On this night of all nights, the master of his craft had met his end. An ending that all artists, who had come before and after him share. But, Mr. Doug was an artist unlike the world had ever seen. He was able to capture what he saw as beauty in the cruelest form. A talent he had stumbled upon as a child. He was about the same age as the little boy when he had found his way into his line of work. 

The two of them couldn’t be any more different.  An artist with years of experience, and a child prodigy that had been outmatched by no other. The two of them had stood at two different points in life, one at the beginning and the other at the end. 

Even though they couldn’t be anymore different; they also couldn’t be anymore alike. It was as if Mr. Doug had seen his younger self in the flesh, and the child was looking into the future. Mr. Doug saw what he had lost, the passion he had been missing for a long time. Something that had been out of his reach for so many decades, that those decades separated him from it. The child saw his future, and a tired old man stared back at him. The same cold blue eyes that will never change, and a longing for a purpose he had yet to find. 

To Mr. Doug the child was the answer to all of his problems, but to the child Mr. Doug created more questions than answers. The little boy showed Mr. Doug the cold hard truth that he couldn’t ignore anymore and Mr. Doug had done the same for him in return. 

You could say that all of this had happened by chance, and it was by chance that these two had met. That it was by chance that Mr. Doug’s original masterpiece had been destroyed, and it was by chance he had found an even better one. But that wouldn’t be anything shorter than a lie. It was designed by fate that these two met tonight of all of all nights. 

Fate wasn't always kind to Mr. Doug, but over the years he learned to accept it. Mr. Doug learned the hard way that he couldn’t change something so divine. No matter how much he planned, no matter how much he wanted his way, fate always had its own plans. Such a thing did not like listening to him.  

Mr. Doug had gone to the home that evening to create a masterpiece of his design, but he had created something that he had never even imagined. 

Mr. Doug’s life had come to an end, and one could say that his death itself was a masterpiece. That may be true, but that wasn’t Mr. Doug’s last masterpiece. The little boy was his last masterpiece. You may be wondering, How could a child be Mr. Doug’s last masterpiece?

Mr. Doug was a selfish man. He had never done anything good or bad without getting something for himself in return. That was the man Mr. Doug had always been. His plan on taking all of the blame for the child had not been a selfless act of a dying man. He was too narcissistic to think about someone other than himself. 

Mr. Doug knew that like the others who came before him,  his memory would soon vanish from their minds. He would be forgotten, and thanks to fate Mr. Doug knew he had reached his end. 

Mr. Doug’s life may have reached his end, but the child’s had only begun. He had touched the life of the child, and in return the child would never forget him. His name may disappear from the newspapers and his story forgotten by all. But that little boy would continue to carry out his memory, for as long as he lived. 

A murderer’s last masterpiece is not their death, but their legacy that lives on in their place. There was only one more question left to be answered. A question that Mr. Doug died before he found out the answer.

Where did he put his glass of wine?