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Dear mother,

It could not have been a singular origin, the singularity of a beginning, the point of the big bang; rather, it would have to have been a moment of originary coincidence. A coincidence, a coincident, the doubling of a co inside, of an originary two, the condition made possible by the originary trace, which is to say, all conditions. It would thus leave traces, footprints that rippled both ways in the event, forward and backward.[1]

I had been assigned to this man, and upon seeing him, I could not believe my eyes. He was of utter beauty, grazing perfection. The reproduction of the image of the Vitruvian man […][2] His skin texture was perfect, the individual hairs on head and body had been lovingly and intricately manufactured and placed.[3] He was transparent but impenetrable.[4]

It was evidently a case of “love at first sight” […][5] He would allow but one assistant to work with him […][6], which is how I ended up moving into his home. The habit of living a long time innocently together, far from weakening the first sentiments I felt for him, had contributed to strengthen them.[7]

I had studied all the details of housekeeping; I understood cooking and cleaning; I knew the prices of food, and also how to choose it; I could keep accounts accurately […].[8] Man has lashes on the eye lids on either side ; and I made it my daily care to stain his ; so ardent was he in the pursuit of beauty, that he must even colour his very eyes.[9] […] And he was in the habit of washing his face seven hundred times daily, and I would be strictly observing that number.[10] I would always take care of the oiling of his body, carefully spreading it in an even manner all over his stature and […] employing extracts, that had been recently prepared and preserved with great care.[11]

Now for his diet: for lunch honey, for dinner a biscuit and vegetables, meat infrequently.... In this way his body kept the same condition, as if on a straight line, without being sometimes healthy, sometimes sick, and without growing heavier Even outside the strictly Pythagorean context, regimen was regularly defined with reference to these two associated dimensions of good health maintenance and proper care of the soul.[12] And there were always drugs around—most notably, the jars of white crosses and other uppers that he kept in the fridge next to his protein fortified milkshakes.[13]

Every day, I would go into his bedroom, search around for his running shorts and shoes and T shirt, change his clothes in eagerness, and soon enough, his body would find itself out on the pavement, with his feet pounding the ground and his heart beginning to thump away.[14]

And then, drawn out from his body, his sinews formed a bundle of dark, shiny stalks, not unlike the bundle of lightning bolts that lay beside him, although these were bright and smoking.[15] Now between the dry head, more than dead, almost abstract, empty and desiccated, suitably objectivized, wholly exterior, pierced, visible, nameable, articulated, analyzable, between the skull and the rest of the world, a circumstantial halo of light, like the ones worn by the great saints, replaces, at bone level, the lining of flesh, fat, muscle, organs, skin, veins, tendons, hair, radiance, charm, beauty, glory.[16]

Perhaps it was the fascination of seeing that particular beauty, force and dedication so explicitly personified in a human body,[17] or perhaps it was something else. But in any way, I wanted to be seen with him.

I once wondered, For what purpose?[18] And he asked me if I thought it was truly possible to think without arriving at beauty, without penetrating the secret place where life bubbles up, without the transfiguration of the body?[19] To Lenny, you see, beauty was some inherent property, to be found suffused all through the body of that which may be called beautiful […][20] In an ecstasy of joy, no doubt intensified by the joy I felt in making him shine before my friends, with extreme volubility, I reiterated, stroking and patting him as though he was a horse that had just come first past the post: “You’re the most beautiful man I know, do you hear?”[21]

   Mother, I was incredibly happy with him. I had learned all that I could about his passion and would assist him with all my powers. But then came the move. We needed a new place to live, which is how we met Ludwig.

Wandering in the public square, a lit lantern in hand in the middle of the day, […] A garden more inviting than Eden would […] meet our eyes.[22] On the door of the magnificent garden was written with golden letters: 'The Abode of Beauty'. “The abode of Beauty!” Lenny had exclaimed, “Oh! that is what I want to see!”[23]

Once we arrived, we studied him and were pleased with what we had found,[24] which led to us moving in.

