the dying gaul
(a descriptive piece)
The thick Roman air danced lazily through the afternoon. It was a typical July day in the ancient city. Bustling waves of tourists flittered around the historic buildings like bees swarming around a patch of rare flowers. It was a beautiful sight to take in: the excellently blue sky with wispy white clouds and a fiercely burning sun. It was the same wise sky that watched heroes rise and fall so many centuries ago. Elegantly placed around a pattern that spread out across the stone floor, a colossal structure dazzled the bees. Pillars and arches decorated the dulled white and peach of the architecture. It carried the aura of an old man who held vast fountains of knowledge through hard experience.
The beauty of the building, though, was like a fancy, golden frame; it encased the true artwork. Inside the Capitoline, polished statues stared at the buzzing visitors. Each cold bust held its own story. Once layered in an array of bright colors, the statues had faded to a whitish-gray over time. They were marble ghosts. Muffled clatters resonated throughout the room as a diversity of shoes clopped upon the patterned floor, echoed by the old stone figures. Gray and white diamonds sprawled beneath the clatter like a king’s chessboard. Each tile led to another looming ghost with washed-out, empty eyes.
Large, square windows with crystal panes filed along the walls until the delicate glass reached a small room. This chamber looked like all the others in the museum, but it had a strangely alluring presence. The tourists gravitated to it like a magnet drawing them away from the warmth of the open walls and the sun’s comforting gaze. A hush seemed to fall over the buzzing of bees. The icy blue air became more and more still as the room invited people closer.
One of the visitors held his breath as he carefully inched into the mesmerizing trove. The stern, heavy walls barricaded the statues like burly guards. The ghosts along these walls seemed to whisper. They glistened mysteriously as if they had been carved out of the moon itself. The man glanced at the center of the room and saw a crowd of captivated people gaping at a marble image of a man bent over on his elevated slice of stone ground. The intricate chandelier hanging overhead cast a gloomy shadow on the central piece. It was clearly a man that was suffering; the fine details of pain etched on his smooth, hard face gave away this torment. His eyes were slightly emptier, which sent a clammy shiver down the spines of the viewers. Someone quietly exhaled that the agonized rock’s name was the Dying Gaul. Its solid features were contorted into curves of pain. The tragic fate stirred a metallic pity through the stunned group. The lifeless rock eyes connected with the glistening eyes of the visitor. The hushed thud of a teardrop sliding to the patterned tiles made his bones shudder. The whole room suffocated in the harsh tension. The Gaul was frozen in misery; his strong build collapsed, seizing everyone’s spirits with it. Yet overflowing with pity, the swarm of sweaty tourists seemed to be entranced by the tragic stone.
The viewer wiped his eye and slowly stepped back until he regained his former composure. A smile crept upon his lips. There was something uniquely beautiful about the way his teardrop reflected the chandelier’s silver glow. As he left the room with the Dying Gaul, he wandered into the sunny light that thawed his chilled bones. The decadent ghosts smiled with a renewed twinkle. Only then was the world truly golden; he had left his blues with the Gaul.
