Vesuvius

Hora Prima Diurna  

The soft rays of the early morning sun entered my room through the narrow slits in the windows. The rising sun on the bosom of my fertile Pompeii, my own land of happiness. I could see my father, Koios, getting ready to go out like everyday. “Vesuvius, wake up to this rising sun. For the Sun, scattering through its flight, cutting through the very Night, O Heaven forthright, Hercules’s shaft of Light!, he exclaimed. My father, adored this oriental brightness, orange and crimson and he left no morning empty to extol his vision of this Paradise.

I opened my eyes grudgingly and saw my father get his paraphernalia ready for work. I asked him, ” Father, would you call me a coward if I didn’t wake up as early as you?”

He smiled, putting his hand on my forehead and said,” Vesuvius, you have always been this little ball of fire. I am not worried about your sleepy conscience or your inability to wake up early. I am not worried about the dark of a moonless night but I can’t comprehend the uncertainty of a lamp extinguished.” I could not understand the meaning behind his statement so I turned my back and slept again. 

Hora Secunda 

I was standing there with my father at the Villa dei Misteri. The villa was located in the suburbs of Pompeii. The walls of its triclinium next to the bedroom were grandiose and quite intimidating for me. My father was a painter and he was tasked with the job of painting frescoes in this villa. As a child, I always used to accompany my father to his work and run around this magnificent villa, adorned with incomplete murals and paintings. My inner zest to roam around this place was always restricted by my father’s stern voice, “Vesuvius, don’t roam around these walls. O Bacchus! Control your child of fire!” Bacchus, the loved deity, the God of fertility, the God always present in our discussions. He cropped up in these murals, altars and sarcophagi. Bacchus partying with his companions, the satyrs on the holy mountains, drinking wine and partying.

I saw my father take out his colours and brushes to complete a painting of a Bacchus feast. Dripping his brush into the can of colour and water, he swiped a long stroke across the red background of the wall. His colours were never bright, never too loud on the eyes. They always depicted a hidden syncretism, where the traditional triads of Gods intermingled. He wasn’t the best painter in the town yet his hand painted Gods and symbols prevailed in gardens and interior decor. These motifs signify the mutual oppositions in the city, sometimes amalgamating goddess Isis with her staff and Jupiter’s pomp and sometimes ornamenting the gardens of the colonnades of the inner courtyard with theatrical masks and figures of Maenads. This villa was a repository of possibilities, a limitation to my free spirited walking and a hidden glimpse of the incarnations of the world gone by. 

It was in this hall that I met him. I first saw him, touching the bricks of this villa, circumscribing the limits of his splendour. Silas, the beautiful, toughened and the noble merchant’s son. Silas wasn’t born here. He was the son of Etna, a place about 200 miles away from Pompeii. The very first time, I ran after him through the corridors of the villa, I could feel his power to enchant me. When I asked him, “So Silas, why does this bucolic idyll place feel like a ghost town? Why does it always remind me of a world covered in ashes?” He replied pensively, ” Can you see that girl on the wall running away in fear? That is haunting. Each brick carries a past within it, each wall built on the bones of the old, each gateway peeking out from a new facade and each spot commemorating a bloody battleground. Vesuvius, this place was built on ashes and someday, it will be covered in the ashes of love.” I didn’t even realize that I had held his hand while he said this. Silas was my love. A love blossoming in these catacombs of opposition. 

Hora Quarta

“Hercules! Pacify these lands with your power. The sons of the Earth ransacking this fertile land with their greed and ignoble causes, looting us of the merry and wine blessed by Bacchus. These drunk bandits slobbering  and crashing out with stupid grins on their faces. Bleeding and crushed, if not annihilated, scotched, protect us from this catastrophe!” 

We could hear these cries more often in the market now. Beggers, vagabonds and even people of noble birth cried their way during the business hours. It had been ten years since I had met Silas in Villa dei Misteri. We had travelled the town together, we ate together and we shared everything with each other. Silas was my friend, my companion and my co-worker in life. Unlike my father, I did not choose to be a painter. I was interested in handling those thin bristles of brushes and combing them to uniformity but I did not want to be a painter. I became a barber. My shop was located in the most busiest section of the market. Cutting hair, massaging men with beards, giving soothing back massages became my daily routine. While I worked, Silas sat across my shop on a wooden stool. He used to play his lyre everyday and talked with the customers who were waiting for their turn at my shop. Unlike the people’s agony those days, my days weren’t unhappy. 

