Content
“I, Gastone Tomasso, am the Omphalos; he, Filadelfo, my brother—it, if truth be told (and I am telling the truth), is the Acephale. Yes, Filadelfo has a head, I admit it (in truth, without sarcasm), more beautiful than mine, at least so far as appearances go.
‘Gastone, that unfortunate creature,’ I hear onlookers say, oftentimes directly to my ugly face, as if I were also deaf and blind.
When they gaze upon my brother’s noble brow, his chiseled chin, and Caesarean nose, all framed by a glowing cascade of curled golden hair, they praise his beautiful visage, piercing ice-blue eyes, and benevolent, perfectly toothed smile.
That is, until they must inevitably look down at me (and down to me), the disfigured dwarf attached to—nay, growing from—his would-be perfectly sculpted abdomen, as if I had been unsuccessfully birthed from his belly.
What they either fail to know or refuse to acknowledge (who am I to judge?) is that Filadelfo’s perfectly shaped skull is an empty shell filled only with profound idiocy.
He is the perfect imbecile.”