Kerfuffle — (Trigger Warning: Depiction of Drug Use)
1
I set my sights on Otres Beach, the bungalow-filled stretch south of Sihanoukville that other travelers kept telling me about. From what I had heard, it was a place where you could find a place to trade a few hours of work for a bed and some food. A light job and a pillow at night. That was all I wanted. It felt fair. More than that, it felt necessary. I needed somewhere that would keep me grounded, somewhere I could rest without sinking back into heavy drugs, somewhere far enough away to quiet the noise of America still rattling around in my head.
As soon as I arrived at Otres Beach, I started drifting from place to place with my backpack still on, knocking on doors, asking questions, chasing patches of shade. It was noon, the kind where the sun feels nailed to the sky, pressing straight down on your skull.
Then I arrived at the Mushroom Beach, a guesthouse run by French owners, with mushroom-shaped bungalows lined up along the sand like something out of a fairy tale. It was one of the pricier spots on the beach, but I’d seen a post in a Facebook travel group saying they were looking for volunteers. Worth a shot.
I walked up to the front desk, where a cool-looking girl with curly hair was leaning over her phone.
“Hey,” I said, pulling my own phone out. “I saw this post about volunteering here?”
She smiled politely and leaned in, squinting at the screen. She scrolled for a second, then tilted the phone slightly so I could see it too.
“Yeah… see the date?” she said, tapping it with her finger. “This one’s from a while ago.”
Inside, I laughed at myself. Of course it was.
“Oh,” I said, nodding. “Right. That makes sense.”
“I’m sorry,” she added. “We’re full at the moment. But if you’re still around in July, come back. Our volunteer’s heading back to Australia then, so we’ll need someone new.”
“July,” I repeated, filing it away. “Got it. Thanks for checking.”
“No problem,” she said with a friendly shrug.
I thanked her again, stepped back into the blinding sun, and hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders. On to the next place.
For the next couple of hours, I wandered along the shoreline, stopping at different guesthouses, bars, and half-built places that looked like they might still need hands. Each conversation followed the same rhythm. A polite smile, a short pause, then no. Maybe next month. Maybe later in the season. Maybe not at all. Eventually, it became clear that it wasn’t personal. It just wasn’t the right moment.
Still, I didn’t let it bring me down. As the day leaned into afternoon, the beach began to loosen up. Travelers drifted out of their bungalows, bartenders wiped down counters, music started radiating into the air. People were already settling into hammocks and low wooden chairs, beers sweating in their hands. Since the guesthouses were a dead end, I shifted my focus and started walking toward the bars instead.
Then I heard it. Techno, faint but unmistakable, pulsing from somewhere beyond the mushroom bungalows I had passed earlier. The sound cut through the heat like a signal flare. I stopped walking, smiled to myself, and followed it. This, I thought, might be where the day was actually meant to begin.
As I moved closer, the scene came into focus. People were dancing in loose clusters on the sand, barefoot, unselfconscious, while others were stretched out on low couches and thick cushions, drinks in hand, bodies sunk deep into comfort. The air carried that soft, overlapping hum of voices and laughter. It felt international in the most natural way. I caught Russian here, English there, accents bending and colliding like the waves behind us.
It was the magic hour, as the old photographers call it. The sky was turning orange, red, and purple, the sea reflecting it back, and in the middle of all that, a small, intimate techno party was unfolding, framed perfectly by the sunset. And it wasn’t the plastic EDM stuff you hear everywhere neither, this was something deeper, a more underground, authentic techno sound.
I was about to head toward the bar to get myself a beer when I heard someone speaking Turkish around me. A man in his late thirties and a younger woman were standing close, absorbed in conversation.
No way, I thought. A sudden, almost childish joy rose in me. Since arriving in Southeast Asia, I hadn’t heard Turkish spoken out loud, not once, except with İrem. It felt like spotting a rare bird. I didn’t hesitate. I stepped right into their orbit and, as naturally as I could, dropped a friendly:
“Merhaba.”
Both turned to me with surprised but warm interest.
“Merhaba!”
I learned their names were Önder and Selin; they were from Istanbul. They had arrived in this little piece of Cambodian paradise about a year ago. After traveling and exploring many places, they loved it here so much that they decided to settle down, opening a headshop in the town. It made sense, both of them seemed like true stoners, you could tell from their vibe. I warmed up to them right away.
