Unpacked in the middle of her living room, the almost life-size figure stood on a plinth, poised in what she initially identified as a selfie position, neck tendons taut toward the object in its gracefully extended skeletal arm, immortalizing the tattered skin gaping open on its ribcage, before falling to shreds on either side of a ludicrous loincloth. She would definitely not have ordered this monstrosity.

This thing pressed its decomposed hand on its heart; could it reference the French saying ‘transi d’amour’, lovesickness, till death do us apart, or some other sappy metaphor? Had her marital puppet overstepped the bounds of romantic gestures, showing his first signs of senility? A glance at the inscription on the plinth dispelled that maudlin hypothesis: “Behold, I was as you are, and you will be as I am.”

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The insult elicited a shrill brat-like cry. Yelling the names of her assistants, she rushed to her mirror, oblivious of her unironic replication of the statue’s satirical vanity. She pinched the flesh of her chin (where the hell were these lethargic airheads? She paid them too much), studying the thickness of her raven-wing hair (they had not taken their day-off at the same time, surely! Were they even allowed to have days-off?). In the silent house, she took off her glasses, fluttered her eyelashes like a debutante, plastered a standoffish grin on her face, and put the glasses back on to hunt for any wrinkles. A murmur, behind her: memento mori. Another scream sprung from her throat. Still alone, she checked her phone and her computer for video ads hidden in the hems of open pages and apps, but found nothing. She glared at the horrid artwork, and covered it with a plaid; her incompetent employees had to get rid of it ASAP.

All that ridiculous stress had given her a migraine, and she decided to lie down for a while. She drifted into somnolence when a melody brought her back to the surface. She strained her ears, yet the house produced no sound, not even the click of her dog’s claws on the terrace. And yet, she had heard it. Tuneful. Medieval. Nerves like tangled balls of wool, she checked the clock: her husband should have been home by now. Her assistants should be busy helping her. The dog…

She slid open the patio door, and the sandy Labrador wagged its tail, head tilted affectionately toward someone behind her. Expecting to find her mate, she nearly fell on the floor upon discovering the Transi, uncovered. Empty sockets stared at her. Empty hand outstretched towards her in a macabre invitation. The tune bellowed at the back of her mind.

She fled in her garden, but stopped dead in her tracks in front of the swimming pool. On the sun loungers, arms crossed peacefully, the emaciated corpses of the hubby and assistants. Long worms wriggled out of the girls’ open ribs, while the smooth skin of her partner’s skull hung over his cranium like an ill-fitted garment; not up to her standards. On the tiles at her feet, claws had carved a message: “The one who sows in flesh reaps in bones.” The music became deafening, a mocking minuet from a spectral orchestra. Behind her, the lawn vibrated under an impious motion, and in the pool’s water, she saw the reflection of her dog, skipping around the Transi, this one twerking heartily.

Compressing a spasm in her cheek with her manicured hand, she searched who to call, who to pay to make this infernal vision disappear. The twitching shifted to her hips. A wealthy and idolized woman like her… a stroke was treatable. Nothing the best doctors could not fix. Her heels beat in time. From her high standing, nothing could touch her. She brought back her upstart smile, but it crumbled to dust when the great social equalizer’s bony arm slipped under hers, dragging her into a frenzied boogie.

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These are the last pages from the diary of painter Joseph Borgnis, born in Italy in 1701, and declared deceased on 12th October 1761, allegedly after a fall from a scaffold in West Wycombe Park, England. The location of Mr. Borgnis’ grave is, to this day, unknown.

August 1761 – My host has announced that, tonight, he will throw one of his famous parties in honor of the anniversary of my first visit to his estate of West Wycombe Park, ten years ago. Ten. I can barely wrap my head around this number. I could swear it was yesterday I climbed the tower of his church on the hill, to sit inside that peculiar gilded viewing ball, where my host proudly showed me the exquisite immensity of his park, telling me about his swan-shaped lake, and his follies, concealed in Arcadian greenery. My English was still poor at the time, and when he opened the doors to his lavish country house to me, I feared I would not be worthy enough to decorate it. Yet, I did. My sixty-years-old bones ache now, and I still have the initial reflex to correct guests calling me Joseph instead of Giuseppe, but life in England has been fulfilling, and now, my two sons will settle and prosper in this country too.

