Mr. Venus

I’m drawn to Mr. Venus, Charles Dickens’ articulator of bones. I won’t go so far to say it’s love at first sight, that place is reserved for my children. There is no question what I felt when I saw those two for the first time. But that's another matter indeed. Still, the feeling for Mr. Venus is strong He and I partake of a certain communion that cannot be denied.

Mr. Venus is in dire straights, stuck between love of his work, articulating bones, and love of a living, breathing creature, who shuns his advances. She doesn’t "want to be seen in that boney light.” Oh, Mr. Venus, don’t I know? For what is a writer but an articulator of bones? We steal pieces from the living; we scrounge around in graveyards appropriating pieces from the dead.

I was shocked one day to see a woman I had scavenged eating lunch at a restaurant. She looked amazingly well. Her hair was purple. Her fingers glittered with a variety of rings. She was remarried. And all this after I had borrowed her husband, appropriated her senseless legs. She didn’t seem to miss the items I had stolen, but she probably wouldn’t have greeted my so kindly if she knew.

Oh, Mr. Venus, why are we so in love with the work that we do? Why do we go into graveyards with pencils and shovels to see what we can dig up to fit into our latest schemes? Will our lovers ever forgive us for our thieving ways, for seeing things as we do?