The Philosopher's Volcano

Words by Cassandra Pfeifer

Art by Yaleeza Patchett

“Great Empedocles, that ardent soul

Leapt into Aetna, and was roasted whole.”

Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy

The scribe Empedocles occupied himself with death and days long gone.

Eying him from across the room, his boss, Alexei, asked, “Do you have those recordings ready yet?” but Empedocles did not hear him.

“Hey!”

Death and the past fled Empedocles’s mind, and he looked up.

“You need to finish recording that data and get the tablet to the Senate. It should have been there yesterday.”

“I’m on it,” he said, returning his gaze to the symbols that had been staring at him for a week.

Empedocles wasn’t always a scribe for the Senate. He used to be a doctor, a statesman, a poet. The people of Greece once believed him to have healing powers that were rivaled only by Apollo himself. They adored his poetry and respected his mind. More importantly, though, he had been a philosopher. He unraveled the mysteries of life by discovering secrets about the fundamental roots of the universe—Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. He was so admired for his discovery and found it hard to come to terms with what he was doing now—work set aside for illiterates. And yet he could not come up with anything better to do since his career dried up. These were the skills old age had left him with.

Once he finished his work, Empedocles left for the Senate and tried to enjoy the morning sun as it revealed itself from behind Mount Aetna, the dormant volcano. Instead, he paid attention to people moving around him. He envied their sense of purpose. What did they have that he didn’t?

When he got to the Senate doors, he stopped to watch a spider leap onto its breakfast, searching for the precise moment of death. Empedocles could see the insect struggle for life, but the web spun too quickly for him to pinpoint when death arrived. How could it be so silent? Why could he not see any change in the air as life exited the insect’s body? He pondered this as he entered the Senate chambers.

A senator looked up as the door opened. “Good morning, Empedocles. How are you?”

“Morning. There’s a large spider outside having breakfast. Have you seen it? I wish I could study it more and see what strif—”

“Do you have the tablets? I’m on a deadline.”

Empedocles bristled at the interruption. “Yes. Here they are.”

The senator looked over the tablets and pushed them across the table. “These aren’t what I need.”

“Well, you’ll need to stamp this return order. Though this is what I recorded from Alexei, so I can’t imagine what hap—”

“You probably recorded it wrong. Again.” He snapped the order out of Empe’s hands and wrote notes on it. “Why they started hiring washed-up philosophers to do the scribal work, I’ll never know.”

“Well, that’s hardly fair. Before I became a scribe, the others had no idea what they were doing. I helped them understand the work.”

“You helped nobody. Ever wonder why the scribes can’t read? Because they don’t need to. They record what they see, and they move on to the next task. You—you read and think. You distract the others and don’t pay attention to what you’re doing. You screw things up.”

Empedocles left with the senator’s words echoing in his head. He was right. Empedocles was not cut out to be a scribe. He didn’t know what he was cut out to be anymore.

Alexei looked up when the door opened and eyed the tablets. “Why do you still have those?”

“The senator said it wasn’t right,” he replied, handing over the return order.

“Well, double-check your work. You’re slowing everything down with these errors. I need you to be more careful.” Empedocles suppressed a desire to defend himself and mumbled an apology before going back to work.

Back at his desk, he searched for the error for what felt like hours. A fellow scribe approached and said, “Hey, Empe. How are you?”

“Fine. Just reviewing some things.”

The scribe peaked over Empedocles’s shoulder. “You know you missed this right here. Fix it, and you should be ready to go!”

Empedocles stared at the tablets as the scribe walked away. How did he miss that? It was right there—a glaring error. Anger swelled in his chest, and he fought a growing urge to throw the tablets on the ground. This was not what he was supposed to be doing. Why wasn’t he at the university studying? Why wasn’t he healing people of their ailments? How could anyone expect such a busy mind to sit around recording Senate trivialities?

Alexei interrupted his escalating frustrations. “Empedocles, what are you doing over there? Is that tablet ready to go yet?”

“Just a minute.”

“Come on, already. This isn’t hard. Just fix it and get back to the Senate.”

After what felt like years of his dwindling life, the day finally ended. Empedocles found his way to the village square to see his friends and finally have some interesting conversation in his day.

