The Birth of the Venus de Milo

The two burglars meet each other in the library. One considers himself more burglar than man, the other more man than burglar. The more-man-than-burglar visits the house everyday. He and the government official have been playing games of chess for years. The pieces are fingers and toes. The official believes his butler moves the pieces. It is the more-burglar-than-man’s first time in the house. He is learning how to live with the loss of his nose. The two burglars stare. They both act like they know each other. Like they live here. They sit down. They take cigars from the official’s desk. They smoke. Neither smokes. Not wanting to disturb his game of chess, the more-man-than-burglar takes out another board and they play. Neither knows the rules. They speak. They speak of things they don’t know. Politics. The bridge of Aristotle’s brow. Mathematics. Roman grapes. Hungarian women. The objectivity of virtuosity. Things rich people talk about. One wins. It is decided through means never disclosed fully to the public. They walk. The floor of the house is mango peel. Each is nervous about how much their shoes scream. They stop in front of a stuffed lion head, decrowned from its body. Neither has seen a lion before. The more-burglar-than-man calls it  a beautiful camel. The more-man-than-burglar nods. The problem: it is only so long you can be someone else. Humans do not own biological patience. This is called onomastic determinism. Neither is full. They look at each other and neither had looked, really looked, at the other before. They are naked. In a gradient, man is incomplete and the conscious acceptance of incompleteness is terrifying. They scream, real primal. Take down the halls in adjacent directions. Take off their clothes. One hides his behind the carcass of an ancient book of chess strategy--rich people do not touch the really old or the really new. The other hides his clothes among rows of slaughtered pigs.

The two exit within minutes. There is a sculptor outside. The sky is drunk. Sloppy pink. He is sculpting the Venus de Milo. He is the only witness. They are naked. They are running. It was the first time the sculptor has seen man, unfinished man before. He does not finish Venus de Milo’s arms. The next morning he got a full wreath of dead bees slid under his door from his ex-lover. His home was incomplete without it.