plazma
Bluelighter
Paradise is a rare thing indeed, but you can find it in a million different ways. For me it’s spending a few brief hours, feeling like centuries in the pulsing sparkling coloured darkness with the people that I love. I can only tell you of my experience and you must find your own to compare it with.
The young man sits on a rock, staring out to sea. Inhaling slowly on the cigarette that now draws close to burning his tanned fingers. He stubs it out on the rock, twisting it as the sparks sputter onto the dampness. Watching as the sun gradually sinks below the sea, lighting the water with the colours of its fire, splashing pink and orange across the land behind him. The beach painted in red highlights as the sun sinks lower, gradually drawing the colours with it as the purple darkness envelops the scene. As the last of the light begins to fade, he stands slowly, brushing stray grains of sand from his khaki shorts, and walking, catlike, across the rocks without shoes, the white singlet catching the final flicker of the departing orange light as it disappears. He walks towards the bonfire, the flickering flames lighting up his black hair with their warmth and glow, reflecting in his eyes. A young woman runs to meet him, her form silhouetted by the blaze behind her. As she reaches him, she dives, catching him around the chest as they fall to the sand, rolling over and over kissing and hugging as if these moments were their last. She’s about 22, the same age as him, her accent English, contrasting her dark features and dreadlocked hair. They lie side by side for a second, before laughing and rising, walking back towards the fire. The others there, more smiling and laughing young men and women. A short guy with brown hair wearing trousers and no shirt, drinking lager out of a green bottle, spilling the froth on himself as he breaks into laughter. The young woman next to him, slightly taller, with the yellow flames highlighting her blonde hair turning to plant a kiss on his lips as she grabs the bottle from him. Lying next to a stereo sitting on a blanket spread on the sand is another young woman, lying on her back, her hazel eyes staring up at the stars as she inhales from a joint. The brief flare of light lights up the planes of her face for an instant before she exhales a thin stream of smoke into the warm night air. Alongside her, a young man with blonde hair, wearing shorts and a T-shirt rolls to his knees and flicks at the stereo. It thumps into life, filling the night air with a beat so liquid that it spills down the beach, rolling into the surf. Another young couple appear, almost at the behest of the music, walking down the beach from a huddle of huts and cars parked on the grass and between the palm trees. Walking together, a tall, dark young man, and his shorter girlfriend, arms clasped around each other’s waists as they join the group laughing and smiling next to the fire.
The waves roll gently into the South American beach, breaking in a swish as they lap smoothly at the sand. I’d be impolite not to introduce myself, although I feel that beginning in the third person was useful to show you who we are. I’m predictably the guy you met first, I’m too vain to have it any other way, my name is Felix. The girl who ran to meet me, my girlfriend Kat, the one I love, and certainly my significant other by any definition. The others, the short guy with brown hair, Jamie, his girlfriend the blonde, François, The girl smoking the joint, Louisa, and her boyfriend Alex, the one playing with the stereo. The last couple are Brendan and Alicia.
It’s only 6:00pm, and we’re just beginning to celebrate the coming of our communal dream, we’re done with all we’ve strived for all these years. We’ve finished our university degrees, we’ve achieved our goals and we’re celebrating our dreams on this remote beach. Something we’d promised all these years ago that we’d do, and now we’re here. Best friends together, in the first week of a joint travelling epic we’re hoping will span half the world and all the fun bits at that.