“Hey! How’s the scribing?” his friend, Deo, said as he saw Empedocles approaching.

Empedocles sat down and helped himself to Deo’s wine. “Same as always.”

“Had to re-do a bunch of tablets again?”

“Yeah, I have to get out of there. Get back to work that matters.”

Deo waved his hand dismissively. “At least it’s easy. Just collect your money.”

“I don’t think I can do that. There’s still some work to be done on my theories. I haven’t been able to pinpoint why the elements leave our bodies when they do.”

“Not that love and strife nonsense. We’re well beyond that. You should look at what the Sophists are working on if you want to be a philosopher again.”

“I never could get into their ideas. They miss out on several fundamental points about the elements.”

“Well, they don’t think quite the same as you, but their ideas are the ones that everyone wants. You need to find a new game if you don’t want theirs.”

“This is the only game I know.”

“Ah, well, we all pass our prime at some point. Hey, I hear that nephew of yours is doing well at university.”

“Yes, his parents are quite proud.”

“But not you?”

“He doesn’t want to learn from me.”

“Can’t expect a kid to take his old uncle seriously. Not when he’s got the greats to look to in his studies.”

“I thought I was one of them.”

“At one point, sure, but we’re always learning new things. You refuse to keep up. You want to stay put with the roots of the universe. There’s more to the universe than its roots.”

“Not when we don’t understand how the roots work!”

“I’m just saying there’s more stuff out there to consider, and Greece has latched onto it. That’s why your ideas can’t get any traction.”

Empedocles left feeling deflated. He drifted his way to a quiet bench and looked towards Aetna on the horizon, remembering his earlier days. The people of Greece were so impressed when he discovered the fundamental roots of the universe. So excited to know what happened to make people exist—what powers the gods wrought. Earth, Fire, Air, and Water came together to create life in a process he called love, and they separated and drifted away from the body as it died in a process he called strife. That’s it. That’s what mattered. Empedocles basked in the glow of this discovery and thought the acclaim would be with him until strife destroyed his body.

But the praise ceased, and his ideas lost favor within the philosophical community. He felt akin to the volcano, once a flurry of activity but now silent for so long. One day he was the brilliant Empedocles of Acragas, second only to the gods themselves. Then, suddenly, his peers told him his theories weren’t as well-thought-out as they first thought, and they doubted his healing skills. New ideas came from different philosophers, and Greece moved on and forgot about Empedocles. So here he was. Doing scribal work. He couldn’t be impressive as a scribe. And he couldn’t get his ideas back in the mainstream. He needed a new angle. What do people want? What do they crave? What can he give them? What can make him worthwhile to Greece once more?

As he made his way home, Empedocles thought about what he could do to get his career back. He passed the Senate and scowled at the door, thinking about the senator’s remarks. He noticed the spider’s web now stretched across the entirety of the door. Empedocles watched the struggling, dying insects caught in the trap and thought to himself, “There’s something we all want to avoid …” and continued his slow march home, thinking about death again.

Entering his house, echoes of humiliation nagged at him as he walked by his empty bookshelves. The materials that lived on the shelves were supposed to be on display at the library. He donated his materials when their funding was cut and imagined them being ecstatic with gratitude, creating a glorious exhibit to celebrate the donation. Instead, he found scraps of his work in the dumpster the next day. Since then, he couldn’t stand to work next to the empty shelves. He preferred to spend his evenings watching life go by in the garden. He mused aloud to various creatures, enjoying that they could not dismiss his ideas.

Empedocles picked up and shook a bowl lightly when he entered the garden. “There you are, Carissa,” he said as a cat wandered into view. He waited for her to come to the bowl and gently stroked her back as she ate.

“You’ll never believe the day I had. Well, you probably would. It’s the same old story.”

Carissa looked at him and licked her lips.

“Yeah, I know. I need to do better with work. It’s all I have. It’s just not what I’m built to do. I’m not supposed to be a scribe. I’m meant to be thinking.”

