Today Pegman takes us the the lovely island of Mauritius
‘What about this one?’
Atia surveyed the stone in her brother’s hand. She shook her head. ‘It must have a flat edge and a sharp point opposite.’ She looked up to the mountain. ‘You see? Like that.’
Felix looked, but the peak was wreathed in smoke, a lazy coronet often there on still days. He thought of his friend Cato who’d caught a beetle the day before, big as his palm, black as a thunder cloud with branched horns on its head like a stag.
‘I want to see the beetle, Atia.’ The sun was making him hot and whiney.
‘We must leave a stone for Venus -‘
The ground shifted under him, throwing him down. His knees hurt like bee stings. ‘Atia?’
She grabbed his hand, dragged him to his feet. ‘Run! Run to tata!’
The air stung, tasted bitter, dust filled his eyes, his mouth.
‘Lares help us!’
Written for What Pegman Saw, a prompt based on Google Streetview.
Of course, having a history degree that touched on the Classics, once I saw the smoky mountain top all I could think of was Vesuvius and what might have happened, had a brother and sister been out making offerings to the Gods on that day in AD 79.
Notes
Lares were household gods, small and personal ones, possibly guardian ancestors.
Venus was patroness of Pompeii, hence the children leaving a token for her.
It seems Roman children called their fathers tata as often as they did papa.
One last thing …
It’s thought Pompeii was engulfed by pyroclastic flow, a volcanic eruption where rock behaves more like water. To see what the Pompeiians might have seen before the end, see here.
And for the dormant Goth inside me still …
Word Shamble 