experience jesnails

live in rome

The crowds surged, pulsing like one big organism as the next layer of human defence caved in before them--surged towards the giant amphitheatre, surged towards the spectacle; frantic, horrified and ecstatic; shouting, screaming, completely out of their minds. Some reached such excess that they were compelled to leap high into the air.

The massive crowd-thing pulsed again and contracted, mobilising for all of two seconds before crunching to another stop as those at the front met with all the yellow travertine stone and hidden iron of the outer wall. They all pushed on regardless, fighting to filter through.

Lightning suddenly cracked and broke the sky, a brilliant, blue-white wound against the dark swirl of the clouds. The stragglers at the back of the crowd squinted as the longest and thinnest of dark shapes, like the cut left behind by the light, imprinted itself onto their vision.

This dark shape was in fact a tall, metal spike, swaying to and fro as a breeze whipped it into an animated fervour. It was revealed, upon closer inspection of the sort unachievable by those below, to consist of a long series of retractable segments, leading down, eventually, and in the gentle leaning arc of its own unsupported weight, to the sandy dirt of the elliptical arena below, where it rocked on spindly legs and from its end diarrhoetically sprouted a multitude of wires. These wires snaked all over like vines--

Lightning struck again.

--and there were many, many loudspeakers.

Soldiers stepped sandal-footed and slowly, unsurely, over and through the tangle of black lines, finding themselves in an alien jungle: in some areas, the loudspeakers clustered like vegetation; others sat expectantly in the tiered auditorium; others still stood sentry at the narrow windows, wedged between the statues, piling up and pushing against the vast awning above.

The lightning stuck once more and the soldiers' swords gleamed brightly. They cautiously moved across the cluttered arena, peering around and about, steeling themselves against the electric discharge of their nerves as they felt the pressure of the encroaching masses at the walls. The intruder was here somewhere--

The soldiers swivelled as one when a lion erupted from the emperor's box, apparently just as surprised as they were.

'Lionizzle, lionizzle, I got maself a lionizzle!' exclaimed a voice.

Upon the lion's back was a sight for frazzled minds: an almost perfectly round, very nearly spherical, pretty much planetary bush of black hair on a being perhaps not so dissimilar to themselves. But how oddly she dressed!--all dazzling white and sharp and flared and angular, strangely shaped to the body; high, pointy collar and some kind of upper overgarment that was left unbuttoned. She wore dark, reflective mirrors over each eye, and the black, bulky sandals on her feet had more tiers than the amphitheatre itself.

The soldiers felt their eyes fusing to their brains.

'Go, cat!' said the apparition. 'Groove all ferizzle for yo' gentlemizzles in the metal skirtizzles!'

The soldiers gaped. A few of them went cross-eyed.

The lion collapsed and Jesnails tumbled forward, rolling neatly, despite gravity, all the way back to her feet. There was an awkward pause. The soldiers did nothing, too stunned to move. Jesnails then glanced briefly at the lion, dusted off her jacket and--under yet another flash of lightning--spied the microphone stand ahead.

She skated towards it on small wheels, accompanied by the deafening cry of thousands of desperate voices. The barrage broke through--the crowds swarmed in from every side, pouring into the amphitheatre like something molten. At the same time, lightning struck the tip of Jesnails' swaying aerial: feedback screeched through all the loudspeakers as a lot of vaults suddenly coursed through them.

Jesnails threw her arms up in the air and said, 'MA PEOPIZZLES!'

Her voice was amplified in a distorted roar; the screech of the feedback looped, heightened; the oncoming tide of people cowered, tumbled over each other, lifted their hands to their ears.

The whole Colosseum shuddered.

Then the lightning struck a final time. Jesnails spoke again, but whatever she said was lost in an earth-shattering rumble that overcame even the screams of all the people holding desperately on to their heads. The rising quake of tortured sound reached a crescendo and quite literally exploded: a hundred thousand people fell in pain and the entire left side of the outer wall detonated, blasted far over Rome in fiery bits--whole swathes of unfortunate people vomited with it.

Jesnails lowered an arm, stuck a finger in her ear and wiggled it.

One of the soldiers staggered back to his feet, gazing at her, horrified. His expression transmogrified into a look that was crazed. He screamed hoarsely, his face a strange colour in the orange light of the blaze, and launched himself madly at Jesnails, sword drawn. The others milled about in disorientation and then followed him, likewise screaming, at a loss for how else to react.

Jesnails saw them and fired an auto-lasso from her sleeve. It wrapped itself around the scruff of the lion, her chosen method of transport, who, already running confused circles, jolted into action and darted through the reeling crowds for the nearest exit. Jesnails rolled after him, not entirely sure where she was going.

The lion shot from the Colosseum like a hysterical bullet, and Jesnails made a heroic, if somewhat slow and meandering, path through the streets. Even as the soldiers pursued her, bits of burning rubble planted themselves in the surrounding buildings, and in the dryness of the night the flames spread rapidly.

Jesnails had set fire to Rome.

Now, from their burning houses and amphitheatre, the crowds poured after her still, struck by awe, struck by anger, struck by bizarre adoration, or, if nothing else, struck by the tide, like the soldiers, who lost themselves in the sea of people.

Jesnails and the lion took them far beyond the city walls, out into the surrounding hills, where each hill wore a jagged crown of big, wooden crosses. At the crest of one of these hills, the lion collapsed again. Jesnails rolled to a stop and turned to face the crowds.

They, likewise, ground to a halt before her.

Jesnails then attempted an impressive flourish, a sign of divinity, perhaps, or the beginning of a dance move, forgetting that she was still attached to the lion. The auto-lasso twitched, drew back into her sleeve a little; the lion justifiably panicked once more, managing at the very last second to wriggle free and leap away, never to be seen again--and the auto-lasso whipped around, catching itself on one of the big, heavy crosses instead.

Jesnails tugged, then tugged again.

The cross creaked and leaned. Jesnails attempted again to pull away; the auto-lasso came loose and she fell comically backwards. The Romans gasped as, following her, the cross hit the earth with a thud and she disappeared from view.

There was a long, awkward silence. The Romans watched as sounds of exertion and grunting issued from the place where Jesnails had once stood.

Eventually, the perfectly rounded bush of hair reappeared. Jesnails struggled with the stupendously thick-soled boots to get back on her feet.

She dusted herself off. Again.

'Yo,' she said, finally. 'I is returned!'