We slipped into the classic expatriate small talk. “Where have you been, where are you headed?” It wasn’t long before the conversation turned to real talk. The feelings behind Önder and Selin’s desire to move away from Turkiye felt familiar.
“Yeah, after Gezi, we really wanted to move somewhere else,” Önder explained. “And Cambodia just seemed like the perfect place for us.”
“Yeah, I understand it,” I said. It was a feeling so many of young people shared.
“And what about you? What brings you here?” Selin asked.
I gave a small, wry smile. “A heartbreak, to sum it up. I broke up with my wife, and now I’m just traveling around, backpacking, looking for work-exchange to extend my journey as much as I can.”
“That’s great,” Selin said, her tone kind. “I know there are some guesthouses here, you might wanna check them.”
I cut right in, “I know, I talked to them already. Today, no luck. But it’s okay, I’m not in a rush to find something.”
“That’s good!” Önder chimed in. “You should come check our store sometime, it’s near the main port, downtown.”
“Sure!” I said, genuinely interested. Then I gestured toward the music thumping behind us. “And what about this place? I heard the music and wanted to check it out.”
“Yeah, you like it?” Önder’s face lit up. “This is our friend’s beach bar. We come here often, and we play techno.” He leaned in slightly, a hint of pride in his voice. “I made the playlist, so I’m glad you like it.”
“So how long have you two been together?” I asked, watching the way they stood close without really thinking about it.
Selin smiled and glanced at Önder. “Years,” she said. “Long enough that we stopped counting.”
“We met actually met in highschool” Önder added. “Did the whole traveling thing together, then just… didn’t go back.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I get that.”
“You were there during Gezi, right?” Selin asked.
“I was,” I said. “And everything that came after it too.”
Önder exhaled slowly. “That was it for us. After that, staying felt heavier than leaving.”
“Same,” I said. There was a deep unspoken friendship among us “wandering” Turks who had distanced ourselves from Turkiye’s political atmosphere. We could understand each other’s motivations and inclinations without needing too many details.
We talked about those years, about drifting, about what it felt like to watch the country change from the inside and then from very far away. There was an ease to it, the kind that only shows up between people who have already made similar decisions and paid similar prices for them.
As the light faded and the beach started to cool, Önder reached into his bag and pulled out some weed and rolling papers, holding them out between us.
“Can you roll?” he asked casually.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said immediately, taking them from his hand.
Selin raised an eyebrow, smiling. “Confident.”
I laughed. “Trust me.”
I knew exactly what this meant. Back home, when someone hands you weed and papers, it is never just about convenience. It’s usually a test, a quiet way of measuring how much of a stoner you are, how familiar your hands are with the ritual. In the drug hoods I came from, this was how you sized people up without asking questions. We used to do the same thing to newcomers. No ceremony, no words, just the joint and whatever it revealed about you.
There was also that familiar hood gesture. After rolling the joint, you flick it against a wall or a table. It is not just about skill. It is a signal. A quiet way of saying, do not underestimate me, I am not a novice stoner. I expertly rolled the spliff and with a modest flick of the wrist, slapped it onto the table. Enough to be understood.
The venue belonged to a group of Russians. An old man stood behind the bar, pouring shots with a steady hand, always pouring one for himself as well. Each time someone drank, he drank too, as if it were part of the service. The place felt like a refuge for familiar wildness, a den of people who had known each other for a long time and had stopped pretending otherwise. We smoked the joint, danced, and let the conversation sink deeper into the night.
Önder began introducing me around. There was Ruslan, a photographer who never stopped moving, always lifting his camera, always catching people mid laugh or mid blur. DJ Evgeniya followed, and within minutes we were talking about music, trading references and opinions like old acquaintances. Artash was there too, an Armenian Russian traveler and one of Önder’s oldest friends, calm and observant, carrying himself like someone who had seen many roads already. Then there was Roman, a young Russian guy who was clearly far gone, drifting in and out of the dance floor, saying something in Russian, laughing at his own words, then collapsing onto the cushions to watch the room pulse around him.
