Siam Chronicles 8 - The Headless Trees of Koh Phi Phi

A Pocketful of Stumbles in the Dark

The turbulent shouting began to mizzle through the midnight streets just as we were luffing into a most welcome bed. Within seconds the whole town was pullulated with commotion - my first irrational thought was that a massive brawl had broken out. I began pulling on some clothes, but Alex instead threw the blanket over his head with a well phrased imprecation. Then a strange quiet fell outside, I paused to listen. Suddenly the shoddy door came alive with concussive knocking. The shaky messenger was short in stature and words, dropping a quick "Tsunami alert, get out now," before he sprinted on to the next dimly lit doorway.
In less than a minute we were out the door, entrained in the wake of a shadowy aggregation of grim locals flowing silently up a dark crevass via an extemporaneous ladder. The weathered rope in question was not a welcome sight. I never had to climb the Fabled Gym Class Rope, and if I had I would have assiduously failed - possibly with unbecoming gusto. But with the help of brave souls who were staying behind to shepherd the less agile up the incline, in a heave I was up and scambling to the top of the mountain, scraping through the jungle's dark reticulum of thorns and branches, often on my hands and knees. Flashlight! Why didn't I bring a flashlight? I thought, as I slipped or tripped and fell on my butt again and again. This was apparently a common oversight, as the dull blue glow of LED lights from sporadic cell-phones, casting sickeningly swaying shadows through the muffled corridor of leaves, were our only fleeting guides in an acclivous headlong dash through the brush, stumbling over pits and stumps, and up, up, up.
I have never climbed a mountain so fast in my life.
At the top a huddled group hummed with terrified whispers - there had been a 7.3 earthquake in Phuket. The mosque's loudspeakers had been converted into an alarm system, issuing the official government warning with calm and unnaturally tinny tones that threaded through the hushed and heavy air in that aphotic clearing. The only movement, the only sound in that stifling well of trees, were the mosquitoes, thick as fog, obscuring the bleak gibbous moon framed in the fuliginous branches, their termagent whine implacable.
After an unknowable amount of time the first drained bits of chatter began. It was all locals up there, survivors of the tragedy, and a Dutch couple, very young, very afraid. I began an asinine colloquy with them about god knows what to keep their mind from their fear. The pallid red-headed girl was fairly quaking with it, teeth chattering in the heat, I heard myself talking spewing some drivel about Amsterdam's museums, but it seemed to be working.
Over an hour later the unceremonious all's clear came, and we made our halting way back down, helping each other, taking our time. At the bottom the sentinels of Koh Phi Phi were waiting, a handful of headless palm trees, grosgrain pillars to the sky, a lingering reminder amidst the palimpsest rubble swath of the destruction and tragedy of the waves.
No one slept that night, horrifying memories flooding some, blossoming élan vital pulsing through the rest - Alex and I and the young Dutch couple ran laughing through the dark waves, and pulled up a rough-hewn bench amidst a sea of candlelit faces to drink overpriced beer and speak of future plans.