Joe Jukic had expected the Vatican to feel like a museum—quiet, roped-off, politely dead.
Instead, on their honeymoon in 2028, it felt alive.
The morning sun spilled over St. Peter’s Square like honey, warming the stone and the crowds. Rome hummed the way it had for two thousand years, indifferent to trends, immune to algorithms. Joe squeezed Nelly Furtado’s hand as they crossed the square together, wedding bands still new enough to catch the light and demand attention.
“Not bad for a honeymoon stop,” Joe said, looking up at the dome.
Nelly smiled. “We could’ve done a beach.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “But this has better ghosts.”
They passed through the Vatican corridors slowly, unhurried in that newly-married way, where time feels generous. Frescoes folded into one another like centuries arguing politely. The air cooled as they approached the Sistine Chapel, and without anyone saying a word, their voices dropped to whispers—as if the walls themselves had asked.
Then they saw it.
The ceiling first, of course—Creation blazing overhead, God rushing toward humanity with terrifying energy. Joe leaned back, almost dizzy.
“Imagine painting this,” he murmured.
Nelly tilted her head. “Imagine trusting it to last forever.”
But it was Michelangelo’s Last Judgment that held them.
The wall was alive with motion—bodies rising, falling, twisting, clinging. No tidy heaven. No cartoon hell. Just truth, muscle-bound and unavoidable. Christ stood at the center, not gentle, not cruel—decisive.
Joe felt it hit him in the chest. “That’s not a guy you argue with.”
Nelly laughed quietly. “Nope. That’s a guy who’s already heard all the excuses.”
They stood shoulder to shoulder, newly married, watching humanity stripped of rank and costume. Saints were naked. Kings were naked. Sinners too. Everyone equal under the same impossible gaze.
“What gets me,” Joe said, “is there’s nowhere to hide. No money. No fame. No legacy hacks.”
Nelly nodded. “Just what you loved. What you did with your time.”
They traced the upward movement—the saved helping one another rise, hands gripping wrists with effort and urgency. It wasn’t effortless grace. It looked like work.
“That part,” Nelly said softly, “that’s marriage.”
Joe smiled without looking at her. “Yeah. Lifting each other when gravity kicks in.”
A guard hushed a nearby group. Silence settled again.
Joe glanced at Christ, then at the damned spiraling downward. “Wild honeymoon activity, huh? Judgment Day in fresco form.”
Nelly squeezed his hand. “Better than pretending life’s all sunsets.”
When they finally stepped back into the Roman sun, the noise rushed in—tourists, scooters, laughter, life in full motion. Joe felt lighter and heavier at the same time.
“So,” he said, grinning, “espresso?”
Nelly laughed. “Absolutely. Judgment first. Caffeine second.”
They walked away from the Vatican together, honeymooners in 2028, carrying something older than Rome itself between them:
the quiet knowledge that love is a daily choice,
time is finite,
and every life—every marriage—
is a masterpiece still drying on the wall.
