The End Of The Golden Age
Life goes on after the Golden Age has (hath) ended.
New evidence has emerged that Pompeii continued to be settled after the volcanic eruption destroyed it. Possibly by about 4 centuries or so.
Survivors and scavengers formed a fragile community
Some of those who returned were likely former residents unable to rebuild their lives elsewhere. They were joined by newcomers seeking shelter or hoping to find valuables left behind by the city’s original population. Together, they formed an improvised community in the shadow of devastation.
The upper floors of damaged homes were reused for living, while the ash-buried ground levels became cellars equipped with ovens and grain mills. These informal dwellings lacked essential infrastructure.
There was no running water, sewage, or organized trade features once typical of Roman urban life. Many rooms filled with volcanic ash were repurposed as storage areas….
So there ya go. The end is not really the end. Things don’t necessarilly vanish in an instant. But things aren’t the same as they were.
I did the drawing above here partially inspired by a tower in Box Hill (sometimes known as Box Hirr) called Golden Age.
It’s a massive new bronze apartment tower that, together with a few others, towers over an endless single-residency suburbia. Box Hill has always been a strange anomaly in Melbourne Suburban Lore. In the 1990s it had this crazy novelty that was an underground railway station, just like in the CBD!
In many ways, going to Box Hill kinda felt like going to the future (ironic considering who now dominates that whole side of Melbourne). The subway station also featured a ghost platform that was never used (the mysterious platform 1) but was clearly visible from the other platforms. As per the wiki:
Platform 1 was used between 24 April 1983 and 9 June 1984,[3] while the rest of the new station was being built, and has been retained for possible future use. The platform has no track or lighting, and a McDonald's restaurant has been built over the ramp from the station concourse.
So Platforms 2,3 and 4 were the platforms used. Standing above it was a shopping centre and a heavy concentration of East-Asian businesses. I went there to go to Video Games Xpress to rent out 1990s video games and jap-anime VHS tapes. Even though there was a perfectly good Blockbuster Video in my own suburb of Camberwell, to get the edgiest shit out there you had to go to VideoGames Xpress in Box HIll. There was also a Darkzone lasertag joint where I had my 12th birthday. (That was definitely the best one I had. The rest were mostly rubbish).
The rest of Box Hill was essentially a Chinatown. These days it’s still a Chinatown, and kind of like Melbourne Central, but without the grime and nuisance of students and far less riff-raff generally. There are a few but its just too out of the way for most impoverished types to get there and congregate, at least that’s the way it seemed midweek.. The commercial area has also gotten alot larger care of the increasing number of money-launderers who now inhabit this plane. I was actually quite amazed by how clean the market area was. Plus the interesting novelty of a koalaroo stuffed animal.
The world is still full of amazing sites.
The Koalaroo. Or Kangoala. I dunno. But a curious novelty and probably the highlight of my week.
By the way, I would like to commend the amazing Tulsi Gabbard for doing so much to expose the deep-state rot and for now turning the flamethrower onto the great Arch-SheBitch Hilary Clinton. Attached is a great interview that Miranda Devine did. (Or read the summary here.)