Attingo -

Matteo smiled. “You think I want to touch it to save it?”

“Yes,” Matteo said.

“Yes.”

“I have restored fifty-three churches, Lena. I have written treaties on non-invasive conservation. I have argued that touch is the enemy of art.” He looked at the fresco of Saint Sebastian — the young martyr, eyes turned heavenward, arrows like a strange halo. “But I am dying. And I want to touch one last thing. Not to save it. To be saved by it.”

The door closed. The dust settled.

“The pigment is friable here,” she said, pointing to the fresco’s edge. “Saint Sebastian’s robe. If you touch it, even with a dry finger, you’ll lift the azurite. It’s been dying for seven hundred years. Let it die in peace.”

Matteo stood alone with Saint Sebastian. The arrow points had flaked away centuries ago. The eyes were two dark almond shapes, patient and unknowing. attingo

Fin.