Act I
There was midnight madness
in the heart of darkness,
where lustful lovers caroused
and burned with wild passion,
and although they were
warned by pilgrims who
were on their way to Rome,
they lived the philosophy
of carpe diem:
they could always repent
tomorrow;
but early in the morning
on the very next day,
an event took place
that forever changed
the world of Pompeii:
it was August 24, 79 AD, and
proud Pompeii was bathed
in warm peaceful sunshine
when the earth began to quake
to the awakening heartbeat
that began to stir deep inside of
the voluptuous Vesuvius,
and here and there the roof tiles
of the stately city of Pompeii
undulated in a rhythmic motion,
up and down, and up and down,
before resting quietly
and slumbering again,
as Vesuvius silently and stealthily
yawned a slow stream of
thin white smoke into the
clear blue sky.
Act II
By the afternoon,
there was a light veil
of white smoke that now
draped Vesuvius’ verdant body,
but when she suddenly and
violently erupted in anger,
belching coal-colored smoke
from her crater’s trembling lips
and spewing it high into
the pale blue sky,
it was only a matter of seconds
before flaming black rocks,
like Mephistophelian meteorites,
revengefully rained down
from the swiftly darkening sky,
smashing the roof tiles and
crushing the marble statues
above the villas’ courtyards;
meanwhile, the stunned citizens
scrambled and stumbled around
as the vigorous heartbeat
of the vain Vesuvius
pounded powerfully,
and a cataclysmic earthquake
ripped through Pompeii:
the sleeping giant
was now fully awake;
as the terrified men and women
raised their wild eyes
to the sullen sky,
they screamed like savages
and cursed their pagan gods
for punishing them,
and they spat in the air
at their pathetic gods.
Act III
Several hours later,
above the hellish rubble
of this humbled city,
the black sun approached the
black horizon and ominous clouds
suffocated the helpless sky:
Pompeii wailed in pain
and writhed woefully
as the victorious Vesuvius,
bathed in the seductive
red glow of liquid lava,
relentlessly embraced the
city in her hot wrath,
and electric bolts of
volcanic lightning danced
like convulsive demons
and lit up the murky sky
as ashen rain fell feebly
to the flaming ruins below;
maimed dogs howled in horror
at the shockingly surreal and
apocalyptic spectacle,
while the lonely human survivors,
their psyches severely shattered,
huddled together for cover
under the crumbling columns
that were sinking in a sea of
charcoal-gray ashes.
Act IV
As the sun slowly rose
the next morning,
the new day dawned with
a deep deafening silence,
and the sickly sun shuddered
as it peered through the
broken black clouds,
lamenting the loss of the
once grand city of Pompeii;
as the scattered survivors
clutched ever so tightly to
their shredded sliver of hope,
it appeared that perhaps the
volcanic storm had finally
exhausted itself,
and the remaining citizens,
with empty expressions
on their blank faces,
slowly and weakly
began the process of
putting the splintered pieces
of their lives back together again;
but in the distance
they suddenly heard a
thunderous roar that
rapidly and frighteningly
crescendoed as it drew nearer,
sounding very much like
a stampede of the gods;
with great trepidation,
the people lifted their
bloodshot eyes and they saw a
massive wall of
whirling gray clouds --
as tall as Vesuvius herself --
rushing madly along the
surface of the ground and
coming right towards them;
it paused momentarily,
as if trying to catch its breath,
before making one last
diabolical attack upon its enemy;
then in a twinkle of time,
the voracious cloud of hot ash
charged through and hungrily devoured
the crumpled carcass
of pitiful Pompeii.
Act V
As Time drearily dragged the
morning into afternoon,
the poor Pompeians
were forever frozen
and cemented into history,
buried alive in a twelve-foot
blizzard of blazing ashes;
the solitary sun looked down
sadly upon the waveless
gray ocean of volcanic ash,
and Pompeii was nothing more
than a desolate wasteland --
even the powerful Vesuvius
was left seriously crippled,
with her cone blown off
by the explosiveness of her fury;
when the news of this event finally
reached the imperial city of Rome,
Pope Cletus gathered for mass
with his flock and, together,
they fervently prayed for
the souls of the victims who perished
in the very dark tragedy of
the doomed city of Pompeii.