The conversations flowed easily. Surrounded by these strangers who did not feel like strangers at all, I felt unexpectedly at ease. My backpack was still with me, and I had no idea where I would sleep that night. Artash noticed it and asked if I had a place. When I said no, he smiled and told me they had bungalows I could stay in. They were not as polished as the mushroom huts down the beach, but they were close, cheap and enough. I was too tired to go anywhere else anyway, and for that night, it felt exactly right.
I was just about to head to the bar to ask about the room when Önder stepped in front of me and stopped me.
“There’s a rave tonight, my friend. Come with us,” he said. “Don’t waste your money on a place to sleep. It’s an all night thing anyway. Save the room money.”
At that moment, I honestly felt like kissing him on the forehead.
“Leave your bag here at the bar and come with us,” he added. “We’ll bring you back in the morning.”
It was the best idea I had heard all day. I would not miss the all night party, and I would not burn money on a bed I barely needed. Everything suddenly aligned.
“Great idea. Thank you, brother,” I said.
I walked over to the old drunk behind the bar and asked if I could leave my backpack there for the night. He agreed immediately, without questions or hesitation. By then, I was no longer a stranger. I had blended in with the bar’s regulars.
I went back and joined the group. The music kept getting louder, people kept getting drunker, and everyone slowly drifted closer to the speakers with drinks in their hands, moving, dancing, shouting over the sound. I wanted to hear more about this mysterious party everyone kept hinting at.
I leaned toward Önder.
“Hey, Artash mentioned some rave tonight.”
“Kerfuffle?” he said. “Yeah. We’re heading there soon. You should come.”
“Yeah, I probably will. What is it exactly? Where’s it at?” I asked.
He put a hand on my shoulder, like he was calming me down.
“Trust me, you’re gonna love it. The location’s secret.”
I laughed. “Alright, now you’ve got my attention.”
“It’s somewhere in the forest across the pond,” he said. “Happens twice a month. Mostly people who settled here over the years organize it. Locals, travelers, DJs passing through.”
“Sounds like I showed up at the right time,” I said.
“Seriously, man, you did,” he replied. “It’s a makeshift one, but it’s free-spirited. You’ll feel it.”
Just then Artash came back from the bathroom and stopped next to me near the bar. He pulled a small bag out of his back pocket and lightly tapped my shoulder.
“Hey,” he said with a grin. “You want some MDMA? First pinch is on the house.”
I didn’t hesitate. Instead of reaching for the bag, I lifted my glass a little. He dropped a few crystals into it.
“There you go.”
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
“No worries,” he said. “Önder’s friend is my friend. If you want more later, it’s thirty a gram. Just so you know.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
It was obvious Artash was the supplier. As it got closer to time to leave, people kept drifting over to him, one by one, quick exchanges in the corners. It felt reassuring in a strange way. Going to a party with a trusted source was always better than going without one, that way you didn’t have to rely on strangers.
2
We moved like a loose caravan of misfits, piled into tuk-tuks and disappearing into the night. The beach strip fell away behind us as we turned inland, the road narrowing, the lights thinning out. The ride was loud and playful, wind in our faces, laughter cutting through the engine noise. After about twenty minutes, the road came to an end. We paid the drivers, climbed out, and stood there for a moment. This was as far as vehicles could go. The rest we had to do on foot.
I was still sipping my drink, the MDMA dissolving slowly into my system. I could feel the excitement rushing up from my stomach, that strange mixture of nausia and the need to defecate hit me at the same time. I was determined to overcome them, as I knew they weren’t real.
We started walking through the forest together. More people joined us along the way, figures emerging from the dark, folding into the group as if this had all been planned. The path eventually opened onto the edge of a lake. The water was pale and still, its surface catching the moonlight in a soft, trembling shimmer. A small wooden dock stretched out from the shore, but there was no boat, no canoe, nothing waiting for us.
I looked at Artash.
“So what now?”
He nodded toward the water.
“We need to get to the other side.”
“Yeah, but how?” I asked.
“Here it comes.”
In the bright light of the full moon, a raft came into view, drifting slowly across the lake. To get to the other side, this was our way across: a simple wooden platform tied to a thick rope stretched from shore to shore. We would pull ourselves along, hand over hand, like a primitive but ingenious ferry.
The raft could only take a few people at a time, so we divided into groups. I was in the first group to cross with Evgeniya, Selin and a few other travelers who had been waiting there before us. We climbed onto the raft and started pulling.
