The news of an earth tremor in New Zealand, this morning sparked a memory of a story told to me years ago by a bloke who'd been working in the highlands of New Guinea.
The story starts out about an hour, hour and a half after dawn.
The jungle hums, a constant low level cacophony - birds, and more birds, and more birds (and countless varieties of insects) all vying to make noise, suddenly fell silent.
Deafeningly, utterly, completely silent.
Some of the local dogs started whining, and then barking.
One of the men he worked with said that a big tremor was coming, and that for safety they should get out onto the street.
He said We were standing out in the open, in a small park opposite the buildings, there was this incredible hush hanging in the air, you could almost touch it, and suddenly there was a thunderclap, an explosion that you could feel resonating inside you.
The flying foxes left the trees - an explosion of leathery wings, a shrill, shrieking mass, it was as though an orange and black curtain had been drawn across it, darkening the sky above the park.
Flying foxes, as he relates, when they're particularly agitated, relieve themselves. Copiously.
At this point I remember laughing, uproariously, at his predicament.
He never did get round to telling me about the tremor, ha ha.
