The man was agitated, that was plainly obvious. His dark eyes scanned the street looking for what was amiss. He knew something was wrong, he could almost smell it. He just didn't know what.

The crowds surged around him, farmers in their feastday best, peddlers and hawkers, travellers of all sorts. Florence attracted these people from far and wide. Everyone wanted to be 'in' on the greatness of this city state.

There. He felt it again. The wrongness that crept up on him, encircled his feet like a python and threatened to trip him. He was already causing a stir in the crowd. He knew he was different, and these were not the times to be different. Now he was standing in the middle of the road, looking around suspiciously, as if some assassin were to leap and snare him.

The man began to walk again, quickly, moving from that street. His legs felt stiff, heavy; he almost had to drag his feet. Halfway down a sidestreet this dawned on him. Stopping, a glance going to his feet. The wrongness was him, not anything outside. The creeping python was not without, but within.

He tried to take a step, begin walking again, but he couldn't. His legs held fast to the ground. In some forgotten corner of his mind, church bells began to toll. Each great sounding was louder than the last, and pulled the paralysis farther up his body. The last bell was like a year's thunder, and he was no more.

There was no one on the street, save for him.
No one saw the great spray of stone dust that burst his right shoulder, and left knee.

No one saw the black mark on his right wrist flare, and then vanish, leaving only the mark on his left wrist.

The pallor of his skin as it hardened into stone, his eyes losing their colour to marble, clothing fraying into nothingness. All these things went unnoticed.

The statue was found in the road by a passing merchant. A find, if ever there was one. Rarely do such masterpieces simply appear in a roadway. Pity that some vandal had broken one arm, and one leg, but that could be repaired.

This merchant was soon to be very rich.

Posted by Martin at June 30, 2003 10:50 PM