The water barely made a sound. The moonlight laid a pale path across the lake, and as we glided forward, I felt quietly enchanted. With each minute, the night grew stranger, more unreal, as if it were opening itself to us step by step.
The mix of people on the raft felt right, like a temporary family thrown together by the night.
Evgeniya smiled at the guy wearing pitch-black sunglasses under the full moon.
“Hi. I’m Evgeniya,” she said, then gestured toward Selin. “This is Selin.”
The two Spaniards introduced themselves, laughing as they spoke.
I nodded at the sunglasses and said, half-joking, “Nice shades for a night crossing.”
The man grinned. “Yeah. I’m blind.”
I froze for a second. “Oh shit. I’m sorry.”
He laughed immediately. “No problem at all.”
His friend beside him, apparently guiding him through the night, squeezed his arm. “He gets that one a lot.”
I shook my head, smiling. “That’s wild. Long way from home.”
“Very long,” he said. “But we didn’t want to miss the party.”
“Good reason,” Selin said. “How else do you end up on a raft in the middle of a lake?”
They laughed again, easy and open.
Evgeniya tilted her head. “So… are you feeling it yet?”
The blind guy grinned wider. “Oh yeah. Very much.”
“Same wave,” his friend said, tapping the side of his glass. “MDMA ferry.”
“That explains the smiles,” I said.
“Explains everything,” Evgeniya replied.
As the raft slid forward, someone said, “We should take a photo.”
“Yeah,” the Spaniard said. “This is one of those moments.”
“I’ve got it,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Everyone in.”
They leaned in close, arms touching, faces turned toward the light. I raised the phone and hit the flash.
“Amazing,” someone said as the screen lit up. And for a second, floating there under the moon, it really was.
As we drifted closer to the opposite shore, the bass began to reach us, we could now hear the music. By the time we stepped off the raft, a few volunteers from the organization were already waiting. How sweet, I thought, they had a welcoming committee waving us in, smiling like they had been expecting us all along. “Welcome to Kerfuffle!”
We followed the sound and suddenly the forest opened up into the rave. It felt unreal. A makeshift festival had taken root among the trees at the southeastern edge of Otres Beach, as if it had grown there on its own. The stage, the bars, the sitting areas, everything was thrown together from scraps and salvaged materials. Pallets, rusted metal, old wood, bits of fabric and rope. The whole place looked like it had been pulled straight out of a Mad Max scene. For a moment, it felt like stepping into a lucid dream, a parallel world operating by its own rules.
The rest of our group arrived on the next raft. As soon as I spotted Artash, I drifted toward him without thinking. A nod, a few words, and more MDMA changed hands. After that, time stopped behaving normally. I gave myself over to the rhythm and let the night take control. Whenever MDMA mixed with the thrill of discovering something new, it always carried me somewhere unexpected.
There were a few hundred people scattered through the clearing, bodies moving between trees, lights flickering, shadows dancing. The raft kept going back and forth across the lake, delivering more people into the forest, as if feeding the rave itself.
What struck me most was the ingenuity behind it all. These were young people from all over Europe who had ended up in Cambodia and decided to build something together. They had solved every problem with creativity and stubborn joy. Pavilions made from pallet boards, barstools welded from metal plates, a stage built onto the carcass of an old truck. Nothing was polished, nothing was perfect, and that was exactly the point. It was raw, alive, pure creativity leaking from each corner.
The front of the repurposed truck looked like the furious face of a robot, frozen mid-roar, tilted forward at a sharp angle, as if it had fallen from the sky and embedded itself in the forest floor. It gave the stage a sense of motion, like it might lurch forward at any moment. Around it, colorful lights and strange installations made from recycled metal scraps were scattered without any obvious order, yet somehow everything fit. The whole place felt theatrical.
On the right side of the stage, something caught my eye. A small, crooked Ferris wheel stood there, clearly handmade, its structure uneven and slightly absurd. At first, I assumed it was just another decorative object. Then I noticed movement. There were people inside the tiny cabins, slowly rotating above the ground.
“Is this thing real?” I muttered, noone heard.
I stood there for a moment, couldn’t believe my eyes. “Maybe the drugs got me seeing things sideways?” I thoguht, but no, this was a real, functioning Ferris wheel!
