The night I killed Leonardo Da Vinci

The candle in my Roman studio sputtered, casting long, dancing shadows that twisted my unfinished sculptures into monstrous shapes. Outside, the city slept, but I was awake, haunted by a block of Carrara marble that refused to speak to me. It was in these moments of silent frustration that my thoughts often drifted to him. Leonardo.

For years, he had been a ghost at my banquet, a shadow in my sunniest piazza. The man was a legend, a whisper on the lips of kings, and the most infuriatingly gifted charlatan I had ever known. He was in France now, living out his dotage in a cushy chateau, probably designing a self-peeling grape for the King. The thought soured my wine.

On a whim, fueled by cheap Chianti and professional envy, I rummaged through a dusty chest until I found it: a scrap of parchment with a series of numbers, a contact for the royal court in Amboise. It was a ridiculous, modern indulgence, this "telephone," a device of wires and crackling voices that Leonardo, of course, had claimed to have conceptualized decades ago.

I gave the crank a vigorous turn. The line hissed and popped like a log in a fire. After an eternity, a reedy voice answered.

"Château du Clos Lucé, you've reached the master's residence."

"Get me Leonardo," I grunted.

"Who may I say is calling the master?"

"Michelangelo Buonarroti," I said, putting as much stone and fury into the name as I could.

There was a pause, then a muffled exchange. Finally, a familiar voice, thin and dry as old paper, crackled through the receiver. "Buonarroti? To what do I owe this… unexpected disturbance?"

"Leonardo," I began, trying to sound casual. "I heard you were unwell. I wanted to extend my… condolences. In advance."

A dry chuckle echoed from France. "How thoughtful. And is your Sistine ceiling still flaking? I hear the damp is a terrible problem in that chapel. All that divine majesty, undone by a bit of mildew. A pity you didn't use a better plaster mix. I could have given you a recipe."

My knuckles whitened around the receiver. "My ceiling is a masterpiece that will outlast empires. Unlike some frescoes I could mention, which started to peel before the paint was even dry."

"Ah, the Last Supper," he sighed, a theatrical, weary sound. "A noble failure. An experiment in capturing the soul's turmoil. You wouldn't understand. You capture the body, Michelangelo. The bulging, overwrought, impossibly muscular body. Your David is a magnificent brute, I'll grant you, but he thinks with his biceps."

"My David is the symbol of Florence!" I roared, forgetting my resolve to remain calm. "He is perfection! He is the triumph of man! What is your great masterpiece? A merchant's wife with a nervous smile and no eyebrows! She looks like she's just passed wind in a crowded elevator and is trying to get away with it!"

"The Mona Lisa," he said, his voice dangerously quiet, "is a revolution in portraiture. It is about what is unseen, Buonarroti. The mystery of the human spirit. It is sfumato. Smoke. Haze. Subtlety. A concept as foreign to you as humility."

"Subtlety? You call it subtlety, I call it hiding your mistakes in a fog! I painted God! God, Leonardo! With my own hands, I brought him to life! I lay on my back for four years, paint dripping in my eyes, to create the single greatest work in the history of man!"

"You painted a buff, bearded man touching another buff man's finger," he retorted, the static crackling with his disdain. "A lovely bit of anatomical illustration. But my anatomical drawings, the ones I kept hidden from the Church's prying eyes, have more truth in one dissected tendon than your entire heavenly host. I studied the flight of birds, the flow of water, the very mechanics of the heart!"

"And what came of it?" I sneered. "A thousand unfinished notebooks! A giant bronze horse that was never cast! Flying machines that never flew! You are a master of the magnificent failure, a king of the almost-was! I finish what I start. My Pietà brought a Cardinal to tears!"

"Because it is sentimental!" he shrieked, his voice cracking. "It is a soap opera in marble! You are a craftsman, a glorified stonecutter! I am an artist! A scientist! A visionary!"

"You are a doodler!" I bellowed, standing up so fast my stool clattered to the floor. "A man who couldn't commit to a single project if his life depended on it! You spread yourself thinner than gold leaf!"

The line went quiet for a moment. All I could hear was the hum of the wire stretching across the Alps. I thought perhaps he had fainted from the sheer force of my correctness. But then, he spoke again, his voice strangely calm.

"Tell me, Michelangelo. Do you ever have a new idea?"

The question threw me. "What?"

"A truly new idea. Something that has never been done. Not a better sculpture, not a grander fresco, but something that changes the way people see the world. Or are you content to simply perfect the old ways?"

I was speechless. The arrogance, the sheer, unmitigated gall!

In my rage, my mind went blank. I couldn't think of a suitably crushing retort. All I could summon was a stupid joke one of my apprentices had told me that morning. It was idiotic, but it was all I had.

"I'll tell you a new idea," I said, a mad grin spreading across my face. "A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, 'So, why the long face?'"

Silence.

Not a chuckle. Not a groan. Not even an insult. Just the dead, empty hiss of the line.

"Leonardo?" I said, my grin faltering. "Did you hear me? It's a play on words. Because your horse was never finished, and… well, horses have long faces."

The silence stretched, becoming heavy, profound. I heard a faint, wet, gurgling sound. Like a bottle being uncorked underwater. Then, a soft thud.

"Leonardo? You old fraud? Did you hang up?"

I listened for another minute, my heart starting to pound a slow, heavy rhythm. Nothing. I slammed the receiver back onto its cradle. The brute. He couldn't even admit defeat in an argument.

I went to bed feeling a strange, hollow victory.

The next morning, a messenger arrived with news from France. Leonardo da Vinci, the divine artist, the genius of the age, was dead. A stroke, the physicians said, in the middle of the night.

I stood in my studio, the Roman sun streaming through the high windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. I looked at the silent, waiting block of marble. He was gone. The rivalry that had fueled, enraged, and secretly defined me for decades was over.

And a terrible, hilarious, and utterly horrifying thought struck me.

I, Michelangelo Buonarroti, had killed the great Leonardo da Vinci.

With a punchline.