My beach towel floats down near a man sculpting fine white sand using a pink bucket and spade. Squinting, he says, Buongiorno, signorina, what you think of David with head of Goliath?
Incredible, I say. The detail. The realism of the severed head.
Grazie mille. A new medium for me.
Curious at my to-ing and fro-ing with this odd artist, beachgoers pivot from the severed head to me. I reach for my sarong.
Brushing off his white ruffled shirt and bone black trousers, he studies the Indian Ocean, hands held in a viewfinder shape. There is divine masterpiece. He offers me a Nicorette from a small leather pouch hanging around his neck.
He looks to me and whispers, You know I killed a man.
Oh—
That fucking dog, Tomassoni! His volume turns heads.
An accident? I ask. I seem to attract loose cannons. With my ex, I had to watch what I said, where I went, who I visited, what I wore.
He lowers his voice. We were blind drunks, there were swords. My head remembers nothing, but he was done for. People warn me: Caravaggio, you are death warrant. Now I am, how you say, fu-gi-teev. Even I am wounded. He parts his long black hair and points to the bloody wound on his head. Maggots are writhing.
A doctor should clean that, I say, trying not to retch. You need stitches, antibiotics.
People shout, Call an ambulance, and, Let the Master create. Someone raises a hand. I’m a doctor. And wraps a bandage around his head.
Caravaggio waves his hand in the air. It is written on the stars; living things end, art endures.
I just killed a three-year relationship. I use a cut-throat gesture. It appears we’re both good at endings.
My flaws: the red grape ferment and my temper. He looks forlorn for a moment, then sweeps his arm above his sculpture. I paint one like this, with oils on canvas for Cardinal Borghese, to seek for pardon, but that bastard takes time too sweet as I fade like a sunset.
Caravaggio’s eyes are dark brown, observant. He’s handsome, even.
Signorina, may I sculpt you? Perhaps my last. Your black broad brim sunhat, the shadow. So dramatic. Once finished, you take photos, up to Insta?
I’m out of my comfort zone. I say, Yes. My therapist will be pleased. They know about the hands slamming benches, punching walls. The day he locked me in our bedroom.
You’re a slut. Where do you think you’re going? No, you’re not!
Caravaggio positions me like Reclining Venus wearing a lapis blue bikini. He’s professional, precise, he regards the misè en scene. Being a subject doesn’t sit easily. Months later, my ex still invades my dreams, but I’m looking for naturalness and freedom. Caravaggio wipes the blood trickling down his face with the back of his hand, his shirt front vermillion.
The sun beats down from the west. Caravaggio passes me the sunscreen — a caring gesture I’m not used to. I smooth it over my body, applying by feel, over my ex’s put-downs: my lumberjack arms and jellied stomach, my draft horse thighs and lard-arse. My breathing is shallow.
Beachgoers position umbrellas around us — lead-tin yellow, umber, ochre, verdigris and chemnitz-white. Caravaggio picks up a curious toddler, smells the top of his head as if he were a rare Omar Cayam rose, then sets him down. He pops another Nicorette in his mouth. If you please, signorina, lower more your hat. The bright light, the deep shadow, it is everything.
More and more onlookers gather. No one speaks. The scene is surreal. A lone wandering albatross soars on the sway of wind. People share soda and watermelon, lemon cake and Anzac biscuits. They chat, hold hands, kiss. We’re in the company of a visionary.
I take in the realism of my toes and feet, calves and knees, my thighs. I’m thankful for his attentiveness and trust. As Caravaggio bends over my shape, blood trickles onto my chest, seeps into sand. I ask him if he feels OK, and he smiles. Si signorina, I represent your beauty, this my heart sings. Sunlight streams through gaps in a mass of dark clouds. He exclaims something in Italian and I hear the cadence, the lilt in his voice.
I observe the volume, depth and dramatic mood taking shape as Caravaggio wet packs and drip casts sand using subtle transitions to blend, and I can no longer fathom what is real and what is not. Have I bared my soul? Is it possible to be present and vulnerable and remain unaffected?
Caravaggio pronounces, Finito. I brush sand from my hands, adjust my hat, take in my sculpted form before the light dwindles, before I’m washed away on the tide. I’m finely rendered. Do I discern the rise and fall of my sculpted chest? I draw a sharp breath, snap a series of shots from different angles, upload them to Instagram:
#michelangelomerisidacaravaggio
#chiaroscurowithsand
#artislove
They go viral in minutes. Strangers ask me out. No thanks, I say, I’m not looking for love. I don’t tell them I’m craving the chemistry of light and dark, they wouldn’t understand.
The truth is, I’ve had time to think about my past, to stare it in the face. The truth is, I’ve set it adrift.
I want to thank him, take hold of his hands, and wish him well, but Caravaggio has disappeared. I search, desperate. The sky is painted magenta, violet, orange, yellow. Tiny shells crunch underfoot. Then I see him standing chest deep in the Indian Ocean, hands held in a viewfinder shape. Dogs pace the shoreline, barking, whining, whimpering at his shrinking figure as he swims towards the setting sun.
Belinda Rowe is a short fiction writer. Born in New Zealand, she now lives in Walyalup, Western Australia. Her recent fiction appears in Fractured Literary, New Flash Fiction Review, Vestal Review, Flash the Court and Centaur Lit. She was a SmokeLong Quarterly Emerging Writer Fellow 2025.