One fine day, while I was busy cleaning my shop, I saw someone shouting loudly outside my shop. I wondered, “Who must be wailing at this hour? It sure seems like a woman’s voice but what is she speaking?” I went outside and I saw that she had gathered a large crowd out on the street. It was Evadne, the sibyl. I had known her since childhood. She was known as the mad woman who kept frightening people with her doomsday predictions. I was looking out for Silas but couldn’t find him. Suddenly, Evadne grabbed my shirt and pulled me down. I could smell rotten eggs and dirt from her clothes. Her teeth were broken at places and she seemed like a complete destitute. Her breath was extremely fetid and it was making me uncomfortable. “In the darkness, you will hear the crying of women, wailing of infants and shouting of men. There will be no Gods left, you will wish for death but you would not be satisfied. The skies will plunge into eternal Darkness and the fires will be seen till Etna. The smoke will be seen till the Domes of Constantinople. You will be the reckoning, Vesuvius. You are the sparagmos”, shouted Evadne. Just then Silas came and pushed Evadne away. Silas angrily reacted, “Go away, you sibyl. You are a worthless piece of flesh.” I stood up and started walking away from the market. Silas didn’t follow me and stood there waiting for me to come back. Would Silas understand my predicament?

Hora Septima

Months had passed after that incident with Evadne, the sibyl. I was walking outside the town as these hours were for relaxation. Usually people rested or went to a gladiator show, so there wasn’t much rush at my shop. Silas was walking ahead of me, playing his lyre. Sometimes I found his lyre too vulgar and explicit for my taste. It disturbed my peace and harmony. But I let him play with his instrument as Silas was quite persuasive. He admired the beauty of nature so we usually went to these long walks out of the common humdrum of the market. Just then I saw Silas stop at a wooden house. The house seemed quite rustic and there were a few clothes hanging outside. Silas stopped near the window of house and called me to come quickly. 

We looked inside the house through the window. The house was dimly lit. I could see an old man playing a lyre with a priestess. The priestess was sitting with two other women. She was wearing olive wreath and a veil. The other woman was also wearing an olive wreath and she was pouring water into the priestess’s hands. Just then I saw a girl, naked, sitting at the feet of the priestess with her long hair at her nape. The kneeling girl had a vannus, a mysterious vessel beside her. I could not see her face but she seemed a beauty too rare. I held Silas’s hand and watched this weird ceremony. Just then, the girl took out a phallus from the vessel. The phallus was a symbol of fertility and it was a kerchief often used in an initiation ceremony of cult. I could feel Silas’s grip loosening and I looked at him. His face had changed its colour. From the beautiful Silas I had known, he had suddenly turned pale. I asked, “Are you okay, Silas? You look sick.” He did not answer. Suddenly, there appeared a black winged goddess, a daemon maybe. She had appeared magically out of nowhere. She looked like an envoy of Hades, the God of Death. She raised a whip above her head slowly to hit the bare back of the girl. And then with no mercy, she whipped the poor girl. I could see the girl hiding her face in the priestess’s lap, crying, dropping pearls of agony. We could not believe what was unfolding in front of our eyes. It was excruciating and more than that I was worried about Silas’s reaction. After a few whiplashes, the black winged goddess disappeared. 

After a while, the girl stood up and took two small drums in her hand. Was this her last ordeal before the consecration into the mysterious cult? She stood naked, with her back facing us and raised her hands carrying the drums above her head. She started dancing slowly, moving her hands and hips in a very gentle manner. It wasn’t an ecstatic pose but a slow dance of her begging to stop this ceremony. I have never seen a goddess but I was seeing someone as heavenly and pristine as her. Behind the girl, I could see another woman, dressed in dark clothes and holding a thyrsus. 

Just then there was a large crash in the house. There was complete darkness and I could hear women screaming. I looked by my side and I could not find Silas. Where had he gone while I was absorbed in this initiation? I cried,” Silas, where are you? Are you in there?” I could hear a loud thud of someone falling on the floor but I could not see through the darkness. I ran inside the house through the broken door. There was a smell of dust and smoke. I could see the priestess lying on the floor with the other two women. I could not see the young girl and I started shouting, “Silas, Silas!” I walked into the other room and I stumbled on the floor, hitting my head hard. I fell down on the floor, clutching my head in pain. I was losing consciousness and then I saw a faint image of someone carrying that thyrsus. I could not distinguish clearly but it felt like Perses, the God of Destruction. As soon as my eyes were about to close, I felt someone pulling me by my legs. “Oh Thank God Silas, brother you are here”, I muttered. 

