Who knows, now, the story of the painting famous for its smile? People thronged just to glimpse it. But the nations were desperate for cash. As nobody could afford to buy it outright, the painting was micro-lasered into 1mm lots, each with a tiny identifying number scorched on the back. Buyers would want a lip or a pupil, not a nondescript speck of sky – so the numbers were randomised. Bidders wouldn’t know which bit they were actually getting. And so, one Valentine’s Day, half a million numbers were put on sale. Collectors clamoured. Failing businessmen emptied accounts to impress mistresses. The greatest lottery ever – over within days. Later, investors received a facsimile of the painting, a crimson ‘X’ marking the location of their (framed) fragment. The Vatican claimed divine intervention when all fourteen of its crosses found the face. According to rumour, the last great philanthropist of that age ruined herself attempting to reunite the motes. Mounted between plates of glass, her life’s work was a see-through ghost: a gauzy mess of crags, a pale mask hung in space, forever blurred and pocked. That’s the story. And that’s what happens when civilisations make revenue their One God. No longer enigmatic, they lose their smile.
