Getting Stoned With Savages - J. Maarten Troost [58]
It was as I was standing there, enjoying the fruits of my labor, that I felt an astonishingly painful jolt on my foot. The blood suddenly drained from my head. Then I experienced another spasm of pain on my other foot. I looked down and saw a foot-long centipede scampering down the hillside.
It felt like the concentrated effort of a thousand wasps, all plunging their stingers into the same spot. The pain was horrendous. I felt decidedly wobbly.
“Centipede,” I cried hoarsely, staggering up toward the house in my flip-flops. I felt cold. My feet throbbed.
“Another one?” Sylvia asked.
My feet were beginning to feel numb, disconnected from the rest of my being. “It bit me,” I said, reaching the patio.
Sylvia gasped appreciatively. I felt odd, bloodless. Was this shock?
“Aspirin,” I said. “Do we have aspirin?”
“Tylenol,” Sylvia said, running inside the house to search through our supply of medicine. I took three tablets. I had no idea whether it would do any good.
“Do you want to go to the hospital?” Sylvia asked.
I considered. Island hospitals were places to be avoided if possible. And the morning after a cyclone, it was likely to be busy anyway. “Let’s just see what happens,” I wheezed.
The centipede had stung me on the tops of my feet. My left foot swelled to the size of an orange, my right foot to the size of a grapefruit. The skin around the wounds crinkled in a very strange manner, like elephant skin. I could hardly feel my feet. They dangled bizarrely. Well, I thought, what more could nature do?
A WEEK LATER, I found myself hobbling around the house. I had taken an island attitude toward my ailments. I was alive. Why see a doctor? Now and then, I’d pinch the tops of my feet, wondering if I’d ever have feeling again. They were still hideously swollen. It could be worse, I thought. At least I didn’t have to wear shoes.
I had noticed that the neighbors had rebuilt their nakamal. Excellent, I thought. Surely, a few bowls of kava would reduce the swelling. If not, I figured, at least I would find a certain equilibrium in the numbness.
“So, tell me what you see,” Sylvia asked as I awaited the red light of the nakamal. “One line or two?”
She thrust a thermometer-like contraption in my hands. “Well,” I said, “I see two lines, very clearly.”
“Do you know what that means?”
“No idea.”
“You’re going to be a daddy.”
IF THERE IS A STRANGER PLACE TO FIND ONESELF AT FIVE o’clock in the morning than perched atop the narrow rim of an active volcano, I cannot quite imagine what that place might be. But this is where we found ourselves one morning, cautiously peering into the steaming cauldron of Mount Yasur, a provocatively lively volcano on the island of Tanna.
We were playing a little game with Mother Nature. After the excitement of Cyclone Paula, we had asked her, What else you got? She responded with Cyclone Sose. Okay, we said, two cyclones within a month is pretty good. What else do you have? She came back with an earthquake. It arrived one afternoon, completely unannounced, which is the thing about earthquakes, their very suddenness. Say what you will about cyclones, but at least they call ahead. We were idling at home when suddenly the house lurched left and then right.
“Whoa,” I said.
And then the earth continued to shake and rumble, rising and falling in intensity, for eternal second after eternal second. “Let’s get out of here,” I said, reaching for Sylvia as the bookcase tottered and the lamp swayed. We dashed outside. The children across the road giggled.
So it wasn’t a ten on the Richter scale. But that’s what makes earthquakes, in my mind, so terrifying. If I had been told that on Saturday, at precisely 4:47 P.M., there was to be a magnitude 3.8 earthquake, well, I might have grabbed a Tusker, settled into my chair, and enjoyed myself. But earthquakes aren’t considerate like that. When the ground begins to shake, you have no idea whether this is going to be just a little tremble,