Beauty Unmoving

The darkness surrounding me only increased my heavy and frantic breathing, it being the only noise I could hear. I was terrified. The cold slab of metal on my back and the nauseating feeling of anesthetics made it feel as if I were in a hospital operating room, the realization making it only more frightening. “Your breathing seems to have gotten heavier, I can only assume that means your awake, yes?” I heard no footsteps, no door, the man talking must have been next to me the entire time, watching me. “I can only imagine the thoughts running through your head right now. Is it prayer? Screaming for help?” He wasn’t wrong.

Unable to move, unable to see, I could only pray I was in a dream as tears started falling down my face. “Maybe you’ve accepted your fate, although considering you’re likely unaware of what that may be, I’d say that was quite implausible.” The way he said fate, I knew I was going to die. I tried to scream, but my lips wouldn’t move. All I had was prayer and tears. He continued,” I wouldn’t consider myself the most gracious of hosts, as most of my guests arrive much like you did, unconscious and in a bag. Although given that your arrival may have been quite unscrupulous, your exit will be glorious.” The way he said glorious, it sounded as if he were smiling.

I could hear him pacing, his footsteps echoing throughout the room. “Do you know, your own beauty sir? Do you know that you are a pinnacle of genetic and evolutionary achievement?” He sounded as a mad preacher giving a sermon,” Ignorance, my friend, in the presence of knowledge is greater than sin, so let me enlighten you. The human body is a piece art, art in constant motion. Every piece of cartilage and bone, every blood vessel and muscle working together to do all we’ve come to achieve. Appreciation for that beauty is why I became an artist, creating pieces that would emanate it’s inherit grace so that it can truly be appreciated. Nothing, however, truly captured its mastery. Painting lacked depth, sculpting lacked life, and writing lacked impact. The human body is indeed art, and it deserves to be exemplified in all ways measurable, but what can I as an artist do, with an already beautiful piece? This question, wracked my mind for ages, until an epiphany!” He removed the bag from my head, however, the relief was short lived.

All around me I saw dismembered corpses, placed and propped in all manners of ways. A small man trying to climb the exposed ribs of a much larger man, another man on his knees holding his own weeping head towards the sky, the torso of a woman with a child nipping at her breast, and her face in the form of a scream trying to escape her own womb. “The body is its own canvas and paint, and I, as the artist only need to shape it.” I looked towards him, and my eyes met his. They seemed to glow and glisten as he spoke of how beautiful I would be. I couldn’t say if I was afraid anymore. The body is beautiful, and I am art.