[ WP ] you hire a painter who can tell you how you die only through painting . He dies halfway through , showing only a strangers face

Today is the last day in the sunlight, for me. 
 
 The locks are installed, thick curtains on the window, a high fence. The newspaper and food deliveries will be brought to the back door every morning. The trash will be moved from the door to the road, every Thursday. 
 
 I will never have to leave my house again, and I could n't be happier. 
 
 I did n't use to be this way. 
 
 Three months ago, I came across an odd ad in the newspaper. 
 
 WANT TO KNOW HOW YOU'LL DIE? 
 I CAN PAINT IT. 
 
 It was accompanied by a phone number and an email address. 
 
 It lacked style and originality, but my interest was piqued. I was skeptical, but the ad stuck with me. 
 
 A few days later, bored beyond belief, I sent an email. I did n't receive a reply, but a few hours later, a young-looking man with a goatee showed up at my door with an easel, a canvas, and a set of paints. 
 
 I had assumed it was all a joke, so the painter's arrival freaked me out. I asked him to leave, and tried to close the door, already prepared to call the police. 
 
 He came by the next day and asked just to talk. I was still bored- I've been unemployed on disability for nearly 2 years now- and quite lonely, so I invited him in and made him a cup of tea. 
 
 `` So, how does this all work?'' I asked, still skeptical. 
 
 `` I can tell the future- the moment of your death- but only through my painting,'' he explained. `` I can not explain to you why. For $ 300, I can paint the moment for you. Once you have paid me, in cash, I will leave. I will never contact you again, and should you try to contact me, you will have no luck.'' 
 
 He seemed so ridiculously sketchy, crouched there in his hoodie with his deep-set eyes surveying me below heavy life. 
 
 However, boredom and loneliness will do strange things to a person, and I was at my most bored and loneliest. 
 
 I decided to pay the money and have it done, just for fun. If nothing else, I could use the painting to cover the torn wallpaper in the upstairs guest room. 
 
 I nodded my head, offered him some more tea, and helped him set up his drop cloth and easel in the dining room. 
 
 I watched as he began to paint- a deep cerulean here, a glimmer of green there, a few splashes of a velvety red. Each stroke was so certain, so sure, that I could n't imagine he was making it up as he went along! 
 
 The first thing to form was a face- a man's face, grizzled and worn, leering into the nothingness. He had squinty eyes, thin lips, and a chunky, squarish nose. 
 
 The painter did the pupils last, and stepped back to admire his work for a moment and clean a brush. 
 
 `` Where are his ears?'' I asked curiously, the man's face alien and empty without them. 
 
 The painter turned to answer, but instead fell to the floor. I rushed forwards, held his wrist- no pulse. 
 
 I called 911 frantically, confused and on the verge of tears. 
 
 They came, they took the body, they disclosed nothing, and they left. 
 
 In the days to come, I left the easel as it was, a sort of shrine to painter. 
 
 He was the only person other than me to enter my house in at least 8 months. 
 
 The man in the painting continued to leer at me. 
 
 I had a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was forgetting something. 
 
 Payment? No, the money I would have paid the painter I had donated to a fund that provided art classes to children from low-income families. 
 
 But the feeling was there, still. 
 
 About 4 days later, in the middle of the night, it hit me: the man in the painting was going to be a part of my death. 
 
 I began to see the man's face everywhere- his squinty eyes in the neighbor boy, his thin lips in the bank clerk, and his chunky, squarish nose in the bus driver. 
 
 I had nightmares about him, daily panic attacks, and found myself checking over my shoulder when walking down the street. 
 
 I began to make excuses to stay in. 
 
 The dread of this man followed me everywhere. 
 
 I stayed in more and more, and then began to fear that he would come to my house. 
 
 So I bought locks, and a fence, and darker curtains. 
 
 And now I'm here, alone and hidden. Perhaps lonelier, and just as bored, but alive. 
 
 It's not that I enjoy life so much as I am terrified of death. 
 
 But what's that? A step on the porch? 
 
 Nothing. 
 
 A branch against the window? 
 
 No. 
 
 Every crack is frightening me, every change of light deepening the shadows. 
 
 I creep through the house, checking every corner. But at the edge of the dining room, my foot catches on the drop cloth, twists, and pulls with me as I fall forward. 
 
 The easel begins to fall, pinning me to the ground, and the painting staggers on top of me. 
 
 I am face to face with the painting of the man now. I'm trapped beneath the easel, no scheduled visitors, all phone lines cut in my attempt to seclude myself. 
 
 I'm bleeding out, I realize, from my temple. My head hit the doorframe as I fell, and now I can not move, and the man's face is staring into mine as I bleed.... Out.... On the floor... Of my.... 
 
 But it was n't the man who would be present at my death. It was.... The painting.... Of the man.