The nocturnal garden hugged us like a woman’s warm thighs, with only a few torches adorning the temples hidden among the trees. A motley crowd frolicked in the paths, some hoping for a political favor, others to taste a young derriere, a nymph’s, an ephebe’s, or both. Outside my host’s immediate circle, I overheard gossip about his supposed affinity with il Diavolo, or his pagan worships. I conceived the latter effortlessly; he gave in to the debauchery of Bacchus and Venus, from his bedroom to each of his follies, which ranged from slightly esoteric to recklessly outrageous. But above all, the libertine raised his friends to the pinnacle. He had dedicated an arch to them, nicknamed the Cockpit: a latrine on one side, a cockfighting arena on the other. A bonafide architectural double-entendre.

“When you bow before such a master, you don’t complain of a sore bottom,” sneered a voice behind me. Turning around, I recognized a group of English painters, jealousy misshaping their faces into Commedia dell’arte masks. I snubbed them, but the icy hand of paranoia gripped my waistcoat.

September 1761 – Immersed in the draperies of a group of Bacchic revellers for a new ceiling, I almost dropped my paintbrush when a contemptuous laugh echoed beneath my scaffold. “Verily, a fall could happen so quickly.”

My face boiling, I immediately jumped from my platform, ready to beat up the scoundrel. Stomping through various rooms, the ceilings of which I had decorated with mythological and religious frescoes copied from prestigious palazzi, I was disconcerted to find I could not flush out a single living soul. Intoxicated by the baroque refinement of the house, my steps led me to the staircase to my host’s private apartments, which I had, some years ago, covered in grisailles scenes of all types of carnal loves, even the immoral ones. Entering an unoccupied drawing room, I found a queer-looking book open on a desk.

I had already seen atypical things in my employer’s collections, such as ancient funeral urns and sarcophagi, but this object appeared outlandish to me. I could not identify the leather of its cover, thick and repugnant, adorned with a burnt symbol, a sort of constellation with a paddle, two circles, a semicircle, a triangle and a stylized flower at its end. The pages of the book, also covered with occult pictograms, described fertility and prosperity rituals, granted by an entity whose epithets made me instinctively cross myself. At that moment, my host’s footsteps echoed on the threshold, and, seeing me, his face darkened. I stammered out apologies, and returned to my task.

That evening, a party had been organized in honor of my mistress. The guests, giggling, slipped into the vaginal opening of the Venus Parlor, a kind of cellar filled with lewd statues. Observing their behavior, I was surprised to recognize a ritual I had read about in the mysterious book. My host’s wife had not yet given him an heir: was he so desperate? A man joined me in my observation, grey but ageless. “I do not have the honor of knowing you, sir,” I added after he had praised my work. “Oh, I am but a shadowy architect... I had a few commissions after the Great Fire of London of 1666, but since then I have been content to enjoy life.” I was about to excuse myself from this guest, who was clearly not in his right mind, when he took hold of my sleeve and whispered: “The cult of our common friend displays a power far greater than that of the Freemasons whom his favorite, Whitehead, mocks with impunity.” My nerves on edge, I fled from him and locked myself in my room.

October 1761 – I knew where I had woken up, but not how I had gotten there. A lantern shivered beside me. I remembered a night of libertinism, with two pretty maids, before a blackout. The flickering flame made faces carved in pallid stone sing eerily. Damp ground, hollowed-out walls; God knew how, I had landed in the caves beneath West Wycombe Hill. Leaping, I remembered the absolute prohibition against entering them. Seeing a glimmer that resembled dawn, I located the front gate. Through it, I recognized my master’s silhouette in the courtyard, talking with his friend Whitehead. I was about to go beg his pardon when I found out I was locked in. “Tonight’s cockfight will go down in history,” Whitehead exclaimed. “Should anyone bet on your rooster?” “Absolutely not,” my host chuckled. “I intend to have him gutted by Bute’s to solidify my position in his government.” I shouted, but the two men walked away.

