Musetta’s Waltz was playing on my phone. I turned down the narrow crowded street, and edging past other tourists, entered a cafe. I asked for and quickly drank the 90-cent espresso on which I had lately come to depend. It was, I am told, a souvenir from Italy, a country where along with bitter coffee, I discovered a lingering fascination with death.

*

Past the crumbling houses and decrepit inhabited buildings, where colourful clothes hung on lines to dry, the sea emerged, almost out of nowhere. Like relatives at a party your parents force you to attend. You know they will be there but are unaware of when they might jump at you. Through the windows of the train though, I could see that high walls kept the lofty sea waters at bay. The same waters that once brought ashore the Greeks, the Romans, the Spanish and the Americans. The sea had been a witness to these men and their weapons, helping their ships reach ashore. It had endured their excursions and still knew them intimately, long after they’re no more than flitting names in books of history.

An old Italian man sat opposite me on the train. He struck up a conversation in Italian. I replied in my broken French. There were enough words between us for me to know that he wanted me to join him for a coffee after I finished my tour of Pompeii. There weren’t, however, enough words for me to explain why I wouldn’t take him up on his offer. So, I said nothing.

The late October sun bounced off the sea; the mirror of blue and gold it created warmed me. A mingling of sun and water that is universal: a piece of familiarity in a strange land. Looking out into the water, I noticed that there was not a single boat or ship in sight. Signs of prosperity amiss. It unnerved me. I tore my eyes away. My own foolishness and lack of courage to seek adventures on the high seas—like the Greeks and the Romans—made me sink deep in my chair; the sea was no longer visible.

The train pulled into the station at Pompeii. A clean, organised seaside town greeted me. Its residents, after they had put down the shutters of their shops, had probably gone home for a siesta. Standing there, oddly contrasting emotions of death and longevity overwhelmed me. I was amidst a tragedy known by all but shared by none. And the people of this town seemed unconcerned—continuing to live and love unstopped, under the sun and the watchful eye of old Mount Vesuvius.

As I took in the sights, I realised that they were not, in fact, what the nice lady from my hostel reception had described I’d encounter when I disembarked from the train. She’d said the train would bring me right in front of the ticket counter. In my haste—perhaps to see Pompeii, or to get away from that man—I had got off at the wrong station. I looked back. The train had already left and so, I walked on.

Hesitant steps betrayed my perplexity. And I became an ideal victim to the prying eyes of an official from a tourism agency posing as an “official Government of Italy” entity. My first instinct, usually, is to blindly believe anything that a government runs, mostly because I believe western democracies and their governments are superior. We have, after all, been fed (praise be to our Education!) on an enlightenment era curriculum that prizes westernism over all else.

Then, of course, I remembered that I was in Italy—the “soft underbelly” of Europe—which can hardly be held up as a model of western democracy. To add to that, I was in southern Italy, the forgotten part of the old civilisation, whose feet are so stretched between its former glory and fast-creeping modernity so as to resemble a circus clown performing a split. In any case, I discovered that the agency was no government agency at all and resigned myself to a self-guided tour, certain that I would understand very little of what I was going to see.

Each time I visit someplace—a museum, historical site, religious site, you name it—I have an urge to see everything. Under the tired sun of a creeping winter, I attempted this in Pompeii too, which as one can imagine, was a premeditated failure. From my backpack, I retrieved a pen and, on the map I bought from a store nearby, circled all that I wanted to see. After deciding on a route that I believed would optimise my time, I began my walk among the ruins, a camera dangling on my side and a map before me.

Through the front gates and past the city necropolis, I turned right and came upon the remnants of an amphitheatre. Less grand than the Colosseum, yet more bloody. Through to the other side, and behind tall trees, emerged a narrow path flanked on one side by neatly cut-out square houses. They would have belonged to common citizens, the map explained. Tucked away in an unassuming house was the grand portrait of Venus—goddess of love and patron goddess of Pompeii. Frescos in vibrant colours also peeped at me occasionally, enlivening the normalcy of this ancient life and exhibiting the part success of its modern excavation.

