The Stroke of Midnight

Take my advice: if some withered old lady knitting a blanket offers you the chance to witness history firsthand, don’t take her up on it. She might be serious. And the assurance that the last stroke of midnight will transport you back to your own bedroom is of very little comfort when you’re running for your life down a dark street pursued by thugs. For one thing, there aren’t any clocks here.

My sneakers make very little noise on the dark cobbled street and when I look over my shoulder, I can see my footprints in the loose grey silt. It’s piling up everywhere in drifts and banks, casting a pale blanket over the deserted city. It’s like having Christmas in the middle of summer. Except this isn’t snow, and the flecks of ash pelting me from the black, glowering sky aren’t coming quickly enough to hide my tracks.

Another bit of advice? Ask for a travel brochure—maybe clarify whether the offered trip requires passing a fitness program…say, running at top speed while breathing ash and dust. If you’re an asthmatic middle-aged English professor like me, you might want to pass. At the very least, see if the offer includes a professional translator, a ‘you-are-here’ map, and a handful of relevant currency.

Any of those might be more useful than my iPhone, whose GPS went on the fritz as soon as I landed in the middle of three or four thugs rooting through an abandoned house. Brawny, tattooed men shoving as many bracelets and necklaces and rings on as they could manage—with their togas and sandals, they looked like a street gang playing dress-up. I had to laugh.

Of course, that was before I saw their swords. And before they saw me.

Google Translate apparently does not recognize an authentic tongue, and with a base vocabulary of “Veni, Vidi, Vici,” I chose speed over diplomacy.

Pausing in my flight, I dig my inhaler out of my pocket and breath heavily, feeling the burning in my lungs lighten as the medicine works its magic. Ash stings my skin as it pours from the sky in thicker quantities, lit here and there by burning cinders, some of them as large as marbles. I squint, throwing up an arm to protect my face. The voices of my pursuers, raised in weird, harsh syllables, are muted by the blanket of ash, but they are drawing nearer, along with the clatter of swords and staves, and when I look back, I can see shadows flickering over the ashen street as the thugs turn the corner with their lanterns.

Yes, I get seasick easily. No, these tremors periodically wracking the city are not helping. And no, I didn’t pack anti-nausea pills.

I throw up as the ground sways and rumbles beneath me. I swear I hear cobblestones cracking. Or was that a roof collapsing in on itself over on my right? I’ve heard great things about the durability of Roman architecture. I don’t know. Maybe the buildings are simply inferior wherever ‘here’ is.

The thugs have halted too, thrown off balance by the earthquake. They look at one another, at me, at the ash and cinders hailing down upon the streets. Then they shrug and run away on the heels of another earthquake, leaving me to regurgitate the rest of my breakfast.

When I recover, the city is glowing. Literally. Sheets of flame flash across the sky, illuminating the squat form of a mountain looming directly above the city.

New tip? Don’t travel. At all. If you do, go somewhere nice, like Hawaii. Don’t accept free tickets to Europe, don’t do a safari in Africa, and don’t take anyone up on time-travel offers. Particularly without asking where you’re going.

Another tip: the locals know what they’re doing. If thugs decide to hightail it rather than finish mugging you, you’d better follow their example, particularly if there are cinders the size of cars hurtling down out of the sky.

I don’t stop to watch the strobe-light display. I don’t stop to admire the lava trickling down towards the city like syrup on pancakes. I don’t stop until I stumble into an open market, where, remarkably, people still mill about with carts and bundles, all shouting at the top of their lungs. No one gives me—the toga-less foreigner with sneakers and glasses—a second look. No one has eyes for anything but the spewing magma and hurtling rocks.

I pull out my iPhone. I’ve just got to stay alive until midnight, right? The clock will strike 12…I mean, the last grain of sand will drain in the hour glass…

Time shatters. More accurately, the screen of my iPhone, struck out of my hand by a fist-sized cinder. Who cares what time it is? I scramble away, over bales and broken stands, following the general flow of citizens streaming towards one end of the forum. Somewhere ahead, I think I see one of my thug acquaintances using his sword to beat a way through the masses with enviable speed.

