Nathan Candide
in the Best of All Possible Worlds

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How Nathan was brought up in Manhattan, and what happened with Ezra Cunégonde.

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Once upon a time in a Manhattan penthouse there lived a young man whose awkward possessiveness and unrestricted willingness to trust did nothing to overshadow the sincerity and gentleness of his demeanor. As Voltaire said, “His soul was revealed in his face,” and appropriately his name was Nathan Candide.

Nathan’s mother was the mistress of a drug lord named Philip Cunégonde, although the man wasn’t Nathan’s father. His real son, who was named Ezra and who was tall and thin and handsome beyond measure, was the object of Nathan’s awkward, possessive attraction. Amidst Philip’s mass of illegitimate wealth, Nathan had been taught that this world – Manhattan in its current incarnation, the smooth sunrise and gentle predictability of the seasons – was the best of all possible worlds, that his mother was the best of all possible mothers, that Philip Cunégonde was the best of all possible drug lords, and that Ezra was the best and most beautiful of all possible people. The man who taught Nathan all this – and Ezra as well, while we’re on the subject – was a retired Columbia professor named Joseph Pangloss, and Nathan as he was wont to do trusted him with indisputable totality.

But one cannot entirely blame Nathan, naïf that he was, for truly swallowing whole this obviously – pardon my language – bullshit philosophy, because the life he was living was the best possible life – wealthy and happy, safe, in a beautiful apartment high above New York City. Nathan had no reason to believe in an imperfect life because his life was perfect.

The only thing that Nathan did not have that he wanted was Ezra Cunégonde, whom he wanted dearly to the point where in bad poetry he addressed this complicated feeling as love. When Nathan regarded Ezra from across the dinner table or in the reclining chair in the living room his heart plunged into his stomach and all his vision faded out except for Ezra and the air space slightly around him, which seemed to pulse and undulate with the strength of Ezra’s energy.

This happened, awkwardly, one night when Philip and Nathan’s mother were out at an opera together and Ezra had made himself and Nathan both bowls of Asian noodles. With chopsticks he was a mess and deliciously awkward, his long fingers dropping and slipping and his lips in this kiss shape to slurp up the noodles and Nathan’s vision went slightly out and came in again only as Ezra waved his fingers before Nathan’s face.

And in the warm low voice that Nathan’s dreams were made of, Ezra said, “Are you okay?” Nathan, separated distantly from himself, said in response, “I think so.” Ezra came over to Nathan’s side of the table to collect his flatware and plate, but in a motion more of an unconscious reflex, Nathan laid one of his hands over Ezra’s and stood and pressed their lips together.

Thusly was Nathan Candide ousted from the penthouse in Manhattan: when his mother and Philip arrived home, he was on his knees before naked, shaking Ezra on the living room couch. Philip, despite to some extent treating Nathan like an adopted son, cared more, of course, for his own flesh and blood. With justifiable anger he ordered Nathan out of the house over the tears of his mother and Ezra’s whispered, shocked protests.

And Nathan left indeed, penniless, into the best of all possible worlds.

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note. fuck yes. i am for sure a dork writing a gay version of voltaire's candide that takes place in new york city and all the conflict is drug-related.
my vocabulary isn't actually this good.
btw, the actual book candide is a satire, so this will probably end up being relatively satirical, of what, i don't know, certainly not 18th century french culture as it was originally intended. but this is going to be many many chapters long and i hope you will stick with me througout the entire thing, if i manage to finish it.
i also hope this will motivate you to read the actual book, because i promise, it's quite good.