For some time after our arrival, every thing he saw excited wonder and admiration; and not till he was a little familiarized with the new objects, did he ask reasonable questions.[25]

During our breakfast, instead of speaking with me, as we used to, Lenny would often look out of the window at the […] small garden, brilliantly lit without shadows or oppressive heat […][26]. I felt uneasy. You see, Mother, he started to deck himself with plumes, necklaces, armlets, […][27] and earrings bearing gems that looked like diamonds.[28] I felt completely shallow and useless.. [29]

When I saw Ludwig look at Lenny with lust […][30], the hatred of Ludwig gnawed my heart, but it was a hatred mingled with admiration of the beautiful, adulated body of his.

I would often glance through the windows, observing him move, sculpt, construct. And with every drop of sweat, it would feel like Ludwig morphed, changing simultaneously to Lenny’s body.

I would not have been jealous if he had enjoyed his pleasures in my vicinity, with my encouragement, completely under my surveillance, thereby relieving me of any fear of mendacity,[31] but he was excluding me from all his activities.

Mother, it was not good for me. […] If he left my side for a moment, I became anxious, began to imagine that he had spoken to or simply looked at Ludwig. If he was not in the best of tempers, I thought that I must be causing him to miss or to postpone some appointment. Reality is never more than a first step towards an unknown on the road to which one can never progress very far. It is better not to know, to think as little as possible, not to feed one’s jealousy with the slightest concrete detail. Unfortunately, in the absence of an outer life, incidents are created by the inner life too; in the absence of expeditions with him, the random course of my solitary reflections furnished me at times with some of those tiny fragments of the truth which attract to themselves, like a magnet, an inkling of the unknown, which from that moment becomes painful.[32]

On one somber evening Lenny came up to me, looked me straight into the soul and said, “A little while ago I did not know something that I know now; I know with whom I shall die.”[33]

[…] I then knew loneliness and isolation and I felt […] like an alien from another world.

 Now, Mother, I was already hurting all over. I would have many sleepless nights. But it only got worse, the exclusion only intensified…

One day, he got out of bed and walked into the bathroom for a shave and for the remainder of the morning ritual,[34] without even saying good morning to me. Everything happened, then, during the seconds of complete veiling. Hardly had it begun than a strange light, yellow and tawny, resembling nothing else, neither the evening nor the dawn, invaded the environment; the glory of orange light intercepted by the walls of my abode disappeared, giving way to a somber and magic bath […].[35] It was a surprise bath, where Ludwig had taken him to an upper floor; he was then tipped backwards into the water. [36] He gesticulated me to leave. I had always assisted him in cleaning himself, and could not bear letting him do it alone. I sat down beside the door, hearing unconscionable noise and splashing.[37] I then overheard him, whispering incoherently while giggling like a little girl: "Ludwig… Ludwig, I love you...Don't laugh at me, please don't laugh!...[38] I thought to myself: Oh, I shall die of pain and love and jealousy!”[39]

After a while, he suddenly stepped outside, catching me in the act of eavesdropping. It was too late, now, to draw back, and since he was about to know all, in order not to seem too miserable, too jealous and inquisitive, I called out in a cheerful, casual tone of voice: “Please don’t bother; I just happened to be passing, and saw the light.”[40] I looked at his body and found it clean as virgin silver, […] whereat he rejoiced exceedingly and his breast expanded with gladness,[41] and then happily frolicked away. I collapsed on the chair right in front of the seemingly endless stairs.

When Lenny closed the door behind him, I heard a sort of echo in the roof; it sounded like voices […].[42] And then, blackness, […] vast emptiness stretching out infinitely.[43] Deep, dark, dank, dismal silence.[44] the infinite void of space[45] True loneliness occurs not when there are no others around me, but when I am deprived even of my shadow.[46]

Then he began to rush wildly about the room, shouting, singing, making a great noise […].[47] […] the ground below shuddered uneasily.[48] Then […] the chant, mingled with a murmur of supplication in the midst of ecstasy, seemed at times to stop altogether like a spring that had ceased to flow.[49]

Lenny returned; he was not at all surprised to encounter me before his door […].[50] After stepping out of the room, he shouted: “The glorious light makes me drunk with joy and my sense of wonder has no limits. This pleasure is truly divine! What pure happiness I feel in the bottom of my heart at this spectacle! What ecstasy! No, I cannot possibly give expression to it […]!”[51] He was absolutely in a state of ecstasy, and, involuntary, sinking on his knees, he passionately extended his arms towards Ludwig, certain he could not hear, and having no conception that he could see him.[52] Lenny stood, amazed, afraid of being mistaken, his joy tempered with doubt, and again and again stroked the object of his prayers. It was a body; he could feel the veins as he pressed them with his thumb.[53] And then, a cry of joy […]. [54]

This made me cry because I was not like it, not something complete, which turned toward the lost sweetness of life like a distant quotation. Happiness can only be thought of as something lost, as a beautiful alien. It cannot be anything more than a premonition that we approach with tears in our eyes without ever reaching it. [55]

I needed to get out.

