I had booked an excursion to Pompeii several months before Etna blew its top, and while I could cancel to enjoy more time in downtown Naples, I figured, ‘what are the chances Italy would suffer so much bad luck in the prime of tourist season?’ Besides, the new pope had put hope in the air and I was a fellow White Sox fan—divine intervention would surely prevent my stumbles down a burping-to-explode mountain, if it came to that.
Another thought haunted me, however: what if I witnessed the opposite? What if in the peace and majesty of the successful climb I encountered a suicide like Beck alludes to in the final song of his album Modern Guilt: “and I heard about that Japanese girl who jumped in… to a volcano…. Was she tryin’… to get back… back into the womb of the world…?”
Would I intervene with such a stranger’s goal? I am far from divine and would probably act (or not act) according to how I felt, for heaven’s sake.
Another detail about this trip: I had already been to the top of Vesuvius with my then young children. They loved it—especially having visited the walk-about museum of the victims of Pompeii. “This is like living history,” my ten-year-old quipped—perhaps a phrase he had learned through his 4th grade curriculum. I felt extra responsible as a dad: giving them a unique experience, helping them connect the dots of ‘acts of nature’ and ‘acts of humankind’ (I never like the designation ‘acts of God’).
Now my children were in their 20s and ‘doing their own thing’. My wife was harried with work and said, reasonably, “we already went there. Why do so again?” But this time I was extending a business trip in Rome, and as much as I had wanted her to fly down after my conference for some R&R, I could see her point-of-view. It’s a ghoulish place, Pompeii, and Vesuvius is a hell of a hike toward an infernal sun.
On the way up, then, this second time in all thoughts spanning from Etna to Japan, I tried to concoct a theory—something about ‘catastrophe training for the disinclined’. Let’s say you’ve lost your wallet—credit cards, driver’s license, small keepsakes, the works. It’s a shitter, to be sure, but a catastrophe? You’d need to cancel key accounts, make appointments for reissues, take a lot of time to redress the situation. But you’d be no worse off for the wear. Even if you we’re mugged: you’d give up that wallet to ensure you were physically unscathed. Mentally? Emotionally? Here’s where ‘catastrophe’ may apply its heat-seekers. And a balanced life should be prepared for that.
Call me impetuous, but I decided to test where I was at. I got to the top, tried to find an inconspicuous spot so as not to make a scene—didn’t want witnesses, perhaps like that Japanese girl—and held my somewhat fat wallet over my head like a grenade. I counted down from three-two-one as if I were back on the high diving platform eons ago in my Chicago neighborhood swimming pool. And with no second thoughts, I chucked the stoic thing as far as my midlife arm could manage—probably just 2% the diameter of the monster mountain, yet irretrievably sinking into the steep drop of ancient ash below the volcanic rim.
Naturally, some tourists saw what had happened, and one yelled something like ‘vandal!’ I hadn’t exactly imagined my capacity to pollute such a protected area, so I blushed in that guilt (wondering again what Beck had in mind). But as for my feelings for this contrived catastrophe… I wasn’t sure what they were. I knew I had my passport back at the hotel, and I still retained my smartphone—wasn’t going to toss that away for this stupid experiment.
I looked at the imperceptible trace of disturbance where the wallet had landed and wished it a good eternity. I sucked in the air of these heights deeply, smiled at some tourists, and made my way back down to earth. Satisfied, I guess.
Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2025)
