Dear Vincent,
I have decided to share an office with an urban designer.
He specializes in walkability and human vibrancy, which I believe means drawing little café tables on every site plan and suggesting that all roads be made of cobblestones.
He seems to like me.
He said my latest design had “a bold, rebellious energy.”
I explained that this was because I had deleted the entire second phase out of sheer frustration.
He found this “exciting.”
Meanwhile, my last proposal—the one where I designed the plaza, then hated the plaza, then tried to erase the plaza from history—has turned into a legal matter.
The investors argued that once a public square exists in a PowerPoint, it belongs to the people.
I countered that it belonged to no one, as I had renounced it completely.
We went to arbitration.
There was a heated debate over whether a design can be un-designed, whether a rejected sketch has a soul, and whether the community had already formed a spiritual connection with my discarded plaza.
On the advice of my lawyer, I sued for full custody of the concept but was forced to settle for air rights.
Now, someone has seen the rejected plans in the corner of my office and wants to exhibit them as an avant-garde exploration of space and regret.
They are already discussing a retrospective titled “Ghost Towns of the Imagination.”
I am exhausted.
Yours, Theo