Very soon, Pompeii came to life. Pictures of what forgotten lives in this town must have resembled started to form in my head. I could visualise little kids running through narrow perpendicular channels. They were being their annoying selves while their mothers, busy rinsing cooking pots, screamed after them—more from habit and obligation than necessity. I saw them quietly laughing to themselves and reminiscing about their own lost youth.

I saw this so clearly that I became convinced I was embedded in the scene; a phantom, hovering over it and, like the mothers of Pompeii, I smiled to myself as I mused about children’s games and things that brought them joy. I thought of forbidden lovers seeking each other’s arms in corners least discovered, and village heads leading processions on days when processions must be led. I tried to memorise those images so I could replicate how I felt in a future novel or screenplay that, even as I thought it, I knew I would never write.

Suddenly I felt the need to listen to Bastille’s Pompeii. Part of me believed that my visit would be incomplete if I had not paid homage to this near-forgotten band whose hit song had defined a month of my early high-school years. Just as the song started to play a second time, I was struck by the urge to speak to my parents. I wanted to allow them to be a part of this necrophiliac tour, convincing myself that this urge was influenced by all those stories of families that I made up in my head.

Or perhaps it was the fact that I was on a solo trip within a solo trip, and seeing families touring Pompeii together reminded of me how safe it felt to be around family. In any case, I expended my very limited mobile data in showing them the grand theatre whose steps I sat on. I could say it was for the view, but I know I was tired of wanting to see everything. When does one know they’ve seen enough?

As it happened, it had been my parents’ wedding anniversary, and as usual, they had no grand plans for a celebration. I wondered if they were boring or if, after having been together for so long, the cause for celebration had diminished. But I was also aware that my mother, emotional as she is, found joy in nothing when her children were not around. I felt guilty, thinking about it. But the guilt had been around a long time. It felt at home here, visiting me more often than I visit mine. And so, it was comfortably forgotten within moments. Regardless, I wished they’d celebrate just so they’d have something to celebrate.

*

Tourists began to be herded towards the exit. It was close to sundown. I found that I had only two major spots left to see from among the ones I had marked in my map. I had been saving these spots for the very end, more from instinct than any prior knowledge of their significance. I walked along, following the crowds, and presently arrived upon the most open space I had yet seen at Pompeii.

I stood in a piazza whose centrality, both geographical and symbolic, did not escape me. On the left were remnants of tall Roman pillars from a temple dedicated to Apollo and straight ahead of me was the smaller temple dedicated to Jupiter. Next to me was a Centaur statue in all its glory, unaffected by destruction. It seemed to me to be awfully out of place in that desecrated space. This was the Foro Civile: the heart of the Roman city.

Suddenly, those screaming and running kids seemed even more real. I saw them dodging adults who had been gathered by other responsible citizens of the city to discuss important civil matters. I saw the adults trying to reign in the children and failing.

Breathe, I told myself as it unfolded before my eyes. Those screaming kids began to run faster now. They did not smile anymore but continued to shout for help, dried tears streaking their faces. And just like that, they were screaming children no longer, but charred corpses of children who used to be.

Could this really have happened, and to a city that—by all indications—is the source of Boticelli’s fame? Maybe it could happen to anybody, to any city.

I crossed over and paid my respects to Apollo and then to Jupiter. They weren’t my Gods, but the remnants of sanctity had convinced me otherwise. Currents of worship still ran strong and I felt their passion, fervour and devotion. Emotions that had never been evoked by any deity before. I felt like I had found God.

*

I left the forum and made my way to the exit. It was completely dark by now and I became distinctly aware of how I tired I felt. It seemed to me that I had just experienced life in its entirety. From the casa on whose wall was painted Venus, to the pots that were once used daily, to the bodies that were preserved for me to look at through a metal grill.

I arrived at the Pompeii Scavi train station; it was the correct one this time, the one I should have gotten off at from my inward journey. That mattered little now, everyone’s destination was the same. The station was crowded. Most people appeared to be heading home after a day’s work. I thought about what made me come to Pompeii. I couldn’t come up with an answer.

As the train pulled into the last stop at Napoli, my fatigue began to wane. A throng of people carried me from the train to the platform and up the stairs. I made sure to stick my head out so as to not find it in unwarranted places. At last, I arrived at the main street. Hunger had set in. I opened Google Maps and found my way to a pizzeria in Spaccanapoli.