“It wasn’t Silas. I dragged you out of that place”, said Calliope. She was the young girl in that wooden house. The woman who was heavenly and pristine. “Vesuvius, you don’t need Silas as long as you have me,” Calliope whispered into my ear. We were sitting beneath a tree and I could see that she completely dressed. She wasn’t dressed too extravagantly but simply dressed in a chiton and himation. The cloth was secured by ornamental clasps and pins. I asked, “Who are you? I have never seen you in town or market before.” She answered with her head lowered, “I am not a native of Pompeii. I roam around towns and cities so poets and artists can write poems about me, make paintings about me. I am their muse but no land owns me.” She certainly was worthy of Iliads and poems. Flawless, eyes glistening like sun, roses in her cheeks, a heaven so rare that no beauty could compare. Surely, I was mesmerized by Calliope. 

 “But where is Silas? Have you seen him”, I quizzed her fervently. She did not know where Silas was and she did not even quench my curiosity about what happened in that house. 

Hora Octava

Few weeks had passed since Silas had gone missing. I was deeply worried about him and nothing in this world would pacify me. I had closed down my shop and started searching for him all over the town. Door to door, person to person, beggar to beggar, I questioned everybody about his whereabouts. I even had sketches made about him and I passed those sketches to everybody I met in the town. The thought of losing my best companion and brother was something I could not even imagine. The pain felt like a slow knife cutting through my organs one by one, debilitating me, emasculating me. 

That day, I went to meet Calliope. She had stayed in Pompeii since that day in the wooden house. There were a lot of admirers of her beauty but no one seemed to approach her. She had weaved a certain mystery about herself and people were afraid that she might be a sorceress in disguise. I wasn’t intimidated by her but I felt a certain sense of warmth and affection towards her. I wasn’t sure if my feelings were romantic because I was too much occupied with Silas’s disappearance. I could see Calliope facing the setting sun. The rays of the sun basking her in all her elegance. 

“Calliope, I am worried about Silas and its starting to kill me. I need to know what happened inside that house on that day”, I begged. The evening sun had lit her skin to hues of orange and pink and I could walk away till the horizon with her if she asked right now. For those beautiful hair, I wanted to run my fingers through them, for those red lips, speak kind words and hold my hand so the future isn’t dark. 

She gave me a white lily and told me, “Shhh, you don’t know yourself Vesuvius. Read a little, listen to a little music, paint a fine picture and don’t obliterate the beautiful sense.” I clutched the lily tightly and angrily said, “Don’t fool me with words Calliope. If I fall in love with beauty right now, I would lose the truth. So just tell me!” 

“Vesuvius, the son of Heracles, you are no ordinary mortal. Light surrounds you, not because you shine in the Sun, it is because you have a core inside you. The scales on which Pompeii has been resting have been unjustly weighed since many years. You are the eruption to cause a tectonic change in this Universe. O Vesuvius, you are unquenchable. You are the change.” 

As soon as I heard this, I felt a little nauseous and felt like vomiting. I looked at Calliope and held her hand. I cried, “Protect me, will you?” She just smiled and looked at the sun bribing her face with grace. 

Hora Decima

The next day, as I was walking around the market with Calliope in search of Silas and I saw something strange. I saw Silas’s lyre at my shop’s doorstep. As most of the shops had closed during this time, I wondered who would have put this lyre on my doorstep. As soon as I bent down to pick up the lyre, I saw a shadow on the floor. As soon as I looked up, I saw a monster. A monster made of rock and lava, spewing fire from his back and head. The monster had large muscles, a large stature and seemed to have superhuman strength. I picked up the lyre and ran away. But what I saw next shook my world. The monster had the face of Silas. Silas, my brother, my love, what had happened to him? I saw that he carried the same thyrsus that I saw in the house that day. The staff had a pine cone on top of it and the cone was on fire. Who was he? A molten human being or my partner, Silas? 

I shouted, “Who are you? And why do you have Silas’s face? What have you done to him?” The creature laughed monstrously and spoke in a voice unheard of, “I am Silas, you fool. The son of Etna, I am the child of Earth and Fire. Vesuvius, you could never see through my human form. I am here to put Pompeii back to its reality and teach these bandits a lesson.” 

I reacted, “Whoever you are, you can’t be Silas. Silas is a good mortal human being. You are a demon of the Underworld. You will be sent to….” Before I could complete my sentence, he spoke softly in Silas’s voice, “
Vesuvius, this place was built on ashes and someday, it will be covered in the ashes of love.” 

