Authors: John Nicholas; Iannuzzi
All of these meetings were held at night, in the woods, for “The Light”, being of the sun, was not stronger than the sun, and, therefore, could not shine brighter in the day-light than the light that illumined the world, and as there was no place big enough to hold all of the people indoors, the meetings were out in the open at night.
Soon, the movement numbered 10,000 people, including Christians, Jews, plebeians, all of the poor and oppressed. Rumors began to stir on the Palatine Hill that there was a revolution brewing, but Nero was somewhat unmoved to the danger that it presented. Nevertheless, he perfunctorily sent the royal guard out to uncover and disperse this rabble. Domitius and his followers however, were quite careful and clever about their meetings and the guards could never discover their whereabouts.
The Envoy of the Sun, as Domitius was now referred to, and his power of light was becoming a password in the city. Nero was becoming more frightened each day as fresh rumors would start to circulate. The rumors told that this movement was to lay waste the Imperial palace and rid the Roman world of the evil that came from there, including Nero.
Shortly thereafter, Nero began to grow impatient with the royal guard and called upon his army to find and destroy this insidious and treacherous impersonator of divinity. One evening when the royal festivities were about to begin, a runner, one of the army's messengers, came pantingly exhausted to Nero's quarters and told of the movement that had entered the city from the western gate. It was a vast crowd, growing larger with every meter it moved, carrying torches, and at its head was a boy. A mere youth with all the innocent appearance of the young, but in his hand he carried a light, a small light, the path of which he could direct at his wish. A light brighter than the sun.
“Did not the army kill this boy and disperse the crowd?” asked Nero.
“They tried to, Divinity, but when they did, he, the boy that is, threatened to shine the light on them and strike them dead. They all fell back with great fear in them”.
“Where is this sun god now, runner?”
“He and his followers are headed here, Divinity”.
“Here?” Nero twirled and bolted for the balcony. From this vantage point he could see out across the shadowed roofs of the city. Not more than half a mile from the palace, marked off by the flaming torches they carried in their hands, the crowd could be seen. A faint roar could be heard from them as they proceeded toward the palace. Reports kept coming to Nero ⦠“they're approaching” ⦠“they're increasing in number” ⦠“they're laying waste the entire city as they come forward”. The crowd was venting all its rage on innocent Rome, the city. The western quarter of the city was already starting to burn.
Nero looked to the west and there, against the back-drop of purple he saw the orange glow of the conflagration. The crowd was only a few blocks from the palace now.
“Guards, the army, send someone out there to stop them, do you hear me!” shouted Nero.
Men of the army issued forth from the front of the palace and stationed themselves in phalanxes across the front entrance. The roar of the crowd was deafening, drowning out all other sounds, including the orders shouted by Nero. The yellow-orange glow of the burning torches could be seen slowly creeping over the ground ever nearer the palace. From the high balcony, Nero saw the shadows of the first part of the crowd as they entered the square. All that could be seen was a yellowish glow and weird out-of-shape shadows of men. Then, around the corner of the wall, came the darkened figures of the first members of the crowd silhouetted in orange. The entire mass of the main body came surging around the corner like a huge, black cloud of dust.
The yelling and screaming was terrifying, yet Nero heard it hardly at all, for in the midst of this entire ebon mass were two spots of light approaching with and just a little ahead of the crowd. One was on the ground, large and oval shaped. The other was suspended in the air a few feet behind. These spots swayed and moved as if they were part of the walking crowd. Nero realized that this was the Scepter of the Sun, Domitius, the sun god. He froze in his position at the edge of the balcony, hands leaning on the parapet, body hunched forward to view the crowd below him.
The light stopped swaying. It emitted from the tube and lit a circle of the red brick in the courtyard. Then, the light which had been traveling in a circular path on the ground in front of the crowd, ventured forward, across the ground further away from the crowd, toward the palace. It proceeded to the base of the wall, thence it travelled up the wall slowly. The crowd silenced as they saw the circle of light invade the privacy of the palace wall. The circle traveled across the interstices of the bricks, across carved marble pillars, up over the marble protruding balcony until at the parapet, it rested on a pair of hands, a white and purple clothed chest, a garlanded head ⦠Nero!