The music wasn’t bad. The sound system wasn’t audiophile quality, but it was strong enough to make the whole area vibrate. I threw myself onto the dance floor and let the crowd carry me, moving without much thought, just following the pulse. As I drifted from one side to another, I kept catching flashes of familiarity. A face here, a silhouette there. I told myself it was just the MDMA playing tricks on me, that this was one of those moments where everyone starts to look like someone you once knew.
Then I got closer. No. That really was them! Nathan and Sophie. Manchester couple, right there in the middle of a forest rave. I froze for half a second, just to be sure my brain wasn’t lying to me, and then excitement rushed in all at once. I pushed through the crowd, waving like an idiot, and when they saw me their faces lit up in the same exaggerated disbelief.
“No fucking way!” Nathan shouted, already laughing.
“What are you doing here?” Sophie yelled, grabbing my shoulders.
It had only been a couple of weeks since Siem Reap, but running into each other here, of all places, felt impossible, like a glitch in the map. We hugged hard, laughing over the music, shaking our heads in disbelief, and then, without saying much else, we started dancing together. For a few minutes there was nothing but movement, noise, and that shared shock of finding someone familiar in the least expected place.
We drifted away from the speakers together, still buzzing, still laughing, the music fading just enough that we could hear our own voices again. Everything felt loose and exaggerated, our steps uneven, our thoughts arriving half a second late.
“So you guys are staying at Otres Beach, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “Found a cheap place near the strip. What about you?”
I shrugged. “Technically nowhere. I just left my backpack at a bar and followed the crew coming here.”
They both burst out laughing.
“Hell yeah,” Sophie said.
“That’s the way to do it,” Nathan added. “Proper style.”
We walked and talked, me telling them about the Turkish and Russian crowd I’d met earlier that day, how one conversation had folded into another until I somehow ended up on a raft in the middle of the night. They told me their side of it too. No plan at all. Just a rumor overheard at the hostel.
“Someone said there’s a rave in the forest,” Sophie said. “That was it.”
“So we thought, why not,” Nathan added. “Didn’t even know where it was. Just followed people.”
“Best way,” I said.
We reached the small river at the edge of the rave area and sat down by the bank. Nathan lit one of the joints and passed it around. The three of us sank into the moment, shoes dusty, faces warm, watching the lights flicker through the trees. Nathan and Sophie started talking more to each other than to me, bouncing between half-finished thoughts, inside jokes, plans that didn’t quite make sense anymore. I listened, smiling, letting their voices blur into the night.
“You know I can definetely play at this rave! They need some drum and bass!” Nathan yelled, and I heard.
“Hell yeah brother, you should talk to the organizers, I heard they allow traveling Djs to play,” I said.
By the time the joint burned out, I was very high. Too high, maybe. My body felt light but unsteady, like I was tipping forward without moving. I stood up slowly.
“I need a beer,” I said. “Before I float away.”
They laughed.
“Don’t get lost,” Sophie said.
I waved, turned back toward the glow of the bar, and let the forest swallow me again.
The party area was sprawling, bigger than it first appeared, with paths branching off into pockets of light and sound. For a moment I didn’t know where to go or what to explore first. On my way to the bar, I drifted off course, wandered through the crowd, and ended up talking to a small group of Germans.
One of them said she was eighteen. When she told me she had been living in Cambodia for a year, I stared at him in disbelief.
“A year?” I said. “Here?”
She nodded. “Yeah. But I have to go back soon.”
“You look sad about it,” I said.
“I am,” she admitted. “Germany’s waiting.”
She explained that this was part of something they call a gap year. After high school, many German students spend a year abroad before starting university, just to live, work a little, and figure things out.
“We call it a gap year,” she said.
“Aralık yılı?” I repeated in Turkish, tasting the idea.
“How wonderful,” I said, and I meant it. When I finished high school, my head had been full of nothing but entrance exams, pressure, rankings, expectations. I remembered how that constant stress had hollowed me out, how it pushed me toward escape, toward drugs, toward losing myself.
“I wish we had something like that,” I said, half to her, half to myself.
Right then, the girl clocked me. She smiled, leaned in a little, and asked without hesitation,
“Hey, can you get some?”