At first, I convinced myself of a prank: someone would come, and let me out after I had learned my lesson. When my stomach rumbled, I feared revenge for having seen something I should not have. I remembered the private observatory at the top of the church tower; there had to be another way out of that cave, my host loved secret passages. So, I ventured deeper into the dark corridor. Besides the alien faces carved into the wall, ancient statues made me jump. Dampness licked at my legs, and several times, drafts of air brought me hope. Alas, I found only more subterranean passages, rooms with strange furniture, rounded and triangular tunnels, and pitch-black nooks. My lantern searched in vain for arrows or indications among the cryptic inscriptions and symbols in the rock.

Passing by uncanny furniture again, a thought whipped me. Something lived here. Not someone; none of these furnishings could accommodate a human anatomy. My teeth chattering, I listened to the cave. Deep inside, a pulse? No, it could not be... I decided to return to the entrance, and scream until someone heard me. Halfway through, my old joints creaked under the onslaught of the humidity. My stomach had stopped growling with hunger, but my sternum felt heavy. Placing my hand on it, it appeared to swell. Groaning, I quickened my pace. Violent pains shot through my feet, pelvis, and tailbone. Entering a room, I noticed an inkwell. I had to write all this down in my diary, always in my pocket. As I feverishly scribbled, the cartilage of my nose grew out of my skull, whose jaw and back cracked like seeds ready to germinate. The lantern went out, blown out by a mouth with fetid breath. In total darkness, I felt a presence behind me. My terror-struck soul compelled me to continue writing. To the very end.

A mighty force twisted my spine. It pulled one of my arms back, breaking my bones. Howling, I groped for my quill, and continued writing with the other hand. The skin of my chin and forehead was stretched, causing my wig to fall to my feet like a dead bird. My clothes torn, feathers sprouting... my insides... the table got closer... my sec... arm... twist...

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He could imagine nothing more barbaric than cutting a body into several pieces and preserving them.

The bucket of whitewash slammed on the floor, its echo torn apart by the sharp points of narrow windows. These deviant Catholics called this place a church. More carved into rock than built with stone, it supposedly enshrined a martyrium, a dignified grave for an obscure woman they called St. Almodie.

All the shapes he discerned in the damp gloom, viciously grotesque, betrayed their wickedness. Arranged as if on a butcher’s stall, mockery of an altar, limbs of brass and silver, receptacles of putrefaction, gleamed macabrely in the glow of some votive candles. Bas-reliefs daubed with pigments like prostitutes, and primitive frescoes, stained from the walls like saltpetre. Everywhere his gaze reluctantly fell, he noticed traces of vile rubbing, and his nostrils were assaulted by foul, carnal odors, damning evidence of impure displays of devotion.

The local Protestant authorities had charged him with destroying this iconolatry and its pagan stench, and he would prove himself up to the task.

His purification began with a hammer, beheading each piece of stucco bearing a face. His hatred brutally satisfied, he seized the fancy reliquaries. Their precious metals would be melted down to contribute to an economy profitable to all. With disgust, he emptied their contents into a box: porous bone fragments, unidentifiable mummified limbs, and a blackened skull. The putative whole body of the saint would join the mass grave. It was a safe bet that some parts came from animals or forgeries; what kind of human being had three arms?

Once this makeshift coffin sealed, he moved on to the most satisfying step: whitewashing the walls. Ignoring the sulfurous and salty smell of the coating, the movement of his arms took on a ceremonial rhythm in keeping with his prayers. Absorbed by his spiritual palimpsest, he flinched when his gaze met a pair of wide, fixed eyes. A nervous laugh escaped him: just a mural. The brush enucleated the painted face, before covering the entire decorated wall. Having finished his work, the iconoclast bent down to pick up his tools, and when he stood up again, the figure of the saint adorned once more a dark wall.

Mystified, he looked at the elongated finger resting on the simple line that marked her lips, moved to her second hand, pointing towards the chancel, and then to her third, designating an inscription: Almodie Hunc Locum Custodit1. An icy breath swept across the back of his neck; so this was the power of images Calvin and Zwingli spoke of. Trembling, he resumed his task, making sure to cover the icon thoroughly until the wall shone, immaculate.

