April Showers

[Atrice]

April, 77AD

 It was sometimes amazing how time would just fly by. And yet, everything was the same. It was like the wind and you never knew where it would take you. For now though, Manius had returned to where it all began, more or less. His father had worked at the slave markets. Manius had done the same, when he was old enough. Right until he was stupid enough to gamble and become way too indebted, so that his wife and son were murdered. He put himself on a pedestal on the slave market instead. Became what he used to command. Eventually, freed again. Life took him from one place to the next and suddenly, he was here again.

 Nothing had changed really. Life was much the same as always, he thought. And Manius did tend to think too much. For now, he was done with the day’s work with Spurius’ lot of slaves, so he made his way across the market, planning to go home to the simple one-room insula he lived in now. He couldn’t stay in Spurius’ warehouse and be a burden there, that was not fair.

 There wasn’t much life in his eyes these days. He worked hard, did what he was supposed do when he worked. But there was little left to enjoy besides that. Spring was coming though. He remembered lovely days in the gardens of Sullust with Salacia. But she too was gone. The only joy he had left in his life, gone too. Manius sighed and looked to the sky. It had been dark all day, the weather felt heavy and now, of course, before he got very far from his working place, it began raining. The rain quickly went from a drizzle to a pour. He sighed again. This was his lot in life.

 Everyone else ran for shelter from the rain. Manius didn’t care. Instead he let the rain soak his hair as he continued walking. It almost felt liberating. Almost.

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