History In Ruins

I’m an assistant guide on an English-speaking tour of Pompeii. The chief guide is talking to all the tourists via their headphones, connected to the guide’s microphone.

Guide: “Notice how on some streets there are white stones at intervals down the street. This was so the moonlight would reflect off and act as a guide.”

Tourist: “A guide for what?”

Guide: “Think of them like early streetlights.”

Tourist: “Oh, so they had no electricity then?”

I try not to look at the guide, as I know any eye contact will make us laugh.

A little later in the tour, after we’d been walking for a while, this same tourist stops, looks around, and announces:

Tourist: “You know… this looks like it could have been a town…”