He gazed at it, relieved, but the saint’s eyes reached him afresh, in the depths of his soul. Just two circles of brown paint, yet they stirred his blood with an overpowering elation. Opening his eyes as if waking from a stupor, he felt his burning, hard flesh in his hand and screamed. Devilry! Regaining his composure, he crossed himself, chanting the holy Word, retreating towards the door. His back, however, hit a wall. Turning around, he came face to face with the portrait.

Recoiling, he became aware of the renewed darkness of the building, its appearance restored to how he had found it. On their altar, the skull’s jaws grinned. On the floor, two foot-shaped reliquaries moved toward him, and three metallic hands slipped beneath his clothes. Again, he wanted to yell, but a torrent of whitewash rushed down his throat.

Choking, he granted the saint her requested silence and respect.

_

Text all rights reserved © Saint-Lazare, 2026.

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This flash fiction belongs to the series ‘Tales of Artistic Horror’, inspired by real historical artworks or artistic trends.

This colossal structure, embedded in the ground as if fallen from a game of cosmic bowling, draws me to it with the insistence of a shepherd before the storm. Is this what is prying on me in the stoic landscape, invisible mass with a hunter’s pulse? My pace remains constant, oblivious to the threat lurking in my blind spot, sum of my escape and the gravity of the planetary edifice. My attention is anchored to its architecture of shadows, to its strict swelling which drapes some unspeakable power. Each night, I draw closer. Each night, I do not outrun. Puppet sleepwalker.

I first find the suburban house reflected in the perfectly smooth surface of the globe. Fiercely familiar. I already know everything about it, about the void that its closed shutters signify. Timidly, I walk along the side, passing a blind façade that no longer promises the gentle welcome of unconditional kindness, short shrubs which used to be my height, a green metal clothesline, with fallen fruits at its feet, and grassy flowerbeds. I struggle to lift my eyes from the paved path, my throat reduced to the size of a pinhead. I stand in a garden with a vine, and a tree that provides shade. The buzzing of wasps has vanished. The iron gate closing the back door, hidden in the dimness of an awning, has taken on the function of the wrought iron door of a funeral chapel. Woe crushes me, silence overcomes my nerves, and my sobs mingle with the despairing absence.

The penumbra of the orblike cenotaph engulfs this former haven of peace, a place where I used to feel safe, which is now forbidden to me, from which I had been dispossessed. I identify Its presence in both buildings, the humble one as well as the Boullean one. Meditative, melancholic; the anesthetizing pleasure of tombs made me forget my pursuer. It has gained on me, Fatality’s other moiety.

Death is not only even in Arcadia. It tolerates us in the gardens of our memory. Until the end of the dream comes.

Text all rights reserved © Saint-Lazare, 2026. This flash fiction belongs to the series ‘Tales of Artistic Horror’, inspired by real historical artworks or artistic trends.

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In the blue hour, I faced the neoclassical facade, the city breathing its first sighs. My coffee burned my palm through the cup as I looked up at the roof, still bathed in nocturnal clouds. There stood a strange group of statues: an Anubis and a woman I could not identify, arm raised as if in warning. Probably linked to the offer from this prestigious European museum to contemporary artists like me, to exhibit new works in dialogue with their ancient collections. My heart leaped at the thought; this collaboration would undoubtedly catapult my career.

Help MY career

A curator led me to the room where I was to set up my installation. The display cases, isolated in a large room, shone lights on mummified bodies, shrunken heads, and piles of engraved bones. The employee spoke of ethical labelling, controversial public reception, and pressure of repatriation, but I did not listen. I already envisioned my project. Before my eyes passed circles of femurs from the Catacombs of Lima, the Sedlec Ossuary’s skeletal crests, chandeliers of skulls in the Cabaret du Néant, macabre decorations in Rome’s Capuchin Crypt, bony ceilings and walls at the chapel of Czermna. I could add a few pop-culture Easter eggs for the grand public, like the Temple of 28 Years Later, and throw a few bones (pun intended) to the highbrow critics with nods to the work of Bruce Mahalski.

I was eager to get started.

