The Volcano Lover

(J.M.W Turner, Eruption of Vesuvius)

I set my sight on what was before me and thought I owned the scenery. There was an eruption happening, true, but the burning red of flame was made beautiful when it soared amid the oppressing dark of sky. I had an impulsion of holding what I saw into my hands, like a ravishing possession, although it might be like coals, tossing and turning about. I could answer anyone who questioned, that I did covet the scenery, so exceedingly that the ongoing flame trailed through my head, casting an indelible badge in commemoration of my frenzied passion. No, not did I once awake and eradicate the covetous image from my memory. Nor did I rack my brain feverishly for a more accurate delineation of the scenery. I simply needed to draw up the curtains of my bedroom and there provided before me the same image I had always dreamed of dreaming.

But as I wound up the curtains in a fury, with my searching eyes I discovered a picture which, although doubtlessly bearing much resemblance with the former one I saw the day before, was not without some slight alteration. It was obvious. The flame lost somewhat of its sturdiness, and was on the verge of whisking away. The colours followed suit, shredding away with the imagined winds, depriving the flame of its luminosity. A shaft of light pierced the eruption, cut it into half, and adorned the fire-red with its transparent white. I saw everything rumble and tumble before me, in a frolicsome fashion almost bordered on absurdity. My heart took an abrupt descend, as if my virginal hope just being raped by unlawfulness. I captured a blue bird venturing into the throng of eruption. Bless her fare well!

Every slight alteration amassed in gradation into a monstrous disjuncture. I dared not conceive the day when I drew up the curtains and the scenery before me was no longer discernible. I was sequestered in my home; I was hindered from venturing out and saving the scenery I possessed so dearly. I could not bare the sight of seeing the scenery vanishing before me, fizzling out or exploding eventually into a null. I pictured in my head the imminent sight, of a great lashing of red flowing relentlessly into an unknown destination; of the light proclaiming victory eventually and exerting its tyranny with the impregnable transparency; of the cessation of the ever-thriving eruption. My possession refused to live- I felt in my hands the stop of its throb.

The house trembled at night, I could feel it even in my slumber, and changed shape. Surreptitiously I approved of the house’s conformity to the ongoing polymorphism. Rock and sway, sway me to the eruption.

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