Excerpt: Too close to the sun

“A dog has now joined my household. We are a village of four survivors. He looks to be a shepherd’s dog, the colour of sand. The bird’s whistle must have drawn him here. His ears prick up each time the bird utters. He has none of the scavenging nature of the beasts who feed of the pile of corpses I have gathered. He hunts and brings his spoils back. The first day a partridge! There have been no waterfowl since the cataclysm, no fish save those that have turned their bellies to the sky. There is nothing but a trickle of water where once our river flowed. Perhaps I shall dig a well.
I am glad for this dog. I feel safe scouring the sand for treasures with him by my side. He struts towards the scavengers with an ugly sneer. They back away. Each day he brings an offering for my meal.
A visitor. The dog spotted him some way off. I could barely make out the figure in the white haze, coming from the north west. He shook his head over our lost village. Our fertile watering place. Boats from all across the sea came down the estuary and beached upon our shoreline. Pomegranates and pistachios, figs and lemons. How the mouth waters at their remembrance.
The man has visited us before but I do not remember him. Not surprising for the inn was a loud place and he is soft spoken. How good to share food with another. My fine hunter had brought back a hare and we roasted it over the fire.
How had I survived the deluge, the stranger wanted to know? I pointed to the bed, Naucrate’s boat in which she and my ancestor fled Crete. The little boat lined with fleeces has been the bed of innkeeper through countless generations. It rode the deluge like a pistachio shell and we hung on the gunwales, the cat clinging to me for dear life.
The green-cloaked stranger speaks of what he has seen. He has walked across the sea from Crete, so thick is the white stone sponge that floats as a great raft upon the water. The great city is gone, he tells me. The inhabitants fled to Crete as the earth’s first issue changed its tone. We had heard of the panic for many ships turned back to rescue their people. All sailors came from those parts.
The inhabitants of Knossos are starving, for Crete is scorched and covered with ash. Vineyards and crops are burned, dead sheep bloat and explode in their ruined pastures. There are no fish, the ocean reeks. People are picking their way toward the mainland carrying what they can.
I tell what we saw, and the green man prompts me with rills on his lute, when I pause. First, the great clap of doom, which rendered all deaf , then the cloud rising in the north west dragging all water to it. Our women danced on the river bed, children picked trinkets that had fallen in the water who knows when.
My Hyska saved us with her fear. She spoke of Poseidon’s anger as in the days of Phaestos and Naus, and pulled me to our bed where I held her trembling body. The revelry in the village carried on, everyone shouting at the tops of their voices but none could hear. We must have slept for we woke when the surge of watert struck, sweeping us and our village away.
“Desolation!” I cried and told him of our return.
The stranger spoke of Naucrate and I sang her songs. Soon he had the melodies playing on his lute.
I sang him my song , and he smiled and stroked the dog’s head.
This dog is my shepherd
I lack nothing
He leads me beside tranquil waters
He restores my spirit
He rests at my feet in green pastures
Thanks to his skill
My table overflows
With him I walk the safe path
In dark valleys where wild beast roam
I fear no evil
His keen senses comfort me

His goodness and love will follow me
All the days of his life
He may dwell in my home forever”

Ivy put down the last page of the transcription. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want! She knew those words! She slipped on her bath robe and slippers and hurried downstairs to the library. She turned on one set of lights and quickly found a Bible. Psalm Twenty Three:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; they rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

It was too close to the other for them not to be connected. Ivy was shivering as she closed the Bible and replaced it on the shelf. The ancient scroll held a version of a song written by King David centuries after his people had left Egypt. The innkeeper’s song had to be the earlier version.

Had Israel’s King David known this song as a child, and re-crafted it into the Psalm that had comforted people through the centuries? Had the twenty-third Psalm begun with the grateful song of an innkeeper/scribe who had lost everything in the greatest eruption in mankind’s history? A survivor who found comfort in a dead shepherd’s dog? Ivy couldn’t wait to hear what Donaghy had to say.