( Johnny Sandaire Photography)

At the Sacred Waterfall of Sautd'Eau

And we were clicking.

  “Look at that man.”

  “Get that woman in the river/”

  “The candles, get the smoke of the candles.”

  “That prayer group and the naked woman.”

  “Damn, look at that…”

  We paid no attention to each other, it was too good, too much and we had been blessed with beholding it.

  BOOM

  I looked down at my feet, a round white light exploded and imploded and vaporised. I looked up to see if anybody else had seen it and a little to my front I saw a man to my left and one to my right flying through the air. I turned to see Tomas’ feet suspended, clutching at his cameras protectively as he flew up and then landed on the wet uneven ground. Another man had landed with an oomph to the left of Tomas.

  A bomb, I thought, but I was still standing, still alive. I looked for a place to hide, and back to Tomas.

  “Come on, man.” I called to him, as he was automatically checking his cameras and wiping them.

  “Okay, okay,” he looked around, “what was it, a bomb?”

  I looked at one guy who had flown running back into the bush up the trail. People were gathering around another. The one fellow who had landed near Tomas was crawling toward me mumbling something. The Italians were trying to organise something for a woman who was frantically crying and pushing them away.

  “I don’t think it was a bomb… I’m still standing. I think it was lightning.” I agreed with myself, my ears ringing it difficult to think. I looked at the branches directly over our heads. “But, lightning doesn’t strike under a tree, does it?”