The whole island turns off its lights, and you fall still too

The night before, the Ogoh-Ogoh had been seen — demon effigies metres tall borne on shoulders through the streets, gongs and firecrackers shaking all of Denpasar, their garish giant faces fierce in the torchlight; then the effigies were set alight, the ashes scattering into the night sky, the crowd carrying on a long while before slowly dispersing. The next morning, going to the window, outside was a quiet never heard before on this island.

Nyepi is Bali's Saka New Year, each March. Its logic is singular: legend holds that evil spirits roam the whole island on New Year's Eve, and if the island falls completely silent, all lights out, the spirits assume no one lives here and leave. So this day is not only personal retreat but the whole island's collective rite — no lights, no work, no going out, no making sound, even Bali's only international airport closed for twenty-four hours. The traditional Pecalang patrols keep the streets to ensure no one ventures out, and foreign travellers too must stay within the bounds of their lodgings.

That day, a group — a few men, a few women, travel companions who had played their way across Bali together — were shut up in the same guesthouse. With nowhere to go, everyone instead relaxed: someone reading by the pool, someone catching up on sleep, someone playing cards round a table. No Wi-Fi, no itinerary, time drawn out long, long enough to notice things one would not, rushing along — the way a certain person laughs, say, and how he happens to be sitting right beside you.

The strangest part is nightfall. With the whole island forbidden lights, the sky goes utterly black, and stars come out one by one, so many one feels one has never truly seen a night sky before. A few of them sat in the dark on the courtyard ground, heads tipped back, none speaking. In the dark one cannot make out another's expression, yet senses all the more clearly the person beside — his arm only a few centimetres from yours, neither of you moving away. No engines, no music, quiet enough to hear one's own heartbeat, and to hear, too, that it beats a little faster than usual.

Deeper into the night a little wind rose, carrying the sweet scent of frangipani out of the dark. Someone said something softly, and no one answered, yet the words seemed kept by the air. The two sat shoulder to shoulder, neither speaking again, only letting that vast quiet draw them closer and closer — close enough to hear, clearly, the rhythm of the other's breath.

By the next dawn, Bali woke — motorbikes, the temple bells, voices at the lane's mouth, each returning. The group stood at the window listening, as if just emerged from a very long, very quiet dream. The whole day's dark and stillness had quietly nudged forward some things one could not otherwise have said. I think you too will understand: some unspoken things can only be heard when an island has turned off, for you, all its sounds and all its lights — and you happen to have been left inside it, with that one person.