The Blur

Flash Fiction #41

What does it mean to have a 20/20 vision? The ability to recognise small details with acuity from twenty feet away? Arthur Edgeworth did. In fact, his vision was so good that we employed him to discern the most minute details no one else could spot, not that they would if they could, as it was all top secret. Only seven people knew of the existence of the program. Well, eight now, since I am about to tell you.

BLUR started in the summer of 69 when we found the first victim, although we are no longer confident that the term “victim” qualifies now. No one could make sense of it: no dental records, no fingerprints, nothing to identify the body. No one reported her missing—the woman with the blurred face.

We were all there that day, all seven of us, and we decided to keep this detail from the public. It was the only thing we could do. How would we explain it? What made her face appear all blurry, like some impenetrable nebula? No, we’d only cause a mass panic, and no one needs that.

The autopsy results were even more confusing. Tissue and cell samples were useless and started to blur even under the microscope, no matter the focus or magnification. It was almost as if someone had made her that way on purpose: unidentifiable. Who was this mystery woman?

A year later, we found the perfect candidate for the BLUR program. Arthur’s test scores were off the charts. Not only was his vision remarkable, but he also had a perfect photographic memory; he could recall any detail, no matter how distant or minute. So, we hoped he would be able to spot what we could not.

When we brought Arthur in, he had read the file and knew what awaited him, but it was one thing to read about something and another to see. Even though he knew, he still could not believe his eyes. The body looked the same as when we first found it. No decomposition or rigor mortis, perfect skin; were it not for the blurred face, one would assume she was merely sleeping.

Arthur stared at the naked woman lying before him on the cold steel bed and sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. His thin face and pointy weasel-like nose twitched as he recorded every detail and committed them to his infallible memory despite the unsettling effect of not seeing her face. His vision failed him for the first time, and he did not take it well.

The debriefing was a disappointment, to be honest. Maybe we had expected too much. Maybe it was naive of us to think Arthur would go in there, look at her and tell us where she had come from, who she was and why her face was blurry, but he had no answers. Instead, he insisted that the woman, whoever she was, was not dead at all, merely suspended, and he further stipulated, much to our amusement, that once she had her face back, she would wake up.

The next day, Arthur wanted to see the woman again. He was sure that he had missed something and needed to try again. He had to touch her face, he explained. We knew from the scans with our cameras that the face underneath the blur was a blank canvas, smooth and flat, a hard surface like black glass. Only once did a lab assistant touch the blur by accident. He ran from the room screaming, holding his hand, “It burns! It burns!”

The lab assistant was lucky; he only lost two fingers. At first, they seemed normal, apart from the reddening, but the next day, the fingers started to blur and progressively got worse until they had vanished altogether. No one has touched the blur since, and no one planned to—no one, except for Arthur with this experimental magnetic glove he had built.

Determined, obsessed even, Arthur put on his glove, which consisted of nothing more than a bunch of wires and magnetic discs stuck on each fingertip, generating a low-voltage magnetic field around the hand that should—in theory, as he believed—protect the wearer against the radiation, which he falsely stipulated was part of the reason for the blur. Arthur’s hand reached for the face. The air between the magnetic field and the blur curdled like milk.

Arthur touched the face, his pupils dilated. He glimpsed beyond the blur. At that moment, the light went out, and all we saw was his glowing red hand. The light came back on, and he was gone. The molten glove on the ground was the only trace he had left. And so Arthur Edgeworth was presumed dead that day, the first victim of the Blur.

You already know this conclusion was a grave error on our part, seeing as the dreaded Blur has been spreading ever since, and now that you are here, I want to assure you that you have our full cooperation. I understand that discretion is of the utmost importance, and no one outside this room can ever know about you, who or what you are. You do not exist. This is all well understood. No one would believe me anyway.

This is it, then. This is why you have come, isn’t it? To find Arthur, to stop the Blur.

Read Next

TFTD Community

Thank you for reading, and to all new subscribers, welcome and thank you for joining! Please leave a comment and say Hi in the chat or on Discord, or drop me a line via DM or email. I am always happy to hear from you.