slight nod.

"You may go. I grant my permission."

Karen remained standing by the doorway, unmoving.

"Hmm?" Dis set down his teacup. "What is the matter?"

Karen licked his lips.

He spoke with utter directness:

"I am afraid to go alone."

"Ha ha ha." Dis suddenly burst into laughter. "When you were a child and feared going to the washroom at night, you spoke to me in that exact same manner."

And then, all at once,

Dis fell silent.

Upon his visage, a faint trace of sheepish melancholy emerged.

...

"What is the matter, my little Karen?"

"Grandfather, it is dark, and the washroom, and pee-pee, I am all alone, I am afraid to go."

"Then Grandfather shall stand right here in the hallway and wait for you. Go inside and relieve yourself, alright?"

"Grandfather, come with me, please come with me."

...

The taxi drove all the way from Mink Street to the Hughes Crematorium located in the suburbs. The distance was rather vast, taking more than twice the time it had taken Karen to hail a cab home from the Crown Ballroom.

Arriving at the gates of the Hughes Crematorium,

The taxi driver turned his head around, cast a glance at Dis sitting in the back seat, and smiled.

"Hello, sir, that will be forty-five lubis."

Dis handed over a fifty-lubi note. The driver returned five lubis in change, which Dis accepted.

Thereupon,

Grandfather and grandson alighted from the carriage.

Watching the direction in which the taxi departed, Karen muttered silently in his heart:

"Fuck."

The crematorium gates were tightly shut. Parked by the entrance was a dilapidated motorcycle, upon whose seat lay a bundled-up quilt. A man and a woman stood nearby, appearing exceedingly anxious.

Wrapped within that quilt was, presumably, a corpse brought for cremation.

Yet upon the gates of the crematorium hung a sign reading: "Closed."

"Excuse me, are you employees of the crematorium?" the woman stepped forward to inquire.

Karen shook his head and replied, "No."

Hearing this response, the man was so enraged that he kicked a pebble by the gate flying, cursing:

"We clearly made an appointment yesterday! Why is it closed today? It is simply shameless, utterly shameless!"

"Should we perhaps try another establishment?" the woman suggested.

"It is too late. Dusk is already falling; if we rush to another crematorium now, it will surely be closed as well."

"Is it not open today?" Karen asked.

"We have been waiting here since one o'clock," the man said resentfully.

Karen noticed the quilt upon their motorcycle; from a corner of the fabric, a few strands of white hair were faintly visible. It was likely an elderly family member who had passed.

Those who could afford to arrange a funeral through the Inmeles family were not truly considered common folk, but belonged mostly to the middle class. Even the children of Mr. Mosang, who had been grumbled about many times by Aunt Mary, had spent several thousand lubis in the end, despite cutting out numerous services.

Several thousand lubis was by no means a paltry sum for families of the lowest social strata.

Furthermore, the criteria for a welfare case required the deceased to be entirely devoid of kin or relations. Even if your household was destitute and unable to bear the funeral expenses, as long as you still had living family by your side, you could not enjoy a "welfare case" like Jeff did, for your plight was not deemed pitiful enough.

Consequently, when the true underclass of Roga City passed away, their families would bring them directly to the crematorium for cremation.

Uncle Mason had once remarked that the clients the Inmeles family deemed "parsimonious" were already considered premium clientele in the eyes of the crematorium.

Just then, an aged, crimson "Caiman" sedan came driving up, pulling to a halt by the entrance.

Once the car door swung open,

To Karen's slight astonishment, the person who stepped down was none other than Madame Hughes, clad in a long blue dress with a coffee-colored down coat thrown over her shoulders.

The still-living Madame Hughes immediately flashed a smile upon seeing Karen, but the moment her eyes fell upon Dis standing beside him, she instantly restored her dignified composure.

"Oh, why is the door closed?"

Madame Hughes stepped forward, murmuring in confusion as she drew a spare key from her handbag and turned the lock.

"Why have you only just arrived!" the man at the side could not help but step forward to demand.

Madame Hughes cast a glance at him, then swept her eyes over the motorcycle, before replying:

"I do not know either. Although there were only two appointments scheduled for today—one for the morning and one for the afternoon, yes, the afternoon should be yours—I gave myself and the other employee the day off, leaving only one old veteran worker on duty to keep watch.

