One year for Christmas, my husband got us tickets to the Pompeii exhibit at the AZ Science Center in Phoenix.

It was….amazing.

And humbling.

And haunting.

An entire civilization reduced to ash.

Mothers, Fathers, Children, Lovers; Rich, Poor; destined to live out their final moments forever when confronted with Death, the great equalizer.

Preserved for eternity, and given immortality, by the very thing that that had erased them from their own lives.

As a person whose mind runs too fast, whose thoughts and feelings trip over themselves and each other, and end up a jumbled mess….I relish the quiet, the calm, the still and the hush.

It was, macabrely, the perfect gift.

I stumbled upon two cows today.

Off a backroad with no name.

Protected by barb wire and brambles.

They had positioned themselves, as animals do when preparing to rest, back to back, watching for danger.

Each depending on the other for safety. One, more alert than the other.

I ran the photo through my filters, trying to find the best exposure.

One lit up the entire frame.

Preserved the scene in nuclear winter; in the post volcanic blast.

In the moments just before the ash begins to fall and rain down, and the cows, sun warm on their backs, realize danger was coming from an angle they never thought to guard against.