Tower and Town, December 2015

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A New Sky, A New World

When the world was only young, there was no sun. No daytime -just a dark, wintry phase where there were neither shadows nor a hot day. Can you imagine a time with no heat whatsoever? Well, it was all like this until Stella and Tarquin were introduced to the story.

One fine evening in the dark lands of Pompeii was a tiny village, which was entirely made from wood. In that insignificant old village lived a girl who had muddy brown eyes and gently hanging, brown locks, called Stella. On that first evening Stella met a soldier, who was called Tarquin when he was collecting the tariffs for the King. Tarquin had ocean blue eyes and a slick blonde quiff.

The next day, the King of Pompeii, who lived in a magnificent palace dangerously near to the volcano, was assassinated by a squad of soldiers. When this happened, it made the volcano, which was like a son to the king, very angry, and it rumbled and grumbled, shaking the whole city. It didn’t erupt -it was just warming up. Soon after this happened, Stella, who was bored to death, chose to investigate and so she set off for an intriguing quest to the volcano with her head held high.

After she’d ventured past the palace of the assassinated King, she found a man who was hunched up, knees towards his chin, against the back wall of the palace sobbing.

“Excuse me,” Stella was asking, “Are you alright?”

“Si, amigo!!” the man replied.

“English?” said Stella.

“Yes. Sorry, I’m Tarquin.”

“Tarquin the soldier?”

“Yes that’s me, how did you know?”

“I’m Stella!”

“Stella?” questioned Tarquin, and he moved towards her.

She took a step back and explained her quest to him. As he regarded her, he decided he needed to protect her -she was only a young child after all, and they both journeyed towards the volcano, hand in hand.

When they reached the volcano, Tarquin took a stone from his pocket and threw it toward the mountain. It rumbled and grumbled even more and it burped a grey and black throbbing cloud. The volcano towered above them, covered in a coat of snowy mist. It had been an exhausting, tiring journey and soon there was sweat dripping from both of them as they trekked up the rocky, shuddering volcano side. They were both determined to complete the quest and Tarquin knew that Stella would never give up.

A few minutes later, as they reached the rim of the volcano, Tarquin threw off his soaking wet coat and dropped it into the burning lava. He watched it sizzle like bacon, but then it caused the volcano to erupt!

Tarquin and Stella panicked as lava burning rock ejected out of the volcano and landed on their homes below. It set all the buildings on fire and they watched as people came rushing out from their home, clutching children and precious belongings, heading for the boats in the harbour. Because of all the flames, the fire reached higher and higher towards the sky - until it reached a sudden halt. The fire soared up to the sky and was spreading itself all over. The flames shaped themselves into a circle and started burning the sky.

When the volcano finally died down, the circle in the sky was still blazing, lighting up the whole world with its presence. It was forever aflame and could never burn away; it became the sun, never to be extinguished.

Izzy