Tortured Artist

"I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free," said Michaelangelo, using a cloth to wipe down his latest creation. His hands shook slightly as he placed the cloth on his workbench table. Whether it was from the shock of having a visitor at such short notice or exhaustion from completing this project, perhaps it was both, he thought. "Are you sure you do not want any wine? Your journey in such heat must have been-"

His Holiness, his patron and benefactor, looked over his beloved sculptor's work with wide eyes and he slowly nodded with approval as if he were in a trance. "Stunning," said the Pope, cautiously and from somewhere distant. "Inspired by Him. Truly." He walked with the artist completely around the statue, admiring every detail and contour of the angel, leaning and shifting his head to catch every angle his eye could muster. He brushed his finger over its surface and felt the smoothness.

"Thank you," said Michaelangelo. "It was a labor, but a true labor of love. His Grace has guided my hand to create this perfection and I am proud to give it to you and my church, Holy Father."

The Pope felt a crunch beneath his sandal and he stopped. He looked down at the many sharp shards of marble on the floor he was stepping on. "But what of all this other marble on the floor?"

"I chiseled so much away from the marble block," said Michaelangelo. "Perhaps my students can work out trinkets and sword-grips and door handles of them as they always do. I have a wonderful student coming up the ranks you might like to mee-"

"But this looks like so terribly much," said the Pope, reaching down for a piece. "Like you had broken apart several blocks of marble. I appreciate this fine statue, but my resources are not boundless, yes?"

"I understand," said Michaelangelo. "I suppose I can tell you. Confession is good for the soul, as you say."

"Confession?"

"Yes," said the artist. "As I said, I had to set the angel free. It was extremely demanding about many things. Constant. Forceful."

"Demanding?" asked the Pope. "How?"

"Well, as he started to take shape, he was critical about my handiwork. He'd comment on his appearance, making observations over the smallest imperfections or flaws. His nose was too large, then it was too wide, then his eyes were too far set apart. He had no love for his neck, too throaty."

"Too throaty?" asked the Pope. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," said Michaelangelo, shrugging. "But I kept making little changes here and there while still trying to make progress. At first, he demanded a bellybutton, then it had to go from out to in, and then none at all because he was not of woman born, right? Sometimes, he'd laugh at all the petty little adjustments I had to make or endure."

The Pope walked over to the corner of the studio where a broken cot was tossed against the wall near a closet door. "What happened here?"

"Well, I usually sleep in my studio, but the angel kept making demands night and day, and I couldn't sleep with all the racket. He'd sing and shout and scream, keeping me from rest or sleep. He made my existence an absolute nightmare, and every now and then I'd threaten to smash him with my hammer and give up."

"So that explains all this broken marble?" said the Pope. "You smashed him and started again?"

"No," said Michaelangelo. "He'd get me so crazed and angry that I broke my other projects. So many things I wanted to create, all ruined by his constant demanding to see the various options and ideas I had in store for him. He wanted to see how I'd make his buttocks or penis or calves before I actually carved them out on him, and for this I had to use the other statues to demonstrate. He wouldn't accept drawings demanding to see everything in the medium that was most like his own."

"Really?" asked the Pope. He picked up a hammer from the workbench, looked it over, and then put it back down.

"Truly," said the artist. "I apologize for the delays that you must endure for those other projects to be completed. I am sure we can work something out with materials and such, but as I said before this angel was truly a devil at heart when it came to his own form. I felt torn and rent by his barrage of monstrous words."

"I find it hard to believe that an agent of Our Beloved Savior would treat you so rudely," said His Holiness.

"But he did," said Michaelangelo. "And he was unrelenting. Practically diabolical. All but his feet were complete, and he was the absolute worst furnace of Hellfire scorn when it came to those feet. First, sandals. Then toes. Models of toes. Clay molds of toes. Two left feet, and then two right feet. The last of my other sculptures succumbed to his insane requests. I had to parade villager after villager, unshod, before his cold stone eyes before he was even close to being satisfied. Eventually, I raised up my chisel and silenced him forever."