Carissa stretched and left to clean herself. Empedocles wondered what life would be like as a cat. Would she know when strife began to pull her apart? Would she worry over it? Prepare? He wished he understood his discoveries better. When Greece took him seriously, he had resources available to him that would help in his quest. Now he had nothing. No way of studying love and strife the way he needed to. No way of finding answers to why strife had to occur and what, if anything, could be done to avoid it if it came too early.

Mount Aetna stared at Empedocles and he looked back, cringing over the events of the day. He couldn’t do anything right lately. Nobody listened to his ideas. He couldn’t do his job correctly. He had nothing saved for the future. He hadn’t even managed to find a wife to love and care for him. No children to whom he could pass on his knowledge. Maybe it was best that strife was ripping him apart. Maybe it was a mercy.

He imagined what might end up happening to his body and soul as strife continued its destructive path. Would he become tired? It hardly seemed possible. He was exhausted by every day of his tedious life. Maybe, though, strife was nearer than he thought. Maybe the exhaustion was a sign. His body was giving up. It was losing its grip on the roots of life. “Good riddance,” he thought. “I have nothing to live for anyway.”

As he thought, panic stirred inside him and pride cried out for survival. He was not ready. This couldn’t be the end. Not like this. Not alone and worthless. There had to be more, he thought, as he stared at Aetna. But what could be done?

“Look at her, Carissa,” he said. “Silent for so long. You’d think she died. If a great volcano can die, what hope is there for—"

Empedocles stopped as smoke spat suddenly from Aetna’s mouth. The ground shook under his feet, and he looked down and back at the volcano. “That’s odd. Do you think she heard me?” He looked around for the cat, but she darted away when the quake began. Empedocles gazed back at Aetna and thought about how she could be silent for so long but not dead—how she could so easily come back to life.

“Aetna? Can you hear me?”

More smoke plumed out of Aetna’s mouth, and Empedocles’s eyes flashed with a spark of panicked inspiration. He knew what it was—what could bring him back to a life that he could be proud of. The key to immortality. Earth. Fire. Air. Water. It was all there. All there in Aetna’s mouth. That’s why she couldn’t die. She had a never-ending supply of the stuff—all the way to the center of the Earth. This was it. This was what he was waiting for. He paced around the garden, muttering under his breath.

“Aetna is the key. If the elements inside her are undying, what does that mean for me? How can I harness that power? What would happen if I could? What would I even do with it? What is she trying to tell me?”

More smoke arose out of Aetna, and the ground gave another wobble as Empedocles asked questions. As the earth shook, he had an epiphany. “Yes, of course! I must go to the source and let her elements merge with my own! I’ve got it! It’s Aetna!”

He rushed to the town center to share the miracle with his friends. All of Greece would remember Empedocles once more when they heard what he discovered.

He found a group he knew and ran towards them, shouting. “It’s the volcano! If we leap into the volcano, let the elements combine with our own, we’ll be gods!” His eyes had a manic gleam pulsing in them as he spoke, and the group he addressed stared at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“Mount Aetna! Immortality! I’ve got the key to immortality, and it’s in Mount Aetna’s mouth!” Empedocles waited for praise and acclaim to pour over him.

Blank eyes watched Empledocles’s excited state. “So. You’re saying. We should. Leap? Into the volcano.”

“Yes! She’ll give us the greatest gift if we do!”

“Yeah … I don’t think that’s right.”

“Yeah, man, that’s not how volcanoes work.”

“Pretty sure you’d just die.”

He stared at his friends in shock. How could they not understand? It was so obvious! Aetna told him what to do! No, they could not dissuade him. He knew. He knew he had cracked the codes of death. And he would show them. They would soon be proud of his work again.

That night, Empedocles’s body was still, but his mind stirred rapidly over the warmth of immortality. He fumed over the reception his ideas received with his friends.

“Well, if they won’t believe me, I will leap into Mount Aetna!”

Empedocles felt the ground shake again in response, and he knew Aetna approved. He rolled to his side and imagined life as a god before falling asleep.

* * *

The next day at work, Empedocles informed his boss of his plan.

Alexei rolled his eyes and replied, “You’re not throwing yourself in a volcano.”

“No but I am. It’s going to be great. I’ll come right out, and we’ll be able to make real changes around here. No more scribal duties. I’ll find much better work for all of us. You all can be my research assistants! Work for a god! Won’t that be wonderful?! I will make this whole office something special. We will unravel the mysteries of the universe. The gods will look on us with favor!”

