The Last Gift from My Late Wife Had a Hidden Message

The first anomaly: the prophecy of the coffee cup

When I sprinkled the instant coffee powder on the table for the third time, I caught a glimpse of the blueberries in the lower right corner of the canvas suddenly trembling slightly. It was an unfinished oil painting by my wife Irene before she died. In the painting, her favorite cobalt blue coffee cup was placed on the breakfast table, and there was a small gap on the rim of the cup - exactly the same as the one that was broken when we got married.

"This is impossible." I approached the canvas, and the smell of turpentine pierced my nose. Three weeks ago, when I was sorting out the remains, I found this oil painting wrapped in waterproof cloth in the attic. After Irene was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, she suddenly began to paint crazily, but she never let me see these works. The scene in the painting was the morning of our last quarrel. There was an unopened antidepressant on the corner of the table, which I secretly hid.

The sudden ringing of the doorbell made me spill my coffee. Through the peephole, I saw a courier wearing a peaked cap, holding a square package tied with a purple ribbon. There was a small dark red birthmark behind his ear, shaped like an inverted cross.

"Mr. Thomas Wilson?" His voice was like sandpaper rubbing against glass. "A scheduled package from Ms. Irene, to be delivered on time at 3:17 this afternoon."

My blood froze instantly. It has been eleven months and three days since Irene's death.

The second anomaly: pigments that grow in reverse

The package contained twelve tubes of oil paint, and the production date showed yesterday. The edges of the bottom note paper were burnt yellow, as if burned by fire: "Use them to complete "Breakfast Table", and you will know where to find me - E"

When I trembled and squeezed out a strand of alizarin red, something strange happened. The originally dried blueberries suddenly ooze juice on the canvas, flowing along the folds of the tablecloth to the bottle of antidepressants. The newly applied paint penetrated into the old painting layer at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if sucked into the abyss by some force.

At 2:07 in the morning, the coffee cup in the painting suddenly overflowed with real hot steam. The moment I reached out to touch it, I heard Irene's hoarse whisper before her death: "That car accident was not an accident..." Last year, when she insisted on driving to the gallery in the rain, the investigation report on the strange break of the brake line was still locked in my drawer.

The third anomaly: reflection in the mirror

Late at night on the seventh day, the courier appeared in the shadow of the porch again. This time, the birthmark behind his ear disappeared, and the iris of his left eye showed an unnatural silver-gray.

"You shouldn't continue painting." He handed me a yellowed newspaper clipping, dated three months later. In the headline photo, my body floated on the Charles River pier, with half a tube of chrome yellow paint tightly grasped in my right hand.

When I rushed back to the studio, I found that the person in the mirror was moving in the opposite direction. The person in the mirror suddenly grinned and wrote in Irene's handwriting on the foggy mirror: "They are coming."

At this moment, the coffee cup in the painting has been completely shattered, revealing the old film negative hidden in the interlayer. In the developed photo, Irene was standing where I was painting, and on the window behind her, three figures wearing bird-beak masks were reflected.

Final anomaly: missed call

The third time the doorbell rang was at 3:07 a.m. The surveillance footage showed that there was no one outside the door, only a pool of vaporizing silver liquid on the ground. My phone suddenly received 47 missed calls, all from Irene's old work number. The last voice message was only a sharp beep lasting 17 seconds, and after noise reduction processing, a vague conversation fragment emerged:

"...Must get rid of that easel..."

"...Quantum entanglement in the paint..."

"...Observer effect will trigger backtracking..."

When I turned around, I on the canvas had already picked up the broken coffee cup. On the desktop in reality, a drop of real coffee was slowly blurring the invisible handwriting of Irene's last letter.

(The sound of a raven came from outside the window, and the computer suddenly automatically popped up the unfinished ending in the draft box-this line of words began to continue uncontrollably...)

(As you read this, please watch out for ravens outside your window, check the color of the ribbon on your recent parcel, and if you find any unusual reflections in any painting - please contact [email protected] immediately. Of course, the premise is that you believe this is just a story.)

If the back of your hand suddenly feels hot at this moment, don't worry, it's just the residual heat of the screen. But if you hear the rustling sound of flipping papers... maybe you should look back at the blank wall behind you.

Thanks for traveling this far in time

(Sharing this article may affect the direction of the cracks in the coffee cup in the painting)