A scream lifted from the crowd.
“It's Nero. Nero”.
The light played upon the Emperor's quivering face steadily. The crowd silenced. Nero was screaming at the top of his lungs to the holder of the light, whoever he might be.
“I, Nero, the Divine, am displeased. How dare you to invade my privacy in such an outrageous manner?”
“I, Domitius, sent by Apollo, the god of the sun, have come to eliminate the atrocities that you have caused. I defy you”.
“How dare you? Guards ⦠guards, seize that boy that I might deal with him in my own manner”.
The guards, who had fallen back at the approach of the light, were still too frightened to seize the boy of the sun. Domitius looked at Nero audaciously, and with strong voice acclaimed, “You, Nero, are no longer fit to be Emperor. I have been sent to replace you and set things aright in Rome”.
The crowd was yelling hysterically. All this while, the light was playing on the trembling countenance of Nero, but now, if one looked closely, the path of light was not the blue-whiteness that it had been previously, but more of a cream color. The dimming went unnoticed, except to Domitius, who, of course, had no control of this.
Meantime, without noticing the dimming of the light, the crowd had taken up a cry in unison.
“Down with Nero ⦠down with Nero”. They were screaming all sorts of curses and jibes at him.
He, in the meantime, unable to do anything, stood immovably at the edge of the balcony, staring down in the direction of the origin of light. Now he too noticed that this light was changing color, and though he knew not what this mean, he could tell that the lights was not as strong as it was before.
Domitius began to feel slightly less confident than he had been. The light dimmed to a yellow-tan, a tan, and suddenly the court was aglow only with the faint orange light of the torches that had been moved to the rear to make the sun god's light more effective, and the pale, but ever increasing glow of the same color which was approaching from the western quarter of the city.
The crowd hushed.
Nero screamed at the guards to seize the boy, and looking triumphantly over the heads of the entire crowd, stood on the railing of the balcony and shouted with his head thrown high. “My Divinity is greater than the sun. I am a god and have defeated your puny attempt to overcome me. Disperse, Scum!”
The crowd, screaming in panic, began to evacuate the square, stampeding, running.
Domitius was stranded, held by the guards. He struggled like a madman as Nero came storming out of the front entrance of the palace. Insane with power, he screamed: “Fool, fool of a boy, to try and overcome the divine Nero”. He took up a rock and with a glistening, maniacal look in his eyes, brought it down with terrific force on Domitius's head.
In the ever increasing yellow-orange glow from the west one could see Nero lifting, time after time, a rock, and bringing it to rest on the slumped form. His eyes glistened and became more fearful in the orange glow, and the rock came down on the small metal tube that lay on the ground next to Domitius. A tinkle of broken glass was heard through the flame-colored courtyard. A high-pitched screaming laugh lifted high and loud, echoing through the palace, up to the orange heavens. “Sun god, ha, ha, ha ⦔
The sun filtered through the trees with a fiery boldness as Reggie Moore made his way home, as he did each evening after work, up Arrow Street, across Kensington Square, to the small shed that housed the entrance to the Underground. Before descending, to the train, Reggie stopped at the store of a P. Jackson. He went in past the counters of tools and hardware and light bulbs, and up to the man who looked to be the proprietor.
“Good evening to you, sir”, said the man, “and what can I do for you?”
“I'd like to purchase a flashlight if I might”, said Reggie. “I seem to have misplaced my other one this morning”.
“Really, sir, well perhaps Professor Terrence Young, from Oxford found it for you, eh? Ha, ha, ha ⦔
“I say, what the devil are you talking about, and who is this Terr ⦠what did you say his name was?”
“Terrence Young, sir. I thought you might have heard. He's that archeology chap from Oxford that was written up in the paper this morning. Seems he was on a safari, no, an expedition, yes, that's what they calls it. Well, anyway, he's on this expedition in Italy to uncover some of the ancient ruins, and what's he find in the ruins of an ancient palace dating back to the first century, somewhere around 64 A.D., ⦠a crushed piece of metal that turns out to be a flashlight. And they can't understand how it got there. Seems it was made by a manufacturer in Sussex, and yet, under tests, they find it's been laying under the ruins for 2000 years almost. So maybe Professor Terrence Young found your flashlight eh? Ha ⦠ha ⦠ha. That'll be six shillings sir. Ha ⦠ha”.