 Mother, I learned an important lesson. Accepting the unfortunate reality would calm my soul far more than endlessly aiming at an unattainable fiction.

When I got into the open air, I heard distinctly, as the night was still, Lenny’s joyous laughter.[56] When I looked back at what had once been a house, it struck me. He had sculpted the finest work of art I had ever seen, much like his own body. It was the most sublime, most charming, most graceful, most splendid, most touching[57] […] more safely guarded by its walls, more superb in palaces, more ornamented in respect to temples, more beautiful by virtue of its buildings, more illustrious in its porticoes, more splendid in its piazzas[58] He had given great attention to realistic detail, rendering each feature with painstaking precision, […][59] and the more time I spent studying the detail, the more I realized how much love and passion had gone into it.[60]

They were now mutually bound together, the lighter being restrained by the heavier, so that it cannot fly off; while, on the contrary, from the lighter tending upwards, the heavier is so suspended, that it cannot fall down.[61]

My Love […] must, like every mental state, even the most lasting, find itself one day obsolete, be “replaced,” and that when that day would come, everything that seemed to attach me so sweetly, indissolubly, to the memory of Lenny, would no longer exist for me. [62] Just as in morality, pleasure and pain have but a single source, and an end to pain is enough to produce pleasure.[63] I am looking forward to coming home.

I embrace you, […][64]

Your Son

  [1] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

[2] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

[3] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[4] Hugo, Les Miserables

[5] Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

[6] Heilbron, The Sun in the Church

[7] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[8] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[9] Pliny, Natural History Volume 3

[10] Pliny, Natural History Volume 5

[11] Laennec, A Treatise on the Diseases of the Chest and on Mediate Auscultation

[12] Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 2

[13] Davis, High Weirdness

[14] Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop

[15] Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

[16] Serres, Statues

[17] Rand, The Fountainhead

[18] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[19] Serres, The Five Senses

[20] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

[21] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol III The Guermantes Way

[22] Wollstonecraft, Complete Works

[23] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[24] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[25] Wollstonecraft, Complete Works

[26] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[27] Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

[28] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[29] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[30] Colebrook, Irony The New Critical

[31] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol V The Captive The Fugitive

[32] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol V The Captive The Fugitive

[33] Bell, Men of Mathematics

[34] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[35] Serres, Biogea

[36] Foucault, History of Madness

[37] Seneca, Complete Works

[38] Rand, The Fountainhead

[39] Deleuze, Masochism Coldness and Cruelty Venus in Furs

[40] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol I Swanns Way

[41] The Book of the Thousand and One Nights

[42] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[43] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[44] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[45] Serres, The Birth of Physics

[46] Zizek, Less Than Nothing

[47] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[48] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[49] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol III The Guermantes Way

[50] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[51] Mallgrave, Architectural Theory

[52] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[53] Freedberg, The Power of Images

[54] Grimm, Teutonic Mythology The Complete Work

[55] Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

[56] The Book of the Thousand and One Nights Supplementary Nights

[57] Frankl, The Gothic

[58] Smith, Architecture in the Culture of Early Humanism

[59] Chilvers, A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art Oxford

[60] Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City

[61] Pliny, Natural History Volume 1

[62] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol V The Captive The Fugitive

[63] Serres, The Birth of Physics

[64] Montesquieu, Persian Letters

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In contrary to the first time Lenny had stepped into the kitchen, the walls had become very thick. What felt like endless rows of shelves stacked on the walls, filled with the most miraculous of foods. An infinite amount of amino acid chains were hidden in all the marble boxes of yellowish powder. Lenny would keep stacking, more than he could possibly indulge. He looked disproportionate to the space left for him to sit and enjoy. Everything was reachable at arm’s length, so much did the room shrink with the gain of the walls.