Just then he pointed his staff towards Calliope. He condemned her saying, “This girl, people think she is fecund, artists cry their pens over her, poets lose words over her but she is a necromancer. She will give you a white lily and lure you into her maze of beauty and lust. She should be killed right now.” Just then he hurled the thyrsus in her direction, striking directly in her heart. All I could see was blinding white light and then it all became dark. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness again, I saw white lilies scattered around me. I picked up some of those lilies and cried with my face buried in my palms. I could feel my eyes burning and my stomach churning again. Beauty in its supreme development excites the soul into tears. I whispered to those white lilies in my hand,” Day after day, thousands of people yearn for social acceptance and beauty. They need a scale to measure morality, a mirror for instant gratification and a cleansing agent to wipe off the evils from this world. Calliope, I have yet to understand the mechanics of good and bad, I have yet to understand the true forces of nature and I have yet to understand the reason this Silas has killed you. But if this is the eruption you had been talking about, then there will be a fire. A fire too bright for these mortal beings!” 

“Vesuvius will erupt.” 

While Vesuvius fought against the mighty Silas,

“Adrastos, come quickly and see this!”, exclaimed his mother. Adrastos, a habitant of Pompeii witnessed the epic battle that was unfolding before his eyes. Vesuvius had grown into a cone shaped mountain and was fighting against the monstrous Silas. There was a huge cloud of unusual appearance and size. The cloud had turned into an umbrella pine which had split into two branches. Vesuvius was venting out huge chunks of rock and gas to obscure Silas’s vision but Silas’s staff had the power to nullify these attacks. Silas released a huge fireball in the direction of Vesuvius cutting open the cloud of dust and gas and left the umbrella cloud unsupported. It was borne down by its own weight and gradually dispersed. I could see Vesuvius tired, uncertain, white and it looked botched and dirty at places. He was losing this battle. 

My father Tascus, who had a scholarly acumen rushed to our house and ordered us to evacuate this town. He ordered,” Pack your most important things and wait for me by the boat. Evacuation by boat is the only way now.” I did not want to leave my house as I had faith that Vesuvius would win this battle. 

Just then we heard a loud blast and it shattered our windows. We saw outside and Vesuvius had erupted. There was a huge cloud of fire and the night had turned into day. It seemed like we had a new sun. Ashes were already falling, thicker and hotter, followed by pumice and blackened stones, charred and blackened by the flame. Vesuvius was shooting arrows of fire and lava from its inner core towards Silas. I could see broad sheets of fire engulfing the night sky and leaping flames destroying our little town. I could see some peasants running away from their farms which had now become bonfires of Vesuvius’s victory. Our courtyard was filled with ashes and stones and breathing had started to become difficult. Our house seemed to sway to and fro with the violent shocks as if they were torn from their foundations. Silas still had the staff in his hand and despite these powerful attacks by Vesuvius, Silas didn’t seem to go out easily. 

I could hear wails of children, crying of infants, shrieking of men and women. People were unable to recognize their loved ones in this huge commotion and darkness. The smoke was reducing visibility and a lot of people fell unconscious due to breathing problems. A lot of people besought the aid of Gods to stop this apocalypse but I highly doubted if there were any Gods left. Some people were fooled into thinking light had arrived only to know that it was those blazing flames rather than daylight. Just when the flames would stop, there would be heavy showers of ash and pumice. 

Silas was starting to lose this massive attack by Vesuvius and there was only one way he could stop him. He had to pierce Vesuvius through his heart.

“O Brother Silas!
I was a creature of your heart,
Prepare to give your soul away,
Let the Earth sway,
Give me a chance to see your face,
Hold me for one last embrace,
I will be your lover,
Unlike any mortal lass,
Dreams of togetherness passed,
So shun this world you have known,
And spend your nights within my own,
Your inspiration had a cost, 
I know your soul is lost,
You think your shape is grand, 
But the touch of death is my hand,
I shall be your lover,
Hold me for one last embrace. 

Just then Vesuvius swallowed Silas into one of its vent. Sucked into its core, Silas was dissolved among the magma and rocks inside the vent.

The eruption finally subsided after two days, choking on its dense fumes and sulphur. When the body is choked and becomes constitutionally weak and narrow, filled with inflammation, daylight does not matter. The body is found intact and uninjured, fully clothed and looking more like sleeping rather than dead. All that remains is a large cone encircled by a summit caldera with the ghost of the bastions it were in a world gone by.