Starbucks on the Corner of Appian Way and the Forum, 476 A.D. ~ fiction by Virginia Nelson

Claudio reties his apron as he waits for the barbarian to order. When the beast flips a hankie out from under a flap in his leather kilt, he catches the glint of a sword tucked up against the man’s massive girth.

“Venti, triple shot, half caff macchiato, extra caramel with whip,” the barbarian says and wipes his face. Chunks of last night’s rotisserie fall from his beard. He hocks up a wad and spits it on the floor. Claudio sighs.

“Name?” Claudio says and hovers his chisel over the mug.

“Urich,” the barbarian spats.

“You mind spelling that?” Claudio asks, but the barbarian is already gone, lumbering down the counter toward a set of souvenir mugs. They’re cheap little things, mass produced each week by Claudio himself with a form, not a wheel. The barbarian picks one up, turns it over in his hand, then places it back on the shelf.

Claudio is averse to clay on principle. He prefers to sculpt nudes out of stone. He crashed for a few months with Gianni, who would sit for him on their balcony overlooking the aqueduct. Gianni, fifteen years his senior, would remove his toga with a swift slip of his hand and toss it over the railing before striking a pose he could hold for hours. Claudio sketched Gianni from every angle, till his charcoal stick was a nub between his fingers, then they’d make love until twilight fell over the stone archways and cobbled streets below.

It was a torrent affair that ended with cutting accusations and four life-size sculptures carved out of marble. Gianni kept three for himself as retribution, but Claudio, with the help of a few handy neighbors—gladiators—in the apartment below, was able to haul the fourth to the Forum where it was picked up by a visiting prince who felt it held an uncanny likeness to his own endowments.

The barbarian barks, pulling Claudio from the memory of this brief time when his art paid for him to eat.

“We’re out of milk,” Claudio says and tips the bucket forward so the barbarian can see. He excuses himself to the alley where he kneels beside Fiore and gently pulls at her teat to start the trickle of milk. She kicks in protest and Claudio hums to sooth her, offering her a chunk of carrot from his apron pocket. She gave her all for the morning rush, thinks Claudio as he fills the bucket as best he can. Fiore, the only survivor of last week’s pillage, had the forethought to faint—the way goats do when startled by raging looters—behind the stack of hay she stood on instead of in front of it, thus preserving her life and his job. Claudio wonders if the barbarians stopped to think about their morning lattes as they slit the throats of the ungulates and left the bodies to bloat behind the store.

There is a line when Claudio returns to the counter. Men jostle and huff as they wait to be served. A Visigoth hoists a sandal above his head and snorts senseless words at Claudio. He bumps his chest against the Vandal in front of him and they fall like dominoes, a pile of unshaven rioters folding onto the counter. I’m not paid enough for this, Claudio thinks.

He took this job in the time before his city was under siege and planned to stay only until he built up his portfolio. He promised to use it as fuel for his art and for the first few months, he drank it in. On break he sat al fresco with golden haired muses and sipped coffee the way Juno intended, ristretto and black. They debated the value of Constantinian inclinations versus Severen, swooned over the latest mosaic installation at the Colosseum. They relished in their passion for the human form, for the supple belly of woman, the angled flesh of man. He ate scones and egg sandies freely from the pastry case. The abundance of the cafe felt inevitable and eternal. But that was yesterday.

Today, the din in the room grows unbearable. Men skid across the counter and grab at croissants and muffins. They fill their cheeks and stuff the extras behind their breastplates. Urich pounds the wall with the hilt of his sword. He pounds so hard the mugs tremble on the shelf until they fall. The fired clay shatters when it hits the packed dirt floor. Claudio knocks spent grounds from the portafilter in time with the barbarian. He steams a vat of milk and dumps three shots of espresso through the foam. He drizzles caramel in a double crisscross over a pile of whipped topping.

By dawn tomorrow, the street is on fire. Claudio walks to work anyway, and as he walks, he catches Gianni’s face in a high window. Flames lap at the pale cheeks and chiseled nose while the barbarians bring the building to its knees with their torches. Claudio watches it burn and, with all the apathy he can muster, he succumbs to this modern life.

Virginia Nelson lives and writes in a tiny town nestled against the North Cascades in Washington State with her family. She has recent work in The Corvus Review.