Happy release day to myself and my fellow authors!!! A Day of Fire: stories of Pompeii is out today!!!! Heres a little excerpt from Part Five: The Mother (by me)... MY birth pangs have started. Slow, and not regular, but started all the same. The babe has yet to drop, but I suspect by tomorrow morning I’ll have a son. How can it be that, after how long I have dreamed of becoming a mother, of meeting the little child inside my womb, I now want him to stay put? I reach into the pouch at my side and pull out the vial I grabbed from our kitchen: a tincture to ease the pains. But it’s not the right one. I stare at the blue vial in my hand—the one that had looked clear in the dim light of the kitchen. Blue is not for pain. Blue is for something else. Blue is what our slaves used to kill the rats. I thrust the vial back into the pouch, disappointed that I have nothing to ease the pain, and no use for poison. I lean against a smooth, marble column in the east portico gazing into our once-grand, two-story-high peristyle. The red clay tiles of the roof covering the walkway around the inner courtyard have ash slipping through their grooves, white dust sprinkling down. Where fig, cherry, and pear trees bloomed and tangy lemon trees used to scent the air. A short, five-foot ladder leans against the fig tree—figs are my favorite fruit, and in Pompeii they were the very best. One of our slaves put up the ladder just this morning in hopes of filling a basket of them for me. It’s hard to breathe here. My lungs are tight, fighting against the air I try to draw in. What was once a place of tranquility is now blanketed in darkness and ash. The sky above is a reflection of a war with the gods. Is it possible that the end of the world is upon us?
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 13:45:48 +0000
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