“By Jove, a flashlight, you say. How the devil did they find a flashlight in the ruins dating back to somewhere around Nero's time, I believe? Oh, here you are, six shillings. Thank you. What paper did you say that was in. I'd like to read about it”.
WEEP SOFTLY AND SMILE
The street lights of the little island gleamed and sparkled across the water that separated it from the mainland, like milkwhite pearls on a piece of black velvet. The engine of the car purred with mechanical perfection as the car sped along, across the smooth highway, toward the beach. Lyn was sitting in the passenger seat of the bright red Jaguar, completely thrilled by the thought of riding in Joe Waters' car; his new foreign sports car, too! Joe Waters, the rising new star in popular singing, and Lyn was with him, driving to the beach for a romantic midnight swim.
The car veered off the highway and onto Frederick Avenue, past the parked planes at the airfield, on toward the darkened bridge, lit by road lights and a few blinking red lights at the summit of the expanse. Joe paid the toll and the metal strips of the bridge made a crying sound as the tires passed over them.
Lyn was completely captivated by the entire view. She was looking out of the side window of the car at the sights as seen from a sports car, and yet all the time she could see Joe's reflection in the window. This reflected countenance thrilled her more than all the sights that could be seen from all the sports cars in the world. Joe, a neighborhood boy, making a big name for himself, and he was taking her to the beach for a late night swim. This was about the most thrilling thing that had happened to her in all of her nineteen years. Every girl in the neighborhood would leap at the chance just to be near Joe Waters, the singer.
Joe had always been around the neighborhood, always singing, and bothering people. That's the right wordâbothering.
But now came a transformation for him. Now he was making a name for himself in the entertainment field. Now he was a celebrity. His singing was no longer bothersome, but rather pleasing. He was in show business. His little world had expanded to embrace the world of the outside, the world that is open to so few from the neighborhood. Joe was a big man, now. His world extended past the corner hangout, past the street lights, past all the people in the neighborhood, past all those who secretly wished to be more than one of the neighbors; they envied him silently and paid homage to him verbally. He was the most talked about and most boasted about person in the neighborhood.
This transition from local performer to national success was not without its effect upon Joe, who now was displaying a hitherto concealed knowledge of famous people and of facts having to do with the theater. The transition had an effect not only on his knowledge of things but even on his personality. This underwent a remarkable change, for not only was he not an insecure, unsure kid anymore, but now he fashioned himself on his expert appearance and opinion, his judgment and savoir faire.
An instance of this newly acquired knowledge and opinion was when he walked into Sam's soda store on the corner one evening. For years this had been his hangout. The place where he would spend the night, talking to the boys. Leaning against the wall with one leg bent at the knee, foot pressed against the wall, cigarette dangling his thin lips, he would discuss the girls in the neighborhood, or the Dodgers, or the horse races, but now, ah, now this was Joe Waters, the rage of the popular singers, the boy who sold almost a million records with his recording of “I'll Never Let You Know”.
He walked into the store in his tapered slacks, no more pegâthat was so unsharpâ“taper, taper, man, that's the only way to wear them. Everybody in the âbiz' wears them this way. You know man, like, get hip”. Over these conservative pants he wore a quiet shirt with button-down collar. On his feet were thin, Italian styled slip-on shoes.
The commotion, and confusion of the syrup sweet air hushed to a murmured undertone anytime Joe made an appearanceâa very rare appearance as a matter of fact. He was too busy to spend much time around the neighborhood these days. He indicated he would sit at the table where his old acquaintances were sitting; a space was quickly made for him; a chair hoisted through the air, and he was seated, to the satisfaction of all the beholding eyes, to his own satisfaction, for everyone was stealing glances at so august a personage, and to the satisfaction of the people he was sitting with, for now they basked in the effulgent light of his illustriousness. After many minutes of awareness, the consciousness of his presence dimmed, and things began to take a more ordinary course. The conversation at his table started to mull over the picture at the Globe, “Gibraltar Affair”.