On the table stood a tall glass filled with marble white milk. Lennys eyes lit up in anticipation as he rushed his hand onto the glass, picking it up and drinking it. It tasted of mass, protein, the thick liquid slowly disappearing from Lenny’s mouth as he drank it, taking big gulps. If you taste it, it will give you your taste by giving you its taste, it opens a new mouth in you, […][1] Ludwig observed him, unbelievingly, fascinated by the power that the combinations of the molecules had on Lennys pleasure. What attracts most is the unknown.[2]

[1] Serres, The Five Senses

[2] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

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After having digested the food he had indulged, Lenny entered the chamber. It was time for him to get to work. The Columns had gotten thick, the ceiling as well. A necessity, as it was holding Ludwig’s heart. Lenny took a deep breath and started working, His muscles began to tense up, his tendons extruding, his veins enlarged. Building , adding to the columns, lifting the ornaments, moving things around. When enlarged to reveal the detail, the grain of the skin, the molecules of the grain, the atoms of the molecule, the beauty became an abstraction.[1]

The feeling of suffocating, sudden palpitations, especially after physical effort, quick, difficult breathing, waking up with a start, cachectic pallor, a feeling of pressure and constriction in the precordial region and of heaviness and numbness in the left arm.[2]

Ludwig admired the pain. The dedication, force, discipline needed was astonishing. He could almost feel it, and saw the beauty in being a feeling, living body, vulnerable and untouchable at the same time. When the light outside dimmed and dusk started to fall, he had to stop Lenny. He knew that he could go on for hours, but Ludwig sensed that the pain was only getting stronger and at some point, would be excruciating and not sustainable. Still unsure that his performance had been good enough, scared of the rejection, Lenny reluctantly went to get himself cleaned.  

[1] Serres, The Five Senses

[2] Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic

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High pressure streams of water were bursting out of the wall, and in the middle, a deep tank pierced into the floor. Lenny walked underneath the powerful jets which were attacking his muscles with the pressure. He felt as if he was going to be propelled away, but with his feet standing firmly on the ground, he could easily withstand the force of the water. Ludwig would like to play with him, recalibrating, he enjoyed seeing Lenny’s body react to the sudden change.

Lenny then proceeded to walk towards the edge of the pool, and let himself fall into the water, after having filled his lungs with all the air he could inhale. Bubbles of air were rising to the top as the Lenny’s seemingly weightless body was slowly falling into the darkness. He adored feeling the pressure of the water around his body, Ludwig was hugging him more tightly than ever before.

In this strange light, two silhouettes were apparent, while above them, and a little behind them, was a heavy purple curtain.[1]

Perfectly timed with how long Lenny could go without oxygen, Ludwig would open the drains and the water would rush out, just as Lennys spread out toes touched the ground. He was then standing, cleansed from all the sweat, his body recalibrating the pressure, in the hollow hole, a door in front of him. He extended his chest again, wiped his curly soaked hair out of his face, sliding it behind his ears in an elegant motion, and walked through the door.

[1] Foucault, The Order of Things

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The nervous fibres vibrate with the music that fills the air; the fibres are like 'deaf dancers' moving in unison to music that they cannot hear.[1]

A maze of drapes and curtains, no walls to be seen. Lenny jumped up and down the stairs, seeking and giving recognition. The loss of orientation and insecurity about not having done enough made his heart beat a little faster, with the notion that he could possibly have to go back to working again.

Running around in between the curtains, touching the different textiles, from cotton to wool to velvet to silk, Leathery drapes hanging from the ceiling, Lenny smelled, touched, listened to it. He was showing himself from all his sides.

The noisy echo of a thousand voices, the white light with ten colours.[2]

Ludwig had brought softer curtains. He had noticed that the rigid, monochromatic pieces of cloth were not appreciated as much by Lenny and understood then how the smoothness  had an importance in the liking of the textile.

Lenny then came face to face with one of the most beautiful materials he had ever seen, hanging right in front of him. He then knew that Ludwig thought he was ready. With a cry of joy, he sank to his knees and started kissing it all over. He took it from the ceiling and put it on his back, the piece of fabric gently embracing him, revealing a bright orange light, that had been hidden behind the curtain. Frolicking down the stairs excitedly, he entered the oiling chamber.

[1] Foucault, History of Madness

[2] Serres, The Incandescent