So much for innocence. Even on a gap year, drugs still found their way in. I knew I could track down Artash if I wanted to, but something in me resisted the idea of supplying an eighteen-year-old.
I smiled and shook my head.
“No, I can’t help you with that.” I said. The girl looked very sad, so I added, “but I’m heading to the bar for a beer. I can get you one if you want.”
She laughed, a little embarrassed, and shrugged. “Fair enough.”
I climbed the metal stairs up to the wooden counter and joined the line at the makeshift bar. As I reached into my pocket and pulled out cash, the guy in front of me turned around and grinned.
“Normal money doesn’t work here, buddy,” he said. “You gotta get funny-money from the cashier over there.”
“Funny-money?” I said. “What’s that supposed to be?”
At first I thought he was messing with me, but then he explained it. The rave ran on its own currency. Little paper tickets, each worth a dollar, with a laughing monkey printed in the middle.
“So the rave has its own money,” I said. “And it’s literally called funny-money?”
“Exactly,” he laughed.
I shook my head, smiling.
“Alright. That’s just another reason to love this fucking place.”
The math was simple. One dollar equaled one funny-money, and a beer cost two funny-money. In Cambodia, a beer at any normal bar usually went for a dollar, and during happy hour you could even find one for fifty cents. But this was the middle of nowhere, deep in the forest, and considering the effort it took to get everything out here, paying double felt more than fair. Honestly, the fact that there was cold beer at all felt like a small miracle.
I bought two. I handed one to the German girl I had just met, we clinked bottles, smiled at each other, and I moved on.
Beer in hand, I kept wandering. The crowd had thickened, the energy rising with it. Lights flickered between the trees, bodies moved in loose rhythms, and everywhere I looked people seemed locked into their own small worlds. A little farther ahead, I spotted Nathan with a small group and made my way over.
He was talking to a curly-haired, cheerful guy named Max, who introduced himself as one of the organizers. Max had that unmistakable presence, the kind of person who seemed to know everyone and be known by everyone. You could feel it in the way people greeted him, the way conversations bent toward him without effort. He felt like one of those people who threw legendary parties, and from the way they were talking, it looked like Nathan had found exactly the right person.
“You can send your sets to me,” Max said, easy and direct. “I’ll listen to them with the others who handle the music.”
I left Nathan to his music talk with Max and wandered off with Sophie instead. At some point she nodded toward the edge of the area and asked,
“Have you tried the Ferris wheel yet?”
“To be honest, no,” I said. “And I don’t really plan to.”
Up close, the thing made me uneasy. It was built from wood, bamboo, and scraps of metal, and it looked like it could shake itself apart at any second. People were lining up for it anyway, smiling, laughing, completely unbothered. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that this contraption, put together by forest-dwelling hippies out of leftovers and imagination, was actually safe.
Sophie just laughed at me.
“It’s fine,” she said, turning to the ticket guy, “This isn’t their first Kerfuffle.”
Then she grabbed my arm. “Come on. We’ve done it before. Let me show you.”
I resisted for about ten seconds before giving in.
We waited in line, both a little giddy, and eventually climbed into one of the small, primitive cabins. A volunteer stepped over and shut the iron door. I grabbed the cold metal bar in front of me as the wheel started to turn. The diameter wasn’t very big, but the speed was wild. Lights streaked past my eyes, colors stretching and blurring, and suddenly it felt less like a Ferris wheel and more like being flung through space.
“Woo-hoo!” I yelled, laughing, giggling.
Sophie burst out laughing.
“I told you so!”
When we got off, my legs were shaky but my face hurt from smiling. I thanked her for pushing me into it. I’d fully expected nausea. Instead, I felt lighter, charged, almost proud of myself.
Later, when I made my way back toward Önder, Selin, and the Russian crew, I found them stretched out on a big straw mat behind the dance floor, close to one of the bars. Some were lying flat, eyes closed, resting. Others sat smoking and talking quietly. I dropped down onto the mat to catch my breath.
Artash noticed me right away. He made a small gesture with his hand. At first I read it as “You good?” and then as “Want more?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m good. But yeah… a little more wouldn’t hurt.”
He walked over and handed me a small ball of MDMA wrapped neatly in rolling paper.
“Too early to come down,” he said with a grin. “Here. Take this parachute.”
