The kids want to know what it feels like to be killed by lava.
I tell them many would have retreated to the countryside, or run to the sea, thinking it wouldn’t reach them there. I tell them most would have suffocated before the lava reached them.
I point at an image on the screen, What’s this?
A statue!
I affect a grimace, Not a statue.
They cock their heads, thinking. Murmurs travel through the classroom; I tune into one, Dead body.
I nod, This is a person frozen by lava. I don’t have better words. Mummified by lava? Fossilized?
One boy gets back from the toilet and looks over his shoulder at the white board, God, what’s that! I tell him to tuck his shirt in and take a seat.
They ask if any animals died too, so I close out of the slideshow and Google the Pompeii dog. I tell them to cover their eyes if they don’t want to see something too sad.
They erupt, they ask, Why does it look like that!
It’s contorted into a ring shape, limbs flailing and mouth open just enough.
Because it was in pain.
They squirm. They don’t want to look at the dog anymore. I return to the original slideshow, where we see the face of the “statue” turned to the black sky and its knees gathered to its chest, a final protective gesture.
Madeline Crawford lives, teaches Latin, and writes in London. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in or are forthcoming from Paloma Magazine, The Mantelpiece, Vast Chasm, and Die Quieter Please, among others. She has worked as a reader and editorial assistant for A Public Space. She went to Hunter College and received her MA in Classics from University College London.
Header photograph and artwork by Jordan Keller-Wilson
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