“Stop being ridiculous. None of that will happen. You’ll get burned up, and I’ll be out a scribe. Get back to work.”

“But you’re not listening! I can’t work today. I must work on this! It’s important!”

“No. It’s not. Getting those tablets recorded is important. The Senate’s getting antsy with the earthquakes starting again and they want as much done as possible in case …”

“In case what? The earthquakes are nothing! Aetna’s talking to me! Telling me what to do with my life!”

“Empe … just … go to your desk. I can’t talk about this anymore.”

Empedocles sat at his desk. His foot tapped the ground rapidly, and his eyes darted about looking for someone to talk to. The other scribes noticed the look in his eyes and steered away from his desk, hoping to avoid the time-wasting chatter they’d endure if he trapped them in conversation.

Begrudgingly, he gave up finding someone to chat with and sketched out ideas regarding Aetna’s communication with him. Smoke, earthquakes, winds … he’d have to pay careful attention to her—every bit of activity was important. He knew if he waited until her final explosion, he would be too late. She’d go back to sleep. He theorized that the earthquakes would signal how close that moment was.

“Morning, Empe! What are you working on?” A new scribe peered over his shoulder and read, “‘Must go before the final belch?’ That’s weird. Senate worried about Aetna?”

“No, no, this is for a plan I have. I’m going to be immortal!” Empedocles waited for the stunned silence to pass and the warm excitement to arrive.

“Hm … well … how d’you imagine that’d work?”

“It’s all inside Aetna, see? In her heart, there’s an unlimited supply of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. That’s why she never dies. She sleeps, sure, just as we do but she never goes through strife the way we do. I’ve discovered that if we place ourselves at Aetna’s heart, her elements will merge with our own, and we will also be immortal!”

The scribe was quiet for a moment. “Place ourselves … in her heart … do you mean jump into the volcano?”

“Precisely!”

“And what makes you think that’ll work?”

“Aetna told me!”

“The volcano … told you …”

“Indeed!”

The scribe looked around and saw the other’s glancing at him and giggling. Nobody liked to warn the newcomers about Empedocles, preferring to watch them squirm when they encountered his ramblings. As he stared at his co-workers, he realized Empedocles was still talking. “And then I’ll be a god! Wouldn’t you want to witness such a miracle?!”

“Uh … sure. Listen, I need to get to work,” and he side-stepped from Empedocles to where the others had clustered.

“So, you’ve met Empedocles?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking back at him feverishly scribbling notes that had nothing to do with scribal work. “What’s with him?”

“Ah, he’s an old philosopher. They’re all a bit mad, especially when folks stop listening to them.”

Empedocles kept his head down, trying not to hear what the others were saying. If he just stayed focused on Aetna, they would see. He would prove them all he was a philosopher worth listening to.

* * *

Empedocles studied Aetna in earnest. His workstation became a mass of materials associated with the volcano. Sketches, formulas, musings, and any other ideas he had to spare covered his forgotten scribal duties.

“Oh, for the love—” Alexei said when he saw the state of Empedocles’s desk. “Empe, you’re done. You can’t sit all day working on this volcano madness. There’s scribing needing done. Go home. We’ll see about hiring you again when your sanity’s returned.”

Empedocles was tired of being told his idea was not worth anything. “Fine. But I’ll come back, Alexei. I’ll come back a god, and you’ll regret treating me like this.”

Alexei laughed. “Just get out.”

Empedocles gathered his things in his arms and stormed out of the office while the others watched him leave. Finally, no more strange distractions.

While walking home, Empedocles fumed to himself, “Who does he think he is, firing me when I’m onto something so groundbreaking? I don’t need him. I need Aetna. She’ll help me see this through, and Alexei will wish he hadn’t gotten rid of me.”

He walked at a frenzied pace, staring down, clutching his materials, and muttering calculations. “Aetna’s heat is key. I know that much. It holds everything in place. But it won’t burn me. No. Aeta wouldn’t. She couldn’t! The heat will cure me, and I’ll be alive again. A god. A God! Imagine. Everyone will be thrilled to hear my ideas.” People shuffled quickly out of Empedocles’s way as he forced his way through town. Many looked back in irritation, wondering what was wrong with the chattering scribe.