I swallowed it without thinking and leaned back onto the mat, the bass thumping steadily through the ground beneath us.
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A little later, the parachute began to dissolve. A wave of warmth rolled through me, my jaw clenched, my eyes dropped low. I lay back on the mat and let it happen. The ground beneath me was shaking with the footsteps of the dancers, the bass traveling through the soil and into my body. Somewhere nearby people were laughing, talking, shouting over the music. All of it blended into a single, living soundscape.
Under the glow of party lights, I surrendered to the MDMA. My body felt full, overheated in the best way, like something inside me had been gently cracked open. I stayed there for a long while, staring up at the sky. The stars were sharp and steady, and I felt fragile in a way that didn’t hurt. It was soft, almost tender. Love poured through me without a clear object, not directed at anyone in particular, just present. It felt as if everyone there was connected by the same quiet joy, as if for a moment we were moving on the same frequency, part of the same breath.
I remembered my notebook was still in my bag. The urge to write hit me suddenly, urgently. I sat up, pulled out the notebook and pen, and rested it on my knees. I wanted to trap this moment on the page, to pin it down before it slipped away. But as soon as I tried, I realized how impossible that was. The feeling was too overwhelming, too wide. I couldn’t focus, my hands were shaky. I began to draw instead, but all I could do was let the pen move and hope it caught even a shadow of what I was feeling.
Right then, a woman appeared in front of me. Her eyes were bright in that unmistakable way, as if she had just unlocked the secrets of the universe and was still riding the aftershock of it. She sat down beside me and leaned in, curious, almost playful.
“What are you writing there?” she asked.
“I’m trying to write poems about how I feel right now,” I said, glancing down at the notebook. “But the words aren’t really cooperating yet.”
She smiled, studying me for a moment. My struggle to write while high must have intrigued her, and in return, her beauty stirred something restless in me.
“Are you a writer?” she asked.
It was the wrong question at the right moment. It touched something old and sensitive inside me, that long-standing fear of becoming anything at all. A big part of my life had been shaped by resisting labels, resisting destinations, resisting the idea that I had to turn into something solid and defined. Of course, there was no way to unpack all of that here, not like this, not with both of us floating on MDMA.
So instead, I did what came naturally,
“I dabble in poetry, my good lady,” I jokingly replied, putting on an embarrassingly bad royal accent, the kind you regret halfway through the sentence.
She burst out laughing, and honestly, that was enough. The moment cracked open. She dropped down next to me on the mat, brushing some dust off her legs.
“And what makes you dare to endeavor such passion?” she asked, similarly leaning into it. “Very Shakespearean of you.”
I shrugged, grinning. “Love. Loss. The usual tragic fuel.”
She nodded like that made perfect sense, and said, “Go on.”
I told her the truth. I said I was traveling because of a lost love, that heartbreak had pushed me out into the world and carried me all the way here. I could hear myself oversharing, aware of it even as I kept going, but I didn’t stop. She stayed right there beside me, listening attentively, taking it all in with that quiet admiration that only exists between two strangers meeting under the right lights, the right music, and the right chemical intoxication.
As the words spilled out, a voice in my head groaned, not again, not here, come on. I had been doing such a good job not thinking about Madi so far. Why now? When a strikingly beautiful woman miraclously found her way to sit next to me.
I immediatelly sent the ball to her side of the court.
“Sorry, you don’t need to hear all that… Can I ask you the eternal question?”
“Sure.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Nina,” she laughed.
She said her name was Nina… Half German, half Japanese, traveling through Southeast Asia. Her father was Japanese, her mother German. The mix intrigued me instantly. In the midst of the sea of moving bodies at the party, I felt like I had encountered the most beautiful woman there. Right at that moment, with her mysterious charm shining through, she turned to me with an enchanting look and asked
“Will you read me one of the poems you wrote?”
I nodded, pulled my phone flashlight out, and tried to find something to read her. I went through the pages, and finally found something I had written on my first night in Bangkok, drunk and alone in a hotel lobby.
I cleared my throat, and gave her a warning,
“My poems rarely had structure or rhythm…”
She cut me short,
“Go on,” she waved her hand, grinning.
“Here we go. It’s called 3 AM in Bangkok.”
Lobby smells of coconuts and spice,
lemongrass, and beer.
