there's a kid who doesn't age passing in and out of history. he's looking for someone. something. his dreams come true and his nightmares come truer. no one knows why the angels which hover over him stamp their weapons and cry terribly when certain infants among the many presented to him for a blessing gaze into his face, and this who do no aren't saying. what we do know is that those children, if they don't disappear within a few months of the incident, tend to lead very troubled lives, though close proximity to such the ill fated can have it's advantages. the boy wears a mask or veil in some or all of the legitimate authentic photographs of him that exist and a large fraction of those which do not. 

it's not like he hasn't been seen without this mask or veil, though he is usually afforded the courtesy of not being photographed in court rooms and hospitals. his eyes have been tested and are something of a scandal at the level of medical history footnotery, as the have multiple times been declared objectively blind yet was able to demonstrate by both the most obvious and subtle ways that he could see, while at other times he was judged fully capable of seeing, especially if he were to remove the mask for even a few days to readjust his eyes to the light, but he declined to do so, usually nonchalantly but occasionally in fits of terror or outrage. anyway, he cited the equally demonstrable fact that during these times he could already navigate perfectly well by means of the elsewhere confirmed phenomona of those who are blind from birth or childhood of developing the capacity to navigate by way of echolocation, clicking ones tongue against the roof of the mouth or teeth and interpreting their interactions with objects around him to judge distance, shape, surface, and even, under two attestation of at least two separately occurring instances of disinterested parties and critics alike verifying that he could discern color this way as well, though an entirely different aspect of color lost on those without the ears to appreciate it.

..

that was how i met him, that day in a gallery the morning before the opening of the New Venice Art Market. he was staring at my assemblage (my own, rather academicly sounding self important sounding term for the works i had on display, works is what i call them now, the museum calls them each a piece or collectively as a collection, with the interesting result that it becomes hard to specify a group that doesn't exactly adhere to the boundaries of a collection, though what counts as a collection  can itself be fluid, given that the auction house often arbitrarily re packages collections and even the components of different pieces, mostly on paper but disassemble and reorganiztion can happen especially for artists starting out or simply those, who obviously comprise the vast majority, who simply aren't successful enough to attain contacts which preserves rights of artistic vision. i was oneof the later, at least in the case of most of my contracts, but given that there hadn't been much interest in my work the motivation to reorganize them had mostly come from fans exercising rights of the commons, which i found rather touching and meaningful especially because these fans of my work were mostly  friends from i spent time with in person, on line, or from council days. this piece was different, though not because of premeditation on my own part. i had only the Lottery to thank for that, and the Lottery pays heed to neither thanks or praise, nor curses or laments or any other kind of proclamation, art least not that way. 

"Jude. i wasn't too see you here. 

"?" it's not a spoken statement, but the kid's turn of his head to cock his good ear in my direction, all attentive and serious, made it impossible to read as anything other then a question, a question meditated as a question's most distilled, general formulation.

i knew what he wanted to know already, of course. "are you planning on buying it?" 

silence.

opening bid is going to be in the dozen-digits.

silence.

Jesus, do your people have access to that much?

he grinned at that, and i thought he rolled his eyes but obviously with the mask and the blindness i wasn't sure. 

i waited and then finally gave in. i told him when the contract would go into effect, 60 seconds before the auction was gathered into session, during which a radio line was transmitting to a satellite in international space where the bids would theoretical Occur. for that single minute  i would have the right to approve any sale to a designated favored buyer, a status which afforded a non-disclosure clause over the entire deal.

..

"how many stars do the heavens contain? how many grains of sand have passed through the glassworks of Hell? how many drops of nectar must the bees ofparadise gather to succor a world-historic angel? how many tears must God shed to baptize me his most favorite, most prodigal son?"