The Last Days of Pompeii

Another Cloven enclave, hidden away, cold and dark, as though the Cloven are afraid of sunlight, or is it something else? More music. Raine thinks the Cloven use music as a bridge, clinging to their past. I found the remnant of a painting, marred by the bizarre red markings. I had seen this very painting years ago when my family visited the Louvre while in Paris. How did it end up in a Rotterdam sewer? According to the Maquis, Paris is sealed -- no way in or out. Yet the Cloven have found a way. I wonder if there isn't something symbolic in the painting, some image that means something to them. Are the Cloven like the people of Pompeii? Or are we? I still remember my father describing 'The Last Days of Pompeii.' Painted by some Russian over a century ago, it told about the people of Pompeii -- crushed beneath tons of volcanic ash and rock -- vanished overnight. The whole thought was too much for my ten year old brain to fathom, and I blubbered like a girl when I first realized my own mortality. Jonny wasn't so nice back in those days, and he teased me about crying. That was the first time I ever hated my brother.

-- Journal Entry, 30 August, 1951 --

James Grayson