I sit on a log next to the fire, the light flickering around me, splashing onto the green bottle in my hands. Sipping the lager and laughing as another joke is cracked by Alex, and the music begins to flow inside my soul. Kat’s sitting next to me, leaning up against me, we’re never far away from each other, and we’re two halves of the same person, separated for too long. It’s no wonder that people that don’t know us assume we’re only just together when we’ve been together for over six beautiful months. Kat doesn’t drink much, I don’t normally either, but on this occasion I’m breaking the rules because it’s not common in this life that we meet our goals and find our dreams in tropical paradise with the people we love. She snuggles against me again, and I wrap my arm around her as she’s chuckling. I look across the fire at Jamie, who’s rubbing François’s back in between swigs of beer, he’s been my friend for ages, and I guess he always will. He’s been looking forward to this for as long as me and we’ve spent many nights and days planning this trip ever since we were teenage boys. Alex is still lying next to the stereo, soaking up the trance pouring out of it, another real party freaker like me. I met him at a rave a few years back, the way you meet people when you’re pilling and everyone’s your friend. This guy and I just clicked, I introduced him to Louisa who was with me at the time. They met for coffee a few times and they’ve been together virtually ever since. Brendan, shit, how can I introduce someone who’s been my buddy for ever, and will be for ever, I’ve known him since I was a little kid, but we become better and better friends every day. His girlfriend, Alicia, extremely good looking, compliments him perfectly, they’re a Hollywood couple, and I used to watch them with envy, till I met Kat. I look up from the fire again and Louisa’s on her feet, dancing slowly, weaving her hips and arms around like a Balinese dancer. I stand up, the sand falling from my butt back onto the sand, kiss Kat on the lips slowly and wave the bottle in the direction of the others.
"I’d like to propose a toast, to our achievements, to friendship, and to this earthly paradise"
The others laugh their approval and hands and bottles are lifted in salute. I leave Kat and walk over to my bag lying on the sand, extracting the foil wrapped cigars from their box, strolling back, unwrapping them and walking, placing them between the lips of all my friends, lighting them with a burning twig as we chuckle in the tropical night. Jamie, the self appointed chief cook, shouts from behind his cigar that dinner is in order. We reluctantly walk away from the fire up towards the electric light of the cabins. Kat walks at my side, her body warm against mine. I’m almost waiting to wake up, because life doesn’t get this good. I chuckle at my stupid thoughts through the fuzzy haze of lager. Kat turns to me good-humouredly.
"What are you laughing about, you maniac?"
I chuckle some more and then reply.
"You, me, us, this, where we are, you know, everything in general. I love it when life turns out like this."
She murmurs her assent as we slow to a stop, I stand on the edge of the grass, looking back down the sand to the bonfire and the beach. Looking at the stars sparkling like tiny specks of glass scattered across the sky. Moving to face each other of the same accord, kissing and spinning around, we walk on to the cabins where the others are waiting for us.
Jamie’s excelled himself as usual, the smarmy bastard. I tell him this as I dig him in the ribs. The dinner is brilliant, Stir fry, with all kinds of strange vegetables he’s turned up out of almost nowhere. There’s more lager to go with it, and white wine, and we laugh even more together, speaking with mouths full and contradicting each other with friendly argument. Jokes flowing and the good humour almost bubbling in the warm tropical air surrounding us. The cabins are pretty good considering the price we rented them for, but the remoteness that would normally dissuade the tourists, encouraged us in a sense of adventure. We’ve got to travel several kilometres to a village to buy food and other necessities like cigarettes, pot and alcohol. The cabins are well equipped, but definitely not pretentious. We finish dinner, and begin to walk down towards the fire once more. There’s a babble of conversation, springing back and forth between the participants, I’m hanging back a little, watching everyone else walk towards the flames. People drape themselves around the fire, leaning on the smooth driftwood logs that we’d dragged up next to the fire. Foam cascades into the air as Alex pops the top on a beer, the shower catching Brendan, who charges him, they both collapse backwards over the log, the beer spilling over themselves. François and Jamie walk off down to the surf, trailing hand in hand, wading into the warm water fully dressed. Covered in beer, Alex and Brendan follow them, sprinting down and tackling François and Jamie, and all four disappear for a second beneath a welter of foam. I watch them for a second, chuckling as I light another cigarette and turn the volume of the stereo up. The sound booms out over the night water, and Alicia, Kat, Louisa and I run down to join the others. As I’m walking into the surf, surprised by the warmth of the water, Alex, seeing my state of partial dryness, whips an arm round my leg, and I collapse into the waves, the cigarette fizzing out. I emerge laughing at nothing in particular. The fire flickers on the water, and we stand or float, talking, laughing, splashing each other. I’m floating away from the others, lying on my back staring up at the stars, when Kat flings herself at me, splashing water into my eyes and mouth. I submerge for a second, surfacing and reaching for Kat, holding her to me. I can feel the heat from her body as I wrap my tongue around hers, staring into her eyes, seeing the stars reflected in one, the fire in the other. The water swirls around us and we stand for a small eternity before a wave sweeps us both off our feet and we’re content to lie floating and laughing, holding each other.