When he arrived home, he shoved his papers into the nearest bookshelf and marched to the garden to observe Aetna. He watched the faint smoke drifting lazily out of her mouth and wondered what it meant. Why was it so hard to communicate with his savior?

He jumped when he felt something soft brush against his leg and looked down. “Hi, Carissa. You’ll never guess what happened. Alexei let me go. Me! After what I discovered! Can you believe it?”

The cat swatted at a fly and skirted around Empedocles to check her food dish.

“I know. I know. We need to find another way to get food. But you’re right about needing to be rid of those little insects. They are useless. All of them. Now I can spend my time with Aetna. Listen for when she calls me to her for the transformation. There’s no way I’ll miss it now.”

* * *

Weeks went by. Dark circles formed under Empedocles’s eyes and the hollows of his cheeks deepened as he lost both weight and sleep. He spent his days rushing around his home, listening to Aetna and moving back to his desk to write down her responses.

“What’s that, dear?”

The wind blew on his face as Empedocles listened intently.

“Yes, of course. We can’t do this at night. It must be first thing in the morning. Give a full day for the transformation. Let me write that down.”

Carissa watched him scuttle inside and returned to playing with discarded papers scattered around the garden.

“Ok, so it needs to be morning,” Empedocles said when he returned. “What morning, though? When do you want me to come to you?”

The air became still, and Empedocles waited.

“Ok, you think about it.” He looked around the garden and saw Carissa staring at him. “Everything’s ok. She’s just thinking things over. Are you hungry?”

Carissa snaked her way through the garden to follow Empedocles into the house. “Well, we don’t have a lot. Just some bread and … bread. I’ll add some water, and that’ll be fine. You take it. I’m not hungry.”

Carissa sniffed at the bowl and left to hunt in nearby gardens. Empedocles stared after her, shrugged, and went back to watching Aetna for signs of communication.

But Aetna had grown mysteriously still since her last message, and Empedocles struggled to explain why. The people of the town seemed relieved that the volcano calmed down. They stopped preparing their lives for disaster and returned to normal routines. Empedocles, however, became frantic with worry the longer she ignored him. He stood in the garden asking her questions.

“Why have you stopped talking? Have you changed your mind? Did you realize something about me?”

He waited for a response but encountered more silence. Empedocles wrung his hands and paced around the garden.

“I knew it. You changed your mind. I’m a fraud. I don’t deserve immortality. Curse the gods, I know it! My ideas aren’t meant for never-ending life. What was I thinking?!” He slumped himself to bed while Carissa chased a mouse.

He laid there for two days, alternating between sleeping and staring at the walls. While he slept on the second day, he had a dream. He walked out to his garden to bid good morning to Aetna and found her missing. He rubbed his eyes, trying to fix the hallucination. Nothing but empty horizon. It wasn’t enough that she stopped talking to him, but she had now disappeared forever. Empedocles gasped himself awake in a panic, feeling as though the whole world was moving until he realized the world was moving. Aetna was causing the earth to shake again.

Empedocles ran outside to check on Aetna and relief flooded his body as he realized she had returned. It was time! She was waiting to give him the signal! She hadn’t given up on him at all! He had shown her he was ready to be a god!

“Tomorrow morning! Everything will be ok in the morning!” Empedocles thought as he went back to bed.

After he awoke, Empedocles pulled on his best shoes and left to make his announcement that he was heading to the volcano. What a reception he would receive!

Empedocles pulled a small number of followers out of bed who agreed to come with him to the foot of the mountain. They were not at all as Empedocles had hoped. They were quiet and baffled rather than jubilant and admiring.

“Are you seriously going to do this?” one asked. “You know this isn’t going to work, right?”

“Yes, and you will wish you had not doubted me so when I return a god!”

“Empe, maybe you should just go back to Alexei. What have you even been eating at your house? Grass? You’re not looking well.”

“I’m fine. It’s all part of the process. Aetna needed to cleanse my system before making me a god.”

His friend shook his head, “Whatever you say, man.”

