Excerpt from Pompeii (Published in Copperfield Review 2019)

     It’s been a while since we left.  The sun should be well into the west by now, casting shimmering streaks of pale pink across the deep blue evening.  Would be, if it weren’t for the huge wall of pure black that spans across the horizon, spreading out slowly, steadily, casting its looming shadow on the world.  The crowd surges around us.  As far as I can see stretch faces, people, some pushing ahead of others, some lagging behind.  Blond hair, brown hair, white hair, dark eyes, it all blurs together until the faces stop being faces at all.  Every so often I think I see someone that I recognize, but when I look again, they’ve turned away, vanished into the crowd, and I tell myself that it was just my imagination. 
I don’t remember when I offered to take Caecilia from Mother, or when it started feeling like I was holding a sack of bricks instead of a child.  I pull my sister closer to me and continue to walk forward, trailing Mother’s dancing shadow, cast in the darkness by the vague flicker of a candle instead of the ever burning sun.  Mother glances at the sky, swallows, and increases her pace, pushing through the crowd.  We keep walking.

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