"By destroying him?"

"By finishing him," said the artist. "I completed his feet, sanded and brushed him down, and despite his protests I found that I was finished with him." Michaelangelo sighed and seemed to shrink before the Pope's eyes. "As I said before, I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free."

"Ah, yes," said the Pope. "And so you did." The Pope made the sign of the cross in front of the statue, mumbled his blessings, and made arrangements with the artist to have the work transported to The Vatican with all due haste.

"I would appreciate it if you were there at the dedication," said the Pope, walking towards the door. "I think Easter would be appropriate. You could look over the Chapel and reconsider the commission to paint it."

"Thank you, Holy Father," said Michaelangelo, "but I am not sure I'd want to begin such an undertaking so soon after this last piece. It has taken so much out of me, and it will take time to recover."

The benefactor nodded and mumbled softly to himself. "Will you be fit for such a journey?" asked the Pope. "Where are your students... should they not have assisted you in this sculpture?"

"I sent them home for the week," said Michaelangelo. "I thought that they should not be exposed to such an ill example of divine inspiration. But they shall return shortly, and I will welcome their efforts as I rest."

"Indeed," said the Pope. "I look forward to your gracing our presence in the months ahead, then. Farewell." With a wave, he was out the door among his attending cardinals.

---

"Wasn't it magnificent?" asked Cardinal Medici, clutching his gnarled hands together in glee.

"Yes," said the Pope, leaning on his trusted advisor. "But I worry for Michael. He's bereft of his mind and delusional. See to his rest so that he may return to his senses and recover himself to full health."

"Yes, my Father," said the Cardinal. "One we return home, I shall dispatch our finest doctors and herbalists."

They boarded the gilded coach and the carriage-driver began their journey back to Rome.

---

Michaelangelo took a rag from his workbench, wiped the sweat from his brow, and walked over to where his broken cot lay. He pushed it aside and opened the closet door that it had been blocking.

An angel fell out of the closet and lay on the floor, perfectly still. A study in perfection in itself, with a pair of pure white dove-like wings on its shoulders. From its head to its feet, it was an awesome template from which humanity had been born.

Breathtaking, although in some ways, the statue was superior in beauty.

Michaelangelo poked at the angel's side with his foot, but it did not stir. Its hands were clutched around its throat, through which Michaelangelo's chisel had been driven. Blood of the purest, most vibrant red streaked down from the wound, ran down the inspiring naked chest, and pooled on the floor.

Even the croak of surprise from his tormentor had been of divine standards, and the gurgling of shock and suffocation the most magnificent of horrors.

"Yes, I set you free," said Michaelangelo. "Just long enough to thank you properly for your persistent harping and commentary."

He dragged the angel out to his courtyard and buried it that evening. He left the chisel in the angel's throat, and tossed the hammer in the grave to rest forever under the soil with its mate.

"From now on, I'm sticking to painting," he said, slapping the dust off his hands. "Perhaps I will reconsider that chapel ceiling project."

He crossed himself once, and headed off for bed.

[tipu]

Egads . . . i only have skeletons in my closet . . .

Your Eminence, i think this one could use some rebalancing between the first and third acts, IMSO . . . i dunno . . . it's currently a bit top-heavy? . . .

So that's how he ended up painting that roof!

Start with a single historical quote. I write the dialogue that might spur such a comment. Then I wrap stage directions around it.

From a traditional standpoint, it is unbalanced. I've considered removing the bit about the Pope talking to Medici outside so it is all one continuous story. Don't really add anything... unless I add more signs of M.'s madness and inner-conflict.

I see this in a Tales of the Crypt or Outer Limits kind of venue.

[vonboob]

I had to read it twice; very absorbing. Would fit nicely quite a few anthologies, right beside C.S.Lewis or even R.Zelazny, I think...

[lanaia74]

VERY well done!