As the time moves towards 8, we begin to filter back up towards the fire, Alex and Louisa first, both running up the beach to the flickering heat of the fire. Kat and I follow them, and Jamie and François walk after us, Brendan and Alicia are still sitting in the shallows, talking and laughing as the waves wash around them. Alex is drinking from another bottle of beer, alternating sips with Louisa. I’m struggling to dry myself to the point where I can roll a joint that won’t be too wet to smoke. The zippo cracks and its flame, played by the slight breeze ignites the tip, I inhale deeply, holding the hot smoke in my lungs before exhaling a long thin stream of smoke as the tension goes out of my muscles and I relax. Kat steals the joint off me, inhales and exhales, and the night stretches, vast and beautiful ahead of us. Louisa, smiles at me across the fire, I wink back, a private joke between friends who’ve been around for so many years we couldn’t bother to count. She slinks around the fire and inhales from the joint still held by Kat, exhaling the smoke upward at the night sky. Alex is busy rolling another, and I throw him the zippo before he gestures to me for it, he catches it in one hand with a downward flick of his fingers, opening it and igniting it in the same gesture. I laugh and clap, appreciating his display of talent, he’d call it wasted youth in his bubbly sense of humour. Jamie and François are lying on the blanket next to the stereo, the end of a joint glows an inch from François’s lips, the flare revealing the smooth planes of her face, reflecting in her eyes. I cast a glance down to the shallows where Brendan and Alicia are rising from the water, walking gradually up the beach to us. As they arrive, I stand and throw another log of driftwood onto the fire. The sparks rise lazily upwards, blinking out in astonishing suddenness in the black of the night sky. Brendan sits on a log, and Alicia sits on the sand, her back resting against his legs. I cough, clearing my throat.
"Does everyone agree that this is the best night of their lives? I mean guys, doesn’t it blow your collective minds that here and now is what we’ve been looking forward to for 3 years or more. We’re finally here, we’ve done it"
I walk over towards Brendan, he slaps my hand with a high five.
"Yeah" He says. "I guess we’re standing here, now on the edge of the rest of our lives, and I have to say, that from here, the view is really something".
I laugh at this, and I can’t help but love everything about these people, these friends, who I’d give my life for, and who would give theirs for me.
"Fuck it! I love you guys! I know life can’t always be this good, but what we’ve had here, so far tonight, and for the rest of the night if it’s any indication, is a taste of paradise."
I was fairly wasted by this point. As if to affirm this, there is a low chuckle from the direction of Jamie and François, Jamie speaks up slowly.
"Felix, you are fucking wasted, but I love you buddy!"
I turn towards Louisa, who’s laughing loudest, they’re all laughing and I’m laughing too, attempting to put on my best ‘who? Me’ look, which lasts only as long as it takes for me to fall over the back of the log onto the sand. Kat grabs me and attempts to pull me into a sitting position, failing this she collapses onto the sand as well, resting her head on my chest. I shout to Alex, the best joint roller of our party.
"Alex, old buddy, pal" He laughs again, a deep laugh.
"Now I know he wants something off me, what the hell do you want?"
"You’ll be my friend for life if you pass me that joint!"
"You saying I’m not your friend for life?"