Elbows and shoulders jostle me as their owners shove and strain to break free of the crowd. A woman in rags crashes into me, shrieking someone’s name before she staggers off again wailing and sobbing. Two men abandon a chest and flee, only to be struck down by a chunk of flaming rock. The ground rumbles again. A child screams.

Sneakers aren’t the best footwear for encouraging others to move out of the way, but they sure beat sandals. I stomp on feet and shriek with the loudest of my toga-ed competitors, forging a path towards the front of the crowd with surprising ease as chunks of rock and flaming lava pelt us from above. It’s amazing the edge an inhaler can give you when everyone’s choking on the same ash-polluted air. (Just don’t tell your doctor. They hate it when you go off of the prescribed ‘this many times a day’ schedule).

If you’re planning on joining a stampede any time soon, I’d recommend choosing a group where no one knows you—or even speaks your language. It makes it that much easier to ignore the shame of beating old grannies and women in a foot race. But this inhaler is giving me wings, and by the time we round the corner, I’m at the head of the race.

As a general rule, I don’t like boats. But I almost weep like a child when I see the empty port. Then I see the sail.

A small craft drifting toward us, manned by an elderly man in a purple toga and a single soldier. I hear the crowd’s intake of breath behind me, gulp at my inhaler as I feel the surge of hope and rekindled desperation, and spring into a sprint nano-seconds before hundreds of sandaled feet.

The elderly man holds the rudder. The soldier ties a hawser and steps out to help fugitives on board.

Choking on ash and dust, I strain to run faster, but footsteps are almost abreast of me. Then one of my thug friends passes me. And another. I reach the boat just after the two thieves clamber on board and wave their drawn swords. It doesn’t take a translator to understand their shouts.

I seethe with anger as I pound down the pier. How dare they leave without me? One thug turns to point at the glowing mountain, still shouting, and the soldier runs him through. I tackle the second one before he can cut down the elderly man at the rudder, and he hits his head on the mast as we fall together.

The elderly man helps me toss the unconscious thug back onto the pier, smiling and speaking in a soft, sibilant voice. I smile, bow, and causally settle myself beside him to watch other refugees pile on, thanking whatever fairy godmother sent this man and his boat to my aid. A magical carriage it isn’t, as my upset stomach is already reminding me, but at least it’s not a pumpkin.

The gunwales are nearly even with the water when the soldier finally plants himself between the boat and the fugitives. As the old man leans over to undo the hawser, a stone smashes between us and the pier, shaking the entire craft. After the steam and water spray dissipates, I see the soldier still on the pier, arms spread wide to block the crowd, while on either side, men and women throw themselves into the water.

One woman ducks under the soldier’s arm and casts a wailing bundle at us as our boat pulls slowly away.

I catch it automatically.

Don’t catch random bundles. You could end up catching a bomb. Or a disease. Or the mad desire to be a hero.

The infant fights in my arms, face scrunched in inconsolable wailing. That clock had better strike midnight soon. I thrust the baby at the elderly man and leap the gap back onto the pier, shoving the weeping mother towards the boat. Someone pulls her onboard as the craft bucks and rocks, and I stand beside the soldier and watch my ticket out of here sail away as the ash grows thicker and fire begins to rain down over us. I hear people screaming.

I throw off the blankets and sit up, sweaty, breathing hard, the taste of ashes still in my mouth. My ear catches the faint chime of a clock downstairs and my heart rate slows as I make out the familiar contours of my bedroom furniture in the darkness. The smoky tang in the air, I realize, is coming from the open window, carried on the warm summer breeze. Breathing in deeply, I switch on a light and reach for my iPhone. It’s not on the bedside table.