The Italian bishop moved his itchy miter slightly back. He handed his staff to the cleric.
"What's this supposed to be then? Is this Michelangelo's new work? How bizarre."
When he noticed he was standing in some gravel, he stepped back, as to not get it on his yellow robe. He squinted at the cleric as if this was somehow his personal fault, and then arched his brow at the sculpture before him again. The elderly man's failing eyesight made him lean forward to look closer.
"Is this some kind of joke?" he exclaimed. The cleric shrunk back in an involuntary reflex. "Is this supposed to be a sculpture of our Lord?!"
The cleric swallowed and reviewed the sculpture a second time, to form a more careful response and to make his opinion sound more traditional. It hardly worked though. The same thoughts as before swirled through his mind. Art was a world beyond his grasp, a spiritual world of taste and reflection he couldn't dare insult. Artists have such fickle hearts. He didn't want to offend them by not liking it. Whereas the bishop didn't want to give anyone any unnecessary favors by liking anything at all. He preferred to make people struggle to gain his approval. That's the power of the hat, he supposed. His hat was smaller than the bishop's, but he preferred it anyway.
'It's kind of a non-traditional approach to our Lord, I suppose," the cleric admitted. "But it still fits. I mean, he still looks quite powerful and authoritative. And the hair's not too bad."
"The hair?" the bishop snapped. "If the hair looked any wavier they'd look like demonic horns!"
"And he looks quite stern, doesn't he? Sort of purposeful, angry even, almost like we're standing in his way. At least he got that right."
"Our Lord is ever Patient!" the bishop turned his gaze to the heavens as he tried to recite from scripture. "To his immortal self, our ways are like the ways of the ant! His forgiveness is Eternal, where our ways of the Flesh are weak! To think, His love even touches fallen angels… How can one sculpture compare to His eternal magnificence?!"
With a snap of his fingers, the bishop demanded the return of his staff to his divine fingers. The cleric knew it wasn't real gold, although the lining of his robe was.
"Besides, he doesn't even have a beard."
The cleric looked again.
"Hold on," he said.
"Tell Michelangelo to put this in a dark corner of his studio somewhere, and maybe stick to painting."
"Sir…"
"What?"
"Does it look any different to you?"
"What'd you mean?"
"Well, it looks different. I mean, the eyes."
"Yes, the eyes aren't exactly even, are they? One's sort of angry, and the other's sort of…"
"And look at his hands! They were in his pockets before!"
"No. No, they weren't."
"Yes, they were!"
"You must be imagining things. Surely, it can't…."
As they turned their gazes up again, they were taken aback again. Their slippers slid on gravel.
"Ooh, he looks very cross now, doesn't he? Look at those eyebrows! He changed! Look!"
"It can't be! Statues… they can't move!"
The cleric threw himself to the floor to pray, kneeling. The bishop wrung both hands around his staff as he analyzed the statue's face. Surely it couldn't have changed?
Hands. Eyes. Hands. Eyes. They couldn't have moved!
Eyeing the cleric praying on the floor, the bishop made a cross, tapping his forehead, chest, and shoulders, and finally managed to shut his mouth.
They always said Michelangelo's sculptures looked so lifelike….
Maybe God had finally outdone himself. Maybe he had heard his insults of Michelangelo's work and wanted to teach him a lesson in humility.
He closed his eyes and threw himself to the floor beside the cleric. Clasping hands, together, the two religious men begged for forgiveness to the floor.
When they finally looked up, the statue had gone.
In Michelangelo's Rome, children played along the columns of the courtyard, their sticks serving as swords. The sun started casting long shadows in the street, and the clouds on the horizon slowly turned orange. Dogs barked while the city fell to sleep. Mothers were yelling for their children to come home, but they weren't done playing.
They dropped their sticks and ran across the courtyard where their mothers could never look to find them.
"What do we play now?" the girl said. She was the tallest of the three. "I'm not tired."
The two other boys froze, because something moved in the shadows. It looked like an adult, and adults are always scary.
A dog's loud bark suddenly stopped, and there was a crunching sound, like someone was snapping lots of twigs. Suddenly something flew into the air, a giant wingspan, and landed at the heart of the courtyard, barefoot on cold stone. The children stared in awe as the beautiful woman spread her wings, and she smiled at them, putting a finger to her lips so they could whisper, and share a secret.
"Can I play too?" it said with a voice silken and soft, as it kneeled before them. The children nodded.
"Listen. Run and hide," the Angel said. "and when I catch you, you're dead."
The Angel waited. It never blinked. The children's eyes were beaming with joy. One of them was caught off guard by her choice of words. They grabbed each other's hands and ran away, without ever seeing the dog's carcass in the corner.
The Angel stood upright and slowly put her hands in front of her face, and started counting.