If in my youth I had realized that the sustaining splendour of

Host: The sun was setting behind the cathedral, its stained-glass windows bleeding color onto the stone courtyard below. Orange, red, and violet shimmered on the wet cobblestones like shards of a broken rainbow. The air was thick with the smell of rain and incense, and the bells of the evening mass echoed softly through the ancient square.

Jack sat on a bench beneath a withered olive tree, a sketchbook open on his knees, the lines trembling in his hands. Jeeny stood a few steps away, her eyes lifted toward the cathedral spire, as if searching for something she once believed in.

Host: They had come to this city for beauty, for inspiration, for that elusive spark artists chase — but the beauty they found had begun to hurt.

Jeeny: “You’ve been staring at that same page for an hour, Jack.”

Jack: without looking up “Maybe I’m afraid of finishing it. Maybe I’m afraid it won’t be as beautiful as I remember it in my head.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe you already know it can’t be.”

Host: The wind whispered through the arches, carrying the faint echo of a choir rehearsing inside — a fragile melody, trembling like light on water.

Jeeny: “Michelangelo once said, ‘If in my youth I had realized that the sustaining splendour of beauty of which I was in love would one day flood back into my heart, there to ignite a flame that would torture me without end, how gladly would I have put out the light in my eyes.’”

Jack: finally looks up, his grey eyes distant “Tortured by beauty… That’s an artist’s curse, isn’t it?”

Jeeny: “It’s a human curse.”

Host: The rain began to fall again, slow, deliberate drops that struck the stone like ticks of an invisible clock.

Jack: “You really think beauty can torture someone? It’s just form and color. Lines and light.”

Jeeny: “You say that because you’ve stopped feeling it. You’ve turned it into math.”

Jack: “No — I’ve just learned not to worship it. Beauty’s a trick, Jeeny. It lures you in, makes you want to capture it, and then it leaves you empty when you realize you never really could.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not meant to be captured. Maybe it’s meant to haunt.”

Host: Her voice was soft, but the words hit like a bell, reverberating in the space between them. Jack closed his sketchbook and set it down beside him.

Jack: “You sound like those poets who die young. All passion, no peace.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like those realists who die inside long before their bodies do.”

Host: A flash of lightning lit the sky, followed by the distant grumble of thunder. The world around them seemed to pause, caught between daylight and darkness.

Jeeny: “Do you know what Michelangelo meant, Jack? That beauty isn’t gentle. It’s merciless. When you truly see it — in a face, a painting, a memory — it marks you. And one day, when you’re older and colder, it returns. It burns you from within because you can no longer touch it.”

Jack: “That sounds like nostalgia, not truth.”

Jeeny: “Nostalgia is truth — the truth of the soul remembering what the world forgot.”

Host: Jack’s eyes flickered with something — not quite anger, not quite sorrow — a kind of defensive pain only those who’ve once felt deeply can recognize.

Jack: “You talk as if beauty is eternal. It’s not. It fades — the paintings crack, the faces age, the colors dull.”

Jeeny: “That’s not beauty fading, Jack. That’s our sight dimming. Beauty never dies — it just becomes too much for our eyes to bear.”

Host: The rain intensified, pouring through the archways, dripping from the gargoyles like tears carved in stone. Jeeny turned her face upward, letting the rain trace her cheeks.

Jeeny: “When I was younger, I thought love was like art — something you could master if you studied it long enough. But now… I think it’s the opposite. The more you understand beauty, the less you can survive it.”

Jack: “That’s melodrama.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. That’s memory.”

Host: The light from the cathedral window fell across Jack’s face, illuminating the scars time had drawn there — not physical, but emotional, etched deep by years of trying to control what could never be held.

Jack: “You’re talking about that girl again, aren’t you?”

Jeeny: a small, sad smile “We all have one. Mine painted sunsets she never saw. Yours drew monsters and called them self-portraits.”

Host: The sound of rain softened. Inside the cathedral, a single voice began to sing — clear, haunting, almost otherworldly.

Jeeny: “Do you remember Florence, Jack? That morning by the river, when you said beauty was overrated?”

Jack: “I remember you called me blind.”

Jeeny: “You were. You still are. You look, but you don’t see.”

Host: Jack let out a low laugh, bitter and tired, like a man laughing at his own shadow.

Jack: “And what am I supposed to see, Jeeny? That everything beautiful must hurt? That’s not enlightenment — that’s masochism.”

Jeeny: “It’s honesty. Look at Michelangelo. The man carved agony into marble and called it divinity. He knew beauty wasn’t comfort — it was confrontation. To love beauty is to suffer for it.”

Jack: “Then maybe I’d rather live without it.”

Jeeny: “You can’t. No one can. Even cynics like you get haunted by sunsets.”

Host: The rain stopped. The sky split open to reveal a deep blue twilight, heavy and quiet. The world held its breath.

Jack: “You make it sound like beauty’s a punishment.”

Jeeny: “It is. Because when you truly love it — when you really see it — you realize you’ll never possess it. That’s the torture Michelangelo meant. It’s not about eyes or light. It’s about the ache of knowing beauty exists beyond you.”

Host: The flame of a streetlamp flickered to life, casting a long shadow between them. Jack’s hand twitched, as if reaching for something — a memory, a past version of himself.

Jack: “Maybe that’s why I stopped painting.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. You stopped because you were afraid of feeling again.”

Host: The silence returned — but this time it was not empty. It was thick, alive, charged with everything unsaid.

Jack: “When I was twenty, I painted a woman’s face. She wasn’t real, just an idea — perfect, unreachable. I used to dream she’d step out of the canvas. Now, when I look at that painting, I hate it. Because she never did.”

Jeeny: “But she lived in you, didn’t she? Maybe that’s worse — to have beauty that close, and still not touch it.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened, the tension in his jaw fading into quiet resignation. The choir inside reached a crescendo, and the notes spilled out into the rain-soaked air like tears of light.

Jack: “So what do we do, Jeeny? When the beauty we loved becomes the pain we can’t escape?”

Jeeny: “We endure it. We let it burn. Because if we extinguish it, we extinguish what made us human.”

Host: A single tear rolled down Jeeny’s cheek, catching the faint glow of the lamplight. Jack watched it, unable to speak — because he finally understood what Michelangelo had meant.

Jack: “So beauty isn’t meant to comfort us. It’s meant to remind us of what we’ve lost.”

Jeeny: “Or what we still can love — even if it hurts.”

Host: The choir fell silent. The rain had stopped. The world seemed to exhale, as if releasing both of them from something ancient and heavy.

Jack: “You’re right. Maybe that’s why I can’t finish the sketch. I’m afraid that once I do, I’ll have to let it go.”

Jeeny: “Then don’t finish it. Let it live in the ache. That’s where beauty belongs.”

Host: The camera would pull back now — two souls, sitting beneath an olive tree, the cathedral behind them glowing with ghostly light. The sky had cleared, revealing a moon that shimmered like sculpted marble.

The flame Michelangelo spoke of still burned — not to destroy, but to remind.

Host: In that moment, Jack finally smiled. A small, fragile, almost childlike smile.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny… maybe the torture’s the proof it was real.”

Jeeny: whispers “Exactly.”

Host: The wind carried away their voices, leaving only the echo of beauty — eternal, merciless, and utterly human.