"Shuddup and pass it and make yourself an even better friend!"
He chuckles, sparking the joint, inhaling and exhaling into my face as he places the joint between my lips.
The young man sits on a rock, staring out to sea. Inhaling slowly on the cigarette that now draws close to burning his tanned fingers. He stubs it out on the rock, twisting it as the sparks sputter onto the dampness. Watching as the sun gradually sinks below the sea, lighting the water with the colours of its fire, splashing pink and orange across the land behind him. The beach painted in red highlights as the sun sinks lower, gradually drawing the colours with it as the purple darkness envelops the scene. As the last of the light begins to fade, he stands slowly, brushing stray grains of sand from his khaki shorts, and walking, catlike, across the rocks without shoes, the white singlet catching the final flicker of the departing orange light as it disappears. He walks towards the bonfire, the flickering flames lighting up his black hair with their warmth and glow, reflecting in his eyes. A young woman runs to meet him, her form silhouetted by the blaze behind her. As she reaches him, she dives, catching him around the chest as they fall to the sand, rolling over and over kissing and hugging as if these moments were their last. She’s about 22, the same age as him, her accent English, contrasting her dark features and dreadlocked hair. They lie side by side for a second, before laughing and rising, walking back towards the fire. The others there, more smiling and laughing young men and women. A short guy with brown hair wearing trousers and no shirt, drinking lager out of a green bottle, spilling the froth on himself as he breaks into laughter. The young woman next to him, slightly taller, with the yellow flames highlighting her blonde hair turning to plant a kiss on his lips as she grabs the bottle from him. Lying next to a stereo sitting on a blanket spread on the sand is another young woman, lying on her back, her hazel eyes staring up at the stars as she inhales from a joint. The brief flare of light lights up the planes of her face for an instant before she exhales a thin stream of smoke into the warm night air. Alongside her, a young man with blonde hair, wearing shorts and a T-shirt rolls to his knees and flicks at the stereo. It thumps into life, filling the night air with a beat so liquid that it spills down the beach, rolling into the surf. Another young couple appear, almost at the behest of the music, walking down the beach from a huddle of huts and cars parked on the grass and between the palm trees. Walking together, a tall, dark young man, and his shorter girlfriend, arms clasped around each other’s waists as they join the group laughing and smiling next to the fire.
The waves roll gently into the South American beach, breaking in a swish as they lap smoothly at the sand. I’d be impolite not to introduce myself, although I feel that beginning in the third person was useful to show you who we are. I’m predictably the guy you met first, I’m too vain to have it any other way, my name is Felix. The girl who ran to meet me, my girlfriend Kat, the one I love, and certainly my significant other by any definition. The others, the short guy with brown hair, Jamie, his girlfriend the blonde, François, The girl smoking the joint, Louisa, and her boyfriend Alex, the one playing with the stereo. The last couple are Brendan and Alicia.
It’s only 6:00pm, and we’re just beginning to celebrate the coming of our communal dream, we’re done with all we’ve strived for all these years. We’ve finished our university degrees, we’ve achieved our goals and we’re celebrating our dreams on this remote beach. Something we’d promised all these years ago that we’d do, and now we’re here. Best friends together, in the first week of a joint travelling epic we’re hoping will span half the world and all the fun bits at that.
