There once was a man who lived in a rather strange building. He lived on the ground floor of this black wooden house. The house itself was 3 stories, but his apartment had the entire height of the 3 stories. The reason for this was that he used his apartment as his workspace. He had been “discovered” by this creepy-looking sorcerer who had shoulder-length blond hair and a bald top of head. In this way, he looked like the Crypt Keeper and Hulk Hogan made a baby and this was the man this baby became.
This sorcerer would come over for 3 hours everyday. His apprentice, the man mentioned earlier, looked very different in comparison with the Sorcerer. He was a brunette who could have been mistaken as an All-American football player with his charming lady-killer smile at the start of the training. As time wore on, he grew leaner and he let his hair grow longer to shoulder-length. He never ended up balding on the top of his head (Thank God), but there was something peculiar about his manner. It wasn’t really describable in an obvious way, but it seemed he gave off an air of restless sorrow.
Inside this strange man’s apartment, he had an office in the left corner. When you walked into his apartment, you were struck by the oddness of the shed-like greenhouse within a house as an office. The front walls of this office were see-through like a greenhouse. There was no door, so the middle doorway of the office stood open for anyone to see its contents. In the center of the office, a rigid wooden ladder hung vertically leading up to a wooden door on the office roof. The office roof was made of a dark brown wood and it slanted forward and downward towards the inhabitant entering his apartment.
The reason this man was able to have his own apartment outright was because he came from a rich family called the Starlarkovs. He took the allowance from his family to keep up his living expenses and he would do odd jobs for the sorcerer training him to make extra money. Specifically, the Sorcerer taught this man, Evan, how to fly and use outer forces for assassinations.
Every once and awhile, the Sorcerer would bring political figures to Evan’s apartment, leave them, and indicate that the person he left needed to be killed by winking at Evan. In the beginning, Evan used to look uncomfortable after seeing the wink. But after a decade, he managed to keep a straight face and calmly watch the Sorcerer leave.
When the Sorcerer left, Evan would make conversation. Just as the walking dead person was about to leave, he would tell a joke or sometimes multiple jokes for a tough customer. Evan felt it was good-natured to help someone laugh before they died. At the height of the visitor’s laughter, he would abruptly grab their throat and fly straight into the ceiling at a force of great magnitude. Since he made sure the visitor’s head hit the ceiling at an angle, the person’s neck would snap instantaneously. Often, it was so unexpected, that the visitor was still laughing as they breathed their last breath.
After the kill, Evan would just lay the body in the middle of the floor. He would straighten out the arms, legs, and body. Evan did this so when rigor set in, it would be easy for the Sorcerer to put the body into a bag and lug it away over his shoulder. The Sorcerer would always say as he left, “You’re so efficient, Evan. That’s why I value you so much as my pupil.”
Even though, the Sorcerer trained Evan to kill people, Evan used his skills to practice other eccentricities. Evan had always wanted to be an artist. Specifically, he would carve and paint wooden dolls. He had trouble with inspiration sometimes, so he developed a ritual. On days he was an artist, he would climb up to the top of his office roof, sit, and work. He installed a wooden shelf to his apartment wall above his office space to hold the supplies he needed for carving and painting. Since he had mastered forces, he was able to sit up there in balance for an infinite amount of time.
On days when he felt he was done with a piece, he would hire a butler to assist him. He would drop his doll from the office roof and watch it fall along the right side of his office wall. It was a 15-foot drop. The doll would land and often roll away a little. Then, Evan would step off the office roof to follow the doll. Evan would use the forces along the wall to maintain his uprightness. Then, Evan would collapse onto the floor. His teeth would transform into the teeth of a nutcracker. Then, the butler would place the dropped doll next to Evan within his eyesight. Then, Evan would repair any cracks, pass out, and reawaken back to normal.
The butler who would assist Evan always thought it was an unusual work day, but he justified it with the knowledge that some rich people are just eccentric. It was not his job to judge his employers. Furthermore, the source of these stories of artistic ritual was not this butler. This butler was rather loyal and dignified. He would neither confirm nor deny any detail asked of him. The source of these stories was Evans’ only son, a boy who caught a glimpse of his father’s rituals every once and awhile when he was dropped off for a visit. He never saw the assassinations because he only saw his father one weekend a month.
His son only found out about the assassinations through a confessional letter arranged to be given to his mother upon Evan’s death. She figured that the letter was going to be more generic, so just gave it to her son without reading it. That was her mistake, but the boy just absorbed the information without relaying the contents to her.
Evan’s boy was not really too shocked by any of it. He picked up on the strange air of his father and had just accepted there was something weird about him from the beginning. He was just happy to have been brought up mostly by his mother in a stable home. The one thing he would miss about his father, Evan, were the amazingly funny jokes he could come up with on any topic.
That skill was something to admire. His son often wondered if his father would spend the time between visits coming up with new material. Now, he knew there was a deeper purpose to being an efficient comedian. And in some sense, he felt some pride for having a considerate hitman as a father. Anyone could have respect for the dead. Having respect for the living and having the consideration for others to give them a quick painfree end are not qualities seen in many ordinary people or even killers, respectively.
As far as he knew, he didn’t have his father’s gift for magic. Thus, this information would not affect his life. At least, he could live on happier knowing that “Uncle Vladimir” was just a creepy sorcerer and not related to him by blood. Vladimir used to joke with him about his soon-to-have receding hairline, he would notice his father rolling his eyes, and he would have nightmares. Without this sense of impending baldness, he felt better about the future outlook of his hair because he would have more than he anticipated.
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