Iconic Fruit

The suspense was killing us.

Half an hour had passed since our arrival at the prime site, and so far nothing had moved except the sun that slipped in the sky like a raw yolk. My camera was hot in my hands, battery fully charged, its shutter open and ready for capturing.

A few of us had taken to pacing the empty road, creating awkward dances as feet tried to avoid black splats of poo. Concerns had been raised as to their size and the height from which they had been dropped. Suddenly looking up seemed a dubious action. But they had to be witnessed.   

One car had passed since our arrival, and was now parked on the roadside, the inhabitants our new companions on our so far uneventful exploit. They gabbled in Tagalog and smiled keenly at us with nodding heads.

My neck ached from craning back, my eyes were strained from peering into the growing gloom. But we would continue to wait.

This was the place, they’d told us. Not long now.

High in the trees hung leather cocoons, each the length of my arm. Every now and then one would twitch and shudder, then fall still as the pale shine of the sun insulted the nocturnal eyes within. Not quite yet.

I sat down with my back to the jungle. Dust on my legs mixed with the growing tan so that I did not recognise my own skin. I watched an ant with raised pincers charge at a leaf and decided to stand again.

That’s when the first gasp sounded.

Seven necks snapped back and witnessed the opening of hundreds of wings, the shaking out of hundreds of ears and the stretching of hundreds of fur-covered bodies. The trees were not so still anymore. The cocoons had spilt and creatures that looked like rotten fruit hanging from their branches were now alert and restless. There were flaps and kafuffles as the trees became too cramped a home for them. The blackened sky beckoned and boasted with space.

When the first took flight, my camera missed.

When the second took flight, it captured a blur; a smudge of coal on black.

When the rest swarmed like a rash across the sky, my camera caught and caught.  

Through the tunnel of the lens, I held the white moon and waited for the iconic silhouette of black wings.