I sit on a log next to the fire, the light flickering around me, splashing onto the green bottle in my hands. Sipping the lager and laughing as another joke is cracked by Alex, and the music begins to flow inside my soul. Kat’s sitting next to me, leaning up against me, we’re never far away from each other, and we’re two halves of the same person, separated for too long. It’s no wonder that people that don’t know us assume we’re only just together when we’ve been together for over six beautiful months. Kat doesn’t drink much, I don’t normally either, but on this occasion I’m breaking the rules because it’s not common in this life that we meet our goals and find our dreams in tropical paradise with the people we love. She snuggles against me again, and I wrap my arm around her as she’s chuckling. I look across the fire at Jamie, who’s rubbing François’s back in between swigs of beer, he’s been my friend for ages, and I guess he always will. He’s been looking forward to this for as long as me and we’ve spent many nights and days planning this trip ever since we were teenage boys. Alex is still lying next to the stereo, soaking up the trance pouring out of it, another real party freaker like me. I met him at a rave a few years back, the way you meet people when you’re pilling and everyone’s your friend. This guy and I just clicked, I introduced him to Louisa who was with me at the time. They met for coffee a few times and they’ve been together virtually ever since. Brendan, shit, how can I introduce someone who’s been my buddy for ever, and will be for ever, I’ve known him since I was a little kid, but we become better and better friends every day. His girlfriend, Alicia, extremely good looking, compliments him perfectly, they’re a Hollywood couple, and I used to watch them with envy, till I met Kat. I look up from the fire again and Louisa’s on her feet, dancing slowly, weaving her hips and arms around like a Balinese dancer. I stand up, the sand falling from my butt back onto the sand, kiss Kat on the lips slowly and wave the bottle in the direction of the others.
"I’d like to propose a toast, to our achievements, to friendship, and to this earthly paradise"
The others laugh their approval and hands and bottles are lifted in salute. I leave Kat and walk over to my bag lying on the sand, extracting the foil wrapped cigars from their box, strolling back, unwrapping them and walking, placing them between the lips of all my friends, lighting them with a burning twig as we chuckle in the tropical night. Jamie, the self appointed chief cook, shouts from behind his cigar that dinner is in order. We reluctantly walk away from the fire up towards the electric light of the cabins. Kat walks at my side, her body warm against mine. I’m almost waiting to wake up, because life doesn’t get this good. I chuckle at my stupid thoughts through the fuzzy haze of lager. Kat turns to me good-humouredly.
"What are you laughing about, you maniac?"
I chuckle some more and then reply.
"You, me, us, this, where we are, you know, everything in general. I love it when life turns out like this."
She murmurs her assent as we slow to a stop, I stand on the edge of the grass, looking back down the sand to the bonfire and the beach. Looking at the stars sparkling like tiny specks of glass scattered across the sky. Moving to face each other of the same accord, kissing and spinning around, we walk on to the cabins where the others are waiting for us.
Jamie’s excelled himself as usual, the smarmy bastard. I tell him this as I dig him in the ribs. The dinner is brilliant, Stir fry, with all kinds of strange vegetables he’s turned up out of almost nowhere. There’s more lager to go with it, and white wine, and we laugh even more together, speaking with mouths full and contradicting each other with friendly argument. Jokes flowing and the good humour almost bubbling in the warm tropical air surrounding us. The cabins are pretty good considering the price we rented them for, but the remoteness that would normally dissuade the tourists, encouraged us in a sense of adventure. We’ve got to travel several kilometres to a village to buy food and other necessities like cigarettes, pot and alcohol. The cabins are well equipped, but definitely not pretentious. We finish dinner, and begin to walk down towards the fire once more. There’s a babble of conversation, springing back and forth between the participants, I’m hanging back a little, watching everyone else walk towards the flames. People drape themselves around the fire, leaning on the smooth driftwood logs that we’d dragged up next to the fire. Foam cascades into the air as Alex pops the top on a beer, the shower catching Brendan, who charges him, they both collapse backwards over the log, the beer spilling over themselves. François and Jamie walk off down to the surf, trailing hand in hand, wading into the warm water fully dressed. Covered in beer, Alex and Brendan follow them, sprinting down and tackling François and Jamie, and all four disappear for a second beneath a welter of foam. I watch them for a second, chuckling as I light another cigarette and turn the volume of the stereo up. The sound booms out over the night water, and Alicia, Kat, Louisa and I run down to join the others. As I’m walking into the surf, surprised by the warmth of the water, Alex, seeing my state of partial dryness, whips an arm round my leg, and I collapse into the waves, the cigarette fizzing out. I emerge laughing at nothing in particular. The fire flickers on the water, and we stand or float, talking, laughing, splashing each other. I’m floating away from the others, lying on my back staring up at the stars, when Kat flings herself at me, splashing water into my eyes and mouth. I submerge for a second, surfacing and reaching for Kat, holding her to me. I can feel the heat from her body as I wrap my tongue around hers, staring into her eyes, seeing the stars reflected in one, the fire in the other. The water swirls around us and we stand for a small eternity before a wave sweeps us both off our feet and we’re content to lie floating and laughing, holding each other.
