Sound of silence in an ash-covered city

I suppose I should have wondered about the unfamiliar silence that lay over the city of Yogjakarta in central Java when I was woken at 4am by the call of the muezzin to dawn prayers at the mosque.

The call itself seemed less impassioned, less urgent than it had the previous morning. It seemed farther away.

Then, too, as I tried to return to sleep, there were no aircraft passing low overhead every fifteen or twenty minutes. So, I got back to sleep easily — but only to be woken by a girl bringing breakfast at 6.20am.