Vengeance & Remission (Introduction)
Original title: VENGEANCE AND REMISSION
Author: Amalia Angellinni
Cover: Rita Beger & AB
Editor: Anne Canders
ISBN 978-83-929832-5-5
English Edition (January 2013)
Copyright 2013 Anna Brakoniecka, Scholar Europe (exclusive publisher)
Contact Amalia:
Official homepage of Amalia Angellinni (DE; ENG; PL, FR)
Vengeance & Remission Websites:
https://vengeanceandremission.wordpress.com/
https://plus.google.com/114944878002089744765/posts
Be Lovefool: https://www.lovefool.be
Meet Amalia @ Twitter
License Notes
"No man is an island, intire of its self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were; as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."
John Donne
THANK YOU!
If I would say just a simple „Thank you”, it wouldn't describe my gratitude even in the smallest range. Especially warm greetings are going to Anne Canders, who was the English editor of the book. Thanks again to my family, friends and thanks to Anna Brakoniecka & Scholar Online Europa for supporting me all the way long up to now. Thanks to all of my readers for their feedback.
Amalia
VENGEANCE AND REMISSION'S SOUNDTRACK:
#1 WAY TO BRITANNIA
#2 TRAFFIC JAM
#3 WAY BACK HOME
#4 WINTER SONG
#5 DANGEROUS PLACES
#6 ONE DAY SOON
#7 RECONING SONG
#8 HOW TO SAVE A LIFE
#1 WAY TO BRITANNIA
Not everyone remembers the eruption of Mount Pelée. The mentioned outbreak of the so called Bald Mountain in today's French, divine overseas department of lovely Martinique where the Caribbean Plate meets the Atlantic Oceanic crust belonging to the South American Plate happened in 1902 within a few minutes. It was the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th century and devastated the island completely, destroying the town of St. Pierre, killing 30,000 inhabitants, leaving only 3 survivors. There were signs that should have been interpreted as forewarnings. There was an impressive, firework-like light rain of spacey cinders on the mountain's southern and western side. There were sharp, perceptible underground shocks that should make people insecure. There was a giant, extremely scary cloud containing rocks and ashes, before the mountain produced loud explosions, earthquakes, and a massive, scary pillar of dense black smoke. It was the beginning of an upcoming Armageddon for the people of the island. On the day, which stayed in the memory of human nature as the darkest day of Mount Pelée, black clouds rolled upwards from the mountainside one after the other and formed a frightening, extraordinary huge, mushroom-like, dark cloud that darkened the infinity and innocence of the sky in a 50-mile radius. The city burned for further days as if it was a never ending story of hell including red, streaming lava and tireless tongues of fire. Everyone, who said that there was no warning, could not interpret the previous days and weeks correctly. There were enough signs to be prepared for the worst case scenario.
Even less people remember the eruption of almost perfectly symmetric Mayon Volcano, the so called Beautiful Lady after the legendary heroine Daragang, on the island of Luzon from the shores of the Gulf of Albay in the Philippines. Magayon, a part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, used to be the most active volcano with over 48 eruptions in the past 400 years. The first documented, but not most destructive eruption was witnessed in 1616 by Dutch explorer Joris van Spilbergen. Less than 200 years later, the volcano was belching dark ash and bombarded the town with tephra that buried the town of Cagsawa. Ash accumulated to 9 meter in depth. Green trees and plants were non-recurrently, violently burned. The rivers were certainly damaged. The eruption was responsible for over 1200 deaths. Due to the accumulation of atmospheric ash, a sad and tragic Year Without a Summer followed. The nature recovered over the long years of troublesome rehabilitation and it was finally possible to establish a national park and a protected landscape there in the year 2000 named Mayon Volcano Natural Park. There was a truly magnificence, uniqueness and beauty captured in this extremely sad and mourning occurrence in these shocking, frightening days.
Marcus Lucius was not able to get to know any information neither about Mayon Volcano nor Mount Pelée. He was a Roman soldier, a tribune in the most powerful army of the world of that time. He had heard about the city of Pompeii being partially destroyed and buried under meters of ashes and pumices in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. He was like a volcano himself. His internal, dark energy was dangerously coming out from the deepest parts of his body, passing the crust of his skin, allowing accusations hot as magma, fussy, obtrusive reproaches and blames like volcanic ashes escaping from below the surface. He could not bear his internal pressure anymore. In the same way that the pieces of matter were collected for a longer while in the inside of the volcanoes before erupting violently, when the time was ripe, flying over chaotically, powerfully and frightening, the same way Marcus Lucius felt, when he remembered what happened some days ago. He felt the same increasing, overwhelming rage and lack of power to predict what was already going to happen. He analysed over and over again which signs he missed, what aspects he could have overseen, what he could have deduced earlier to prevent the damages that were done.
The last days were hard for him. He didn't remember much at all. As he was laying in a slender bed, he had some visions. Some were clear, but short, and showed rather static scenes than dynamic memories. Some were blurry, fuzzy and hazy scenes taking his whole attention. He tried to analyse them, but he was too weak. He struggled extremely to find any approach to structure the scenes and to find out the truth. He failed every time, because he was falling senseless due to his high, dangerous fever and the wounds, he didn't perceive. He wasn't completely sure whether everything really had happened, because he was injured and had continuous fever. He felt permanently cold despite his dangerously increasing body temperature. Then, he felt too hot, he sweated a lot and felt like going insane. He felt weak, but when he would collect all these pieces of fury, anger and sadness hidden in his every cell, he could destroy everything standing in his way. He was burning out internally. His state of mind was somewhat destroyed by collapsing and being squeezed in itself. This implosion concentrated enormous, inhuman matter and dark energy. True, overwhelming pressure and inward and outward forces were involved into the process of his destruction. He didn't care. He already lost what he was fighting for. There was no hope for any improvement of the situation. There was just a glowing hope for dying before any further thought would attack him again and again until he would lose his consciousness again and again. It wasn't a life worth living anymore.
It wasn't like losing your favourite book, which you had borrowed to someone, who never gave it back to you, or like deleting an important file from a computer. We would consider these disasters as Armageddon in our times. But today, you can backup your files, buy new computer, or even create everything anew in the worst case. We forget that we can lose more valuable things that give sense to our life: a best friend by not liking his new girlfriend, a grandfather after he lost his battle with cancer, a father in a car crash on a busy street, a mother through the consequences of a accident at home or the person you are in love with through various reasons in general.
Marcus Lucius loss was irreplaceable, unrecoverable. He had lost his wife. If a person you love dies, the
entire world is not the same place anymore. You can't restore the living creation – neither by memorizing nor by replacing the person with other people. There is no remedy to return to the world experienced before.
Sometimes, you think about dying and losing your life, but you don't really follow it seriously, until you lose someone you love. Death was his companion already. He had already lost many soldiers on his way. He took part in a dozen of ambushes and he saw many deadly wounded and killed. He was injured once, too,