If the owner of the cement factory down the road hadn't driven past, spotted clients waiting at my doorstep, and called me, I wouldn't have come at all.

My, how peculiar. Has old Darcy shirked his duties today?"

"I care not for whatever reasons your crematorium might have, but I have been waiting here with my mother since—"

"You may go to the government to lodge a complaint against me, or simply report it to the police station. I have already explained the situation to you. The right to complain is yours to exercise, but please keep your distance from me now. This is a place where corpses are burned; do you believe me when I say I will throw you into the furnace to burn along with them!"

Faced with Madame Hughes' sudden fierceness, the man was frightened into silence, not daring to utter another word.

For a woman to manage a crematorium alone for so many years, she must possess a fierce and shrewd disposition, otherwise she truly could not have sustained it until now.

"Ah, Mr. Dis, what brings you here today..."

"My grandson wished to come and see you," Dis replied.

Madame Hughes blinked. She desperately wished to utter some provocative jests to tease the handsome young lad of the Inmeles family, but it was impossible; Dis's aura was simply too commanding. It was no wonder that Mary always disclosed her reverence and dread toward her father-in-law during their gatherings with close friends.

Once the gates were thrown open, Madame Hughes walked inside. The man lifted the bundled quilt into his arms while his wife assisted from the side, and the two followed her within.

"Do we need to go inside?" Dis asked.

"Yes," Karen answered. "If the piece of art is not Madame Hughes, then it must be someone else."

Karen still clung tightly to his own judgment, and the previously locked gates of the crematorium were, in themselves, one piece of evidence that something untoward had occurred.

Three groups of people,

Mrs. Hughes called out for "Old Darcy" as she walked inside,

followed by the couple carrying the old woman’s corpse,

and bringing up the rear were Karen and Dis.

At last,

they all gathered before the glass wall of the cremation chamber.

The door to the chamber stood open, the interior completely deserted.

"Please, cremate my mother first," the man said.

"I must find my worker!" Mrs. Hughes snapped, incensed to find the furnace already hot, which meant a terrible waste, "Old Darcy! Old Darcy!"

Karen’s attention, however, was drawn to the counter ahead—specifically, to the urns resting upon it.

During his last visit, the urns had been neatly arranged alongside their price tags, but now they were stacked like building blocks, not in a pyramid, but in a vertical rectangle.

Furthermore, these urns were all laid on their sides, meaning their lids faced outward rather than upward.

Karen stepped forward,

his gaze locking onto the leftmost edge of the bottom row, and reached out to grasp and pry open the fastened lid of an urn.

"Aaaahhhh!!!"

The woman shrieked.

"Ah!"

The quilt slipped from the man’s hands, and his mother’s body rolled out onto the floor.

"Good heavens!" Mrs. Hughes gasped, covering her mouth.

Dis silently drew a fraction closer.

Inside the urn Karen had just opened lay, shockingly... a foot, a raw, bloody foot.

Moreover, wedged between the toes was a price tag that read 1,500 lubis.

Karen opened another urn just above it; a knee was revealed inside.

It felt like opening a blind box,

yet with far less of the unknown.

Karen reached up, caught the lid of the topmost urn, and yanked it open.

Inside that highest urn,

rested a head,

the head of Old Darcy,

and clenched within Old Darcy’s teeth was a price tag marking 10,000 lubis.

Old Darcy had been dismembered,

his severed parts distributed into separate urns, which were then stacked like blocks to "reassemble" Old Darcy once more.

Just then,

Karen’s eyes fell upon the desk diagonally ahead, where a telephone sat.

Walking over to the phone,

Karen lifted the receiver,

and as he turned back toward the counter of urns,

he realized his current vantage point placed him exactly dead center before the "reassembled" Old Darcy!

This spot,

was the premier seat for appreciation.

Within Karen’s vision,

a dark silhouette seemed to materialize,

hands originally clasped before him as he admired the blocks he had just constructed.

Then, the telephone beside him began to ring.

He frowned slightly, leaving it unanswered.

Soon, the phone rang a second time, and this time, he picked up the receiver:

"You are disrupting my artistic creation..."