But he hadn’t had one of those nightmares in months. His sleep had become a black void: dreamless and restless, providing no escape from the monotony of his days, just a momentary blackness. It had become an eclipse, providing short-term respite. What the sculptor yearned for now, more than anything, was to stretch that eclipse into an eternity. To jump into the River of Time and be washed away before anyone had the opportunity to notice. He didn’t want to hurt anyone; he wanted no one to mourn. He wanted his death to happen in a blink. By the time the world had shut and opened its eyes he would be gone forever, never to be remembered. No memorial service for him. That was the problem with Nic’s passing; everyone knew he was sick and so he spent his last year as a spectator at his own funeral procession. Day after day, flowers, condolences, and a whispered play-by-play of his physical demise.

The sculptor closed his eyes and tried to push images of the end times out of his head. He pictured himself and Nic together, three years ago, in Paris, on the veranda of their hotel with a bottle of merlot breathing on the table between them.

“I think we should go to America,” Nic stated as he gazed out over the city. “There’s a new market there for us, and if we want to move beyond fashioning saints and the Madonna for members of the clergy, we need to make a name in America.”

“Leave Italy?” the sculptor asked.

“Not forever, but for a while, yes. Marcus, let’s explore, let’s try living in a world we don’t know intimately.”

“But this is our home. What does America have? Steel and glass ready to be bulldozed fifty years after it’s been erected to make room for something new. A society of waste. Americans place no value on history, we’d starve there.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Nic laughed, “Suonate come il mio nonno.” (“You sound like my grandfather.”)

“Well, maybe he’s right.”

“Maybe you’re afraid of change. I like the Americans’ thinking. New and fresh. It’s stagnant here. Nothing lasts forever, Marcus. It’s getting cold out here, will you bring me my.…”

“I HAVE your coat right here, thought you might be cold,” the sculptor said, making his way through the workshop as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. His words echoed strangely in the space accustomed to being filled with music as he worked during the day. “Actually, I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d come and talk. If you want your coat, it’s here, I’ll just leave it on the chair.”