The museum had refrained from asking where my materials came from. Contacts in the Middle East and South America had provided them. I particularly liked the newborns, which only passed for resin thanks to a bribe at customs. The assembly would take time, and I had been allowed to stay the night, with my Stanley Cup full of coffee and an Ethel Cain playlist. I was forming wings of pelvis and halos of ribs around the cherubs when strange noises permeated through the music. I took out my AirPods, and scanned the dark arches leading to the next rooms. At first, nothing. I was about to resume my task when clack. And crack. Pop in a corner. Snap above my head.

I jumped up, my Air Jordan Mules squeaking on the floor. Humeri peeped out from the fluorescent lights. Approaching the corners, I discovered tibias protruding. The shadow in the other rooms densified. Clickety-clack, crackety-crick, pop-snap, pop-snap, crack, crack, clack! The unsettling cacophony echoed off the marble walls, and I no longer knew if it was coming from the front, from behind, approaching, or swirling around me. There was something both childlike and sinister about the din. In a voice less confident than I would have liked, I called out to the guards, searching for cameras. All light went out. Pop, pop, pop around my legs. Clack, clack, clack near my ears. Phalanges on my bare ankles. Mandibles on my neck. In a final flash, my brain identified the figure beside the Egyptian protector of tombs; it was Atropos, the inevitability of death.

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Displayed in glass coffins, their fair hair carefully coiled on silk, two rows of pearls marking the threshold between a serene face and pristine exposed organs. Parted lips, languid gaze, downy pubic hair offered in a stiffness as uninviting as the waxy tint of their skin in the gaslight. How could they all be Venuses?

As a child, their gleaming interiors had absorbed me more than the ceilings of the academy of sciences, painfully decorated with human falseness. Yes, dear godfather, even then, my youthful soul resented art as the pinnacle of humanity, while anatomy defied the most intricate of pallazi. In their glacial corridors, the frail pinkies of life and death embraced in an artificial promise.

The initial intoxication had given way to a furious hunger; I had left behind the display cases of preserved organs and embryos, the lifeless eyes of the écorchés sole witnesses of my escapade; you never noticed. A half-open door, a ferric draft, the chiaroscuro of candlelight: I had poked my head through it, and her eyes had captured me.

The blue irises, still as if moist with life, shimmered in the chiaroscuro, calling to me, chin brushing against her shoulder, flames playing on messy coppery locks. Less polished than her museum companions, a bloody work in progress, but striking in her raw splendor. I longed to admire her more closely, but a hasty hand had pushed me out, vociferating in Italian - segreto, segreto! The genuine goddess; I would never forget her.

No more youth in my joints. A trembling in my hands, while I turned pages full of naked women’s bodies in my cabinet of curiosities, the shadow of my jars of anatomical abnormalities modestly covering them, fingertips of mortality seeking my pulse. O, it still beat, but far from your insolent Victorian salons, walls tiled with abducted Orient. You scoff, with Leighton and the other old codgers, when I disdain their artifices, and plead for the human body as supreme art - I would show you all.

I tried to locate my Venus, her artist, any information about her. In vain. Until I found a portrait of a dead woman, of whom only a small funerary wax effigy remained. Her twin doll. I acquired it without waiting, laying it on the pages of my erotic books as if on her bed, warming her nudity with my feverish fingers. Once again, her blue eyes seemed to communicate with me, their painted features bulging of desire to confide their terrible secret to me. At night, whispers would wake me from my sleep, bringing me back to my table, to the doll, without my being able to understand her message.

My skin, as yellowish and moist as her wax in my palms, the room vibrating; I held her tight against my chest, heart pounding. My shirt became sticky, and frightened, I dropped the doll onto the open book, revealing a skull in place of those beautiful features. The room grew misty, and the vision of the skeletal figure blended in with my memory of Venus; with a lookalike body.

A redhead, forget-me-not peepers, staring blankly at me, her cheek resting on a pillow of entrails. A mattress soaked with blood, splatters on the walls, thick layer on the floor. A dance of morning pallor on an open body, organs scattered on the bed. The glory of my Venus miraculously renewed before me. A true masterpiece. You will judge for yourself, dear godfather, and you will change your mind. I left the door key in the envelope with this letter. 13 Miller’s Court.

_

Text all rights reserved © Saint-Lazare, 2026.

This flash fiction belongs to the series ‘Tales of Artistic Horror’, inspired by real historical artworks or artistic trends.

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