The Vitruvian Man

The Vitruvian Man

A three-legged man, out for a walk, came upon a detached limb lying on the ground. He paused, looked about, and, finding no claimant, added it to his collection.

With his additional appendage, he discovered certain advantages. Cartwheels became effortless. Sleep, even while standing, was now a trivial matter.

The law of the land offered no objection. Finder’s keepers, after all.

The original owner, meanwhile, found herself at a loss—not only of limb, but of explanation. How it had come to be separated from her person remained unclear. More troubling still, the courts found the limb itself insufficient evidence of continued ownership. It appeared, by all reasonable accounts, to have been discarded.

Dispossessed, excised, divorced, or otherwise excommunicado, the limb—once severed—was deemed to have forfeited its prior affiliations.

One man’s trash.

As it were.

Or in this case, a woman’s.

In their ruling, the court further noted that no measurable diminishment of the woman could be established.

This finding was entered into record.

Meanwhile, the limb, through a process not unlike incorporation, assumed a new identity upon its union with the once three-legged man. The merger was recognized, ratified, and duly recorded.

Thus expanded and constituted, he was recognized, in all measurable respects, as more complete than before.

He was, at last, a Vitruvian Man.