As the time moves towards 8, we begin to filter back up towards the fire, Alex and Louisa first, both running up the beach to the flickering heat of the fire. Kat and I follow them, and Jamie and François walk after us, Brendan and Alicia are still sitting in the shallows, talking and laughing as the waves wash around them. Alex is drinking from another bottle of beer, alternating sips with Louisa. I’m struggling to dry myself to the point where I can roll a joint that won’t be too wet to smoke. The zippo cracks and its flame, played by the slight breeze ignites the tip, I inhale deeply, holding the hot smoke in my lungs before exhaling a long thin stream of smoke as the tension goes out of my muscles and I relax. Kat steals the joint off me, inhales and exhales, and the night stretches, vast and beautiful ahead of us. Louisa, smiles at me across the fire, I wink back, a private joke between friends who’ve been around for so many years we couldn’t bother to count. She slinks around the fire and inhales from the joint still held by Kat, exhaling the smoke upward at the night sky. Alex is busy rolling another, and I throw him the zippo before he gestures to me for it, he catches it in one hand with a downward flick of his fingers, opening it and igniting it in the same gesture. I laugh and clap, appreciating his display of talent, he’d call it wasted youth in his bubbly sense of humour. Jamie and François are lying on the blanket next to the stereo, the end of a joint glows an inch from François’s lips, the flare revealing the smooth planes of her face, reflecting in her eyes. I cast a glance down to the shallows where Brendan and Alicia are rising from the water, walking gradually up the beach to us. As they arrive, I stand and throw another log of driftwood onto the fire. The sparks rise lazily upwards, blinking out in astonishing suddenness in the black of the night sky. Brendan sits on a log, and Alicia sits on the sand, her back resting against his legs. I cough, clearing my throat.
"Does everyone agree that this is the best night of their lives? I mean guys, doesn’t it blow your collective minds that here and now is what we’ve been looking forward to for 3 years or more. We’re finally here, we’ve done it"
I walk over towards Brendan, he slaps my hand with a high five.
"Yeah" He says. "I guess we’re standing here, now on the edge of the rest of our lives, and I have to say, that from here, the view is really something".
I laugh at this, and I can’t help but love everything about these people, these friends, who I’d give my life for, and who would give theirs for me.
"Fuck it! I love you guys! I know life can’t always be this good, but what we’ve had here, so far tonight, and for the rest of the night if it’s any indication, is a taste of paradise."
I was fairly wasted by this point. As if to affirm this, there is a low chuckle from the direction of Jamie and François, Jamie speaks up slowly.
"Felix, you are fucking wasted, but I love you buddy!"
I turn towards Louisa, who’s laughing loudest, they’re all laughing and I’m laughing too, attempting to put on my best ‘who? Me’ look, which lasts only as long as it takes for me to fall over the back of the log onto the sand. Kat grabs me and attempts to pull me into a sitting position, failing this she collapses onto the sand as well, resting her head on my chest. I shout to Alex, the best joint roller of our party.
"Alex, old buddy, pal" He laughs again, a deep laugh.
"Now I know he wants something off me, what the hell do you want?"
"You’ll be my friend for life if you pass me that joint!"
"You saying I’m not your friend for life?"
"Shuddup and pass it and make yourself an even better friend!"
He chuckles, sparking the joint, inhaling and exhaling into my face as he places the joint between my lips.
