To wander these virtual halls, cabinet of human
anomalies, is to explore the body. Where else
would one find a grotesquely distended colon,
blasted as a blown fuse; wax cast of a syphilitic skull;
slides of Einstein’s cerebellum sandwiched between
thin sheets of glass? In a glass case, centered
like a trophy, a plaster cast of the famous Chang
and Eng, the original Siamese twins, bound face
to face at the sternum by a thin band of skin,
hovers above the keyboard. One twin drank
heavily, while the other abstained. It must have
been awkward, living a joint life, even as the two
men married, conceived their own children, died.
How would it be to see your own face mirrored only
in the face of the other, to learn what it meant
to be alone only when the other perished,
to carry that weight till it brought you down?
Mutter Museum
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