As a young man Xoratio studied art, but very early he witnessed that it is not possible to transfer that unique spark of life by conventional techniques; canvases and oil became a pleasant pass-time for idle middle-aged ladies and seasonal portraitists on the Riviera, no one chose to put pain in paint anymore, mix blood with turpentine, or mix spit with clay, or even vine, or honey, or an egg, and Xoratio looked at hundreds and hundreds of works done by old masters, but none of those moved him nearly as much as did the X-ray of his broken arm.

Then he came to his revolutionary idea, and I am not so sure it is my place to reveal it, because it is a secret, not the kind of secret someone confided to me, but more of a truth that no one dared to articulate. Xoratio leaves his art studies and with great effort starts the study of medicine. And the effort was indeed great, for it was a torture for an artistic soul to submit itself to the laws of mathematics, physics or biology, to penetrate all those hard, cold layers of science only to reach the hot, pulsating heart of art. Because, what Xoratio sought were X-rays of broken, dislocated limbs, bones disfigured by tuberculosis and cancers, vertebra eaten by osteoporosis, screws twisted deep in the marrow of life, portraits of human pain and suffering, landscapes of death.

In medical school archives he discovers pictures of children with glass bones and people with elephant heads; his first work carries that youthful desire to shock, rebellion, an invitation to a revolution, impertinent intention to confront the world to all dark depths of existence and fear; primitive, direct energy that strikes like a sledge hammer and leaves no bone in the body unbroken.

The success of his early work did not come without some consequences.

The first was that Xoratio felt ashamed of his work. He realized that instead of an artist he became a scavenger, tomb raider, pervert, and that his art was reduced to a morbid obsession, a bizarre freak show. So he abandoned medical school. Or maybe he was kicked out when his professors found out his true ambitions, along with the fact he never even passed a single exam.

But with success also came financial benefits, large enough to enable him to buy a private radiology office, along with all the equipment, and to turn it into his atelier.

That allowed the birth of the real Xoratio Rey. In the solitude of his new hiding place he picks up a ten pound hammer and with all his force crushes the bones of his own fist out which comes his brand new cycle named "Fistful of Stars". And another success.

And it is this success that makes him, as soon as his wounds healed up, break new bones and create new work – triple fractures of both legs, simultaneous fractures of both arms and both legs, dislocation of every joint of his body, swallowing of metal balls, even an amputation of a finger – Xoratio Rey creates with intensity that shortens his life.

He keeps breaking his bones, keeps exposing himself to X-rays. What's leading him is a vision of an improved humanity, and a plan that, after his death, all his work gets exhibited in one single museum where his original skeleton would serve as a centerpiece.

Around that time, I was finishing my treatise "On deconstruction of Color in Avant-garde Art", all nervous, and completely out of focus, since it was the second time I had moved the dead-line for the article, which made me a victim of a constant, day and night harassment by the magazine's editor who kept spitting his orders at me like an army general: Finish it! Do it! Then came an unexpected call from Modern Art Museum, and I could feel myself returning to the land of living and free. New opportunity lifted my spirits and filled me with vigor and pride, and I immediately discarded my essay and ran to my museum appointment. A couple of months ago I had send them a sample of my work, and I had already lost all hope of ever being noticed. Regularly, at a certain time of day, especially at dusk of a too short day, in the promise of another night with no plans, I would try to accustom myself to the thought I might never become an artist. By this mental exercise I managed to discover certain advantages of a mediocre life not dedicated to art and noble goals, even convince myself that such an everyday life, with all its panem et circenses type of everyday concerns, actually would not prove so bad. But as soon as I received the invitation to contact museum's curator, my ambition returned fresh, with blushing cheeks of a mistress, filling my soul with deceitful kisses.

The curator turned to be a dry middle-aged little woman, with a page haircut, and an enormous golden may bug on her collar, who greeted me with just a wave of her bony hand and took me, in complete silence, to the museum's storage area. While we walked through a cold corridor her flat heels made a squeaking noise like they were a pair of little animals, not used to be stepped on.