Jungle on Gromet's Plaza Archive

Reunion Awry

Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

“You’re in number 12. All the way at the end.” The uniformed man on the flight line waved Jim toward a waiting aircraft at the far end of the row. Jim made his way toward number 12, winding through knots of people and individuals, all as lost as he was. Half remembered faces smiled or frowned at him, maybe struggling to remember his name.

A line of VTOL aircraft, stinking pavement, barked orders, and vaguely familiar people were not part of his ideal tenth high school reunion. Of course, nothing was normal where Colliersburg was concerned.

Jungle danger

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This story contains scenes of crushing and bones breaking, not for the faint hearted.

A group of herpetologists, connected to several universities, were planning a trip to the Amazon rain forests to further their knowledge of reptiles; particularly South American snakes. During their preliminary discussion of arrangements, a rumour arose of a very large snake that had been interfering with the lives of villagers in a particular part of the forest. Several villagers had disappeared over the years, but the local opinion was that this was the work of one or more jaguars. The scientists agreed that they should make that area the base for their research. If there was a large snake living in the vicinity they were almost duty bound to find it and do some trials. Their base was located near the village and a week before they arrived, a villager lost a large dog in circumstances that made it unlikely to be the work of a big cat.

Dropping In For The Feast

Sat, 13 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I had been living in the jungle on and off for the last three years studying several tribes of people who had their natural food supplies wiped out. There was some exploratory mining in the area several years ago, and the actions of the heavy machinery temporarily displaced much of the natural wildlife from the lush region. Most tribes had moved to where the food animals had moved to, and as a result were doing fine. Others had benefited from MRE’s, and other kinds of food dropped from huge cargo planes, arranged by the mining company to provide for the tribes until the animals they ordinarily ate returned. The reason I was in the jungle was even after the animals had returned, the various tribes had not all returned to their previous self sufficient ways of life, and this offered itself as a living experiment on human behavior. The experiment was especially interesting as it mirrored what a great deal of “civilised” society was also doing these days.