mind over matter

The story so far

The Thinker (Dante) had pondered to such an extent he had overcome his inanimation and thought life into himself. He thereupon set about devising a way to escape from the dull surroundings of the Musée Rodin and make up for what had seemed like eternal imprisonment in cast bronze. The time had come for some serious fun and mischief.

After several weeks of petty thieving and playing cat and mouse with the police, the Thinker crossed the border into Spain and made his way to Barcelona. There, he set up his headquarters in one of the city’s disused underground railway tunnels, very close to Urquinaona station in the centre of town.

The Thinker soon set his charisma and criminal talent to work. It was not long before his advertisements in El Periódico ("Se buscan dos matones para realizar trabajos no legales") for a couple of henchmen was answered. He then engaged the services of two local hoodlums, whom he packed off to Florence in a van, the sides of which were wallpapered to hide the identity and thus the origin of the hire company.

The gangsters were instructed to filch Michelangelo’s David from the Galleria dell'Accademia and to bag any other statue of value while they were at it. What they eventually purloined from the Piazza della Signoria was Baccio Bandinelli’s statue of Hercules grappling with Cacus. This was later to give the Thinker some serious headaches as it forced him to think Hercules to life while keeping Cacus in statue format - animated fire-breathing giants were not part of the Thinker’s plans.

"Numbskulls!" he cursed his uncultured henchmen.

Thereafter the hoodlums were to pop up to Paris and snatch the Venus of Milo from the Louvre and return her, with David and Hercules, to Barcelona. The Thinker would then free his new companions, whose boundless gratitude he would be able to exploit to hatch his criminal master plan. So simple it was perfect.
It had occurred to the Thinker, on more than one occasion, to think the world’s twenty or so other casts of himself into life but, aware of his own often difficult and stubborn nature, he decided to keep any competition for top dog spot off the agenda.

"Oooh. I’ve got my arms back!" exclaimed the Venus of Milo joyously. Hercules stretched and David fingered his (own) willy.

However, the statues’ new-found freedom was short-lived. The Thinker soon made it clear who the boss was. He explained his plans to Venus, Hercules and David, flattered them and told them they were to play key roles and to be the stakeholders in and the main beneficiaries of his schemes. However, they all refused to participate and the Thinker therefore locked them in a disused passenger wagon in a siding.