Zouk Out

Never again. 6 hours on the beach, half the time combing for disparate friends. Midnight traffic bottle-neck into the island, and one going out at daybreak. The stages flaring with fire-spinners and ultrasound, the immeasurable tide of bodies swaying to and fro, the disgusting portable toilets, the sand-locked, cordoned kilometer of stifling, sweltering revelry with no breeze to be felt.

Within this mute sea of people I was guided by the lit screen of my phone: "We at B10...... c u at B8...... w r u? come B5...... dancing in same place...... . toilet........... making a move first have fun....... u still here? " Never before have I been so much at the mercy of SMS, like a GPS leading me from one constellation of friends to another.

In the end I hitched a ride out of the island, and waited at a bus stop until 6am for the first morning bus. Besides me was an old man, who looked like the brother of my dead grandfather. I couldn't be sure it was him, so I stayed quiet, and then he got onto a different bus.