“I’m telling you this will work! It will! I will be a god!”

Most of the followers wanted to see how far Empedocles would go in his quest for immortality. They all believed he would see reason and back out once he got to the mouth of the volcano. They did not believe his theory for immortality had left him a total madman. The heat erupting out of Aetna would return him to his senses. He couldn’t possibly follow through. The mania in his voice made them question this assumption briefly, but they shook the doubt out of their heads. Once he felt Aetna’s true power, he would realize his madness. There was no way …

They were underestimating, though, the amount of time Empedocles had on his own. He felt at the end of his rope before Aetna revealed to him the secret to everlasting life, and now that he had left everything behind that kept his life somewhat together, she was his only chance at survival. Without Aetna, Empedocles would be facing poverty. He found himself backed into a philosophical and financial corner in his desperate bid to show he was worth more than he had thus far proven in his life. Now dear Aetna must one way or another get him out of it.

Empedocles left his followers behind to continue climbing. They did not look excited, and his eyes darted back and forth from the top of the mountain to his friends below. Butterflies stirred in his stomach, and his blood fled around his body. He looked down at his bronze sandals in a moment of pause. The sandals he was so proud to wear at the height of his success but refused to wear after he took the scribal position. The sandals he would have to sell if he turned around. The feet that would have to beg Alexei for another chance. He looked back up at Aetna and imagined emerging triumphant from the mouth of the volcano. A halo of immortal light surrounding him and his friends gazing up in awe. “He was right!” they’d say in disbelief. Everything would work out. Aetna would not fail him. Empedocles started climbing again.

The followers stared at his retreating form.

“Why are we watching him kill himself?”

“What else are we going to do? He won’t listen to reason.”

“I guess. Seems a bit wrong to just let him do it.”

“Ok, you go up there and try. He’ll probably drag you in there with him. Say he’s doing you a favor.”

“Gods. What a fool.”

“Hello, dear,” Empedocles said as he tried to look into Aetna’s mouth, only to be choked by heat and smoke. He coughed and spluttered over the fumes smothering his lungs. Now was the time. The moment. He heard a loud crack and felt a wave of heat surround him. His skin screamed with pain as the heatwave scorched his body.

“My mortality is shedding its skin!”

Empedocles took a breath, coughed, and dove into the volcano. When his face met the ground, he spat out curses, realizing the smoke clouded his perceptions and made him misjudge the distance to Aetna’s mouth. Humiliation tore at him as he scrambled on the ground, hoping his friends had not seen his blunder. He crawled and coughed and worked his way to the edge of the volcano. When he got there, he saw clearly for the first time in months what was about to happen to him. He thought miserably of all his failures and of his hopes and heaved himself forward.

“What’s that?”

“That can’t be?”

Empedocles’s followers gazed at the flying object and watched as it landed at their feet. No, it was not Empedocles. It was one of his bronze sandals.

After marveling at the lost shoe for a moment, one said, “Well … I guess we better get back …”

“What should we do with that?’

“Leave it. He’d want it near his precious volcano. Maybe he’ll come out and retrieve it when she’s done making him a god.”

The followers laughed uncomfortably and made their way down the mountain.

“Should we grab breakfast?”

“Yeah, I could go for food.”

Their voices faded as the sandal glittered in the sun and smoke belched out of the final resting place of the mad philosopher Empedocles.

About the author

Cassandra Pfeifer is an Instructor of English at McCook Community College. She holds a PhD in English and Folklore from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She is originally from Northern Illinois and received her B.A. from Northern Illinois University and M.A. from the University of Essex. She has work published at Cordella Press and Noctivagant Press.

About the illustrator

Yaleeza Patchett has been creating whimsical art and illustrations since a child; her inspiration comes from the cartoons, comic strips and animated movies she grew up with. In 2016, Yaleeza began expanding her art into her own business named Rowan Ink. It began with a simple pair of hand-painted, custom-made shoes for a friend’s birthday. Through her artistic journey she has expanded into different art mediums, but her true passion is sketching, illustrating and painting. Yaleeza currently resides in the south side of Indianapolis with her husband, her dog, and her cat. You can find her current artwork at Rowaninkstudio.com.