Sitting inside this ancient Roman basilica, it’s easy to believe there is a god. The vaulted dome ceiling gives way to a deluge of heavenly light, beckoning my soul to ascension. A golden Jesus looks me square in the eyes, unamused by my bewilderment. His sculpted features flood with boredom and apathy as he taunts me. “Go ahead,” he says. “Do it.” I shift my gaze from the aging martyr, and to the ceiling once more, then the floor.
The silence is broken only by a confused gaggle of Ukrainian tourists, but they exit quickly, rushed out by the disapproving gaze of a tight-lipped preacher. The preacher himself, however, accounts for most of the noise inside the building once the Ukrainians have made their flight. For several minutes he shuffles about the podium. His veins pop as he rearranges archaic texts on a bookshelf twice his size. His heavy breathing circulates the building, tickling the ears of sightseers and sinners alike. He drops a book while aiming for the fifth shelf, and it falls squarely on the marble floor, thudding with force. The preacher twitches with embarrassment, like a squirrel shaven of its fur and put on display at a variety show. He nearly crucifies himself right there alongside my shimmering friend, but he opts to go on living and scurries out a hidden door behind the altar.
A businessman enters from the street, clad in silk tie and stern in his demeanor. When he reaches an empty pew (almost all of them are) his knees drop to the floor. His previously firm jaw now begins to shake and tremble with the fear of God. He eats his snot and tears begin to slip down his face. His face becomes hidden in his palms as he lays his case before God. Tourists become unnerved and file out, fleeing the holy scene. The hushed whispers are replaced by the inconsolable man’s stifled sniffles. His tears fall one hundred stories, and disappear into glossy white stone.
The preacher now returns in fancy robes and golden necklace, compensating for his prior folly. He enters eagerly expecting to save his honor with the tourists. He is greeted only by the inquisitive gaze of a quizzical youth, and the crying of a grown man. His smile fades. Tasked with more of the Lord’s work he makes his way down the steps and into the aisle. His audience gone, he’s got no choice but to inoculate this plagued citizen with some words of biblical wisdom. As he walks to the man, his eyes shift to me. He knows my interest is purely nonreligious, and his stare sends me out the door. I exit. A gasping gypsy grabs my ankle, her dark skin filled with more cracks and crevices than the coliseum. I shake loose, and as I walk home the intrepid stench of the Tiber fills my nostrils. I contemplate returning to the church, and laying myself humbly before the Lord, as the businessman did. I don’t. But Rome was fun.