I’m dancing.
Like a blind man, in the humid night.
The beer machine groans, takes my last coin with a metallic gulp,
and shudders out another can.
Somewhere upstairs, a backpacker snores.
Somewhere outside, an old man coughs.
And here I am, dancing, after all the miles and the missteps,
the wrong turns and the bloodthirst.
Stole all the joy, and, almost got away with it.
Tomorrow, the bus, tomorrow, the train, tomorrow, you.
But tonight, it’s just this:
the beer in my head, the sweat on my back,
the silent TV flashing blue against the wall.
I am alone in a Bangkok hostel lobby at 3 AM, and I am still dancing.
Stole all the joy, and, almost got away with it.
When I finished, she smiled softly.
“That’s beautiful. Thank you.”
There was a short pause, the kind that feels full instead of awkward. Then she asked,
“How long have you been sitting here?”
“Are you talking to me?” I said, glancing around exaggeratedly.
She laughed. “Yes. Why aren’t you dancing?”
I hesitated. We locked eyes, and something unmistakable passed between us, quick and electric. I could feel it in my chest, in my stomach. I knew she felt it too. Still, those familiar butterflies rose up and held my tongue hostage. The obvious words were right there, waiting, but I didn’t trust them. I didn’t want to flatten the moment with something predictable.
So I joked instead.
“I’m a party veteran. Got my medal. Retired from the dance floor.”
She smiled, and that was enough. We didn’t need to fill the space with noise.
As the night deepened, we ended up lying side by side on the mat, looking up at the open sky above the trees. The music pulsed nearby, distant but present, like a shared heartbeat. Our fingers found each other naturally and stayed that way.
We didn’t talk much. We didn’t have to. It felt like the space between us had dissolved, as if we were lighter than our bodies, floating somewhere just above ourselves. In that quiet closeness, everything felt safe.
I sat up, grabbed my notebook, flipped to a fresh page, and handed Nina the pen.
“Here. This is your page. You can write or draw whatever you want.”
She pushed herself up beside me, smiling as she took the notebook. For a moment she simply looked at the empty page, as if deciding how to enter it, and then she began to write and sketch with quiet focus. I was curious, of course, but I didn’t peek. Some things feel better unopened for a while. This night already carried a strange weight, and I didn’t want to rush anything that felt meaningful.
I watched her as she scribbled in my notebook. Nina had a captivating aura with her short black hair and emerald-green, sparkling eyes. Her dress had a plunging neckline, and I felt like a vampire thirsting for a bloody bite. Oh, the allure of her healthy, red, vibrant neck and chest area! I felt lust stir within me. But as often happened, I felt the need to restrain myself. Just as quickly, I held it back.
I had spent most of my adult life doing exactly that. Probably because I come from a country where most women experience sexual harassment at some point in their lives, I always held myself back when such feelings arose. I always waited for the woman to take the first step toward sexuality. And I think that’s why beautiful women with sexual harassment trauma felt peaceful and safe around me.
While these thoughts drifted through my head, she finished writing. She closed the notebook gently and handed it back without a word. I took it with the same quiet understanding and slipped it into my bag, saving whatever she had left there for another time.
As night gave way to morning, a sudden jolt of energy ran through me, sharp and electric. On impulse, I jumped to my feet and, before the day could fully claim us, reached out my hand to Nina, inviting her to one last dance. Hand in hand, we moved toward the center of the dance floor, where the music still hit hardest. There, we found the others. They welcomed Nina without hesitation, pulling her in as if she were an old friend finally returned.
We fell into the same rhythm, our bodies giving themselves over to the beat, feet pounding the ground in shared joy. For those final moments, nothing else existed. The world beyond the forest, beyond the lake, beyond the night, simply dissolved as we danced into the breaking dawn.
As the light grew clearer, the party slowly unraveled. People began drifting away, packing up, saying their quiet goodbyes. Only a few stubborn dancers remained. I searched the thinning crowd for Önder and Selin, for the Russian crew, but they were gone. They must have left earlier, I thought.
Just then, Nathan waved us over, already halfway into his next plan.
“Come on, Sophie. Come on, everyone,” he called out. “We’re heading back to Otres Beach. Some food, maybe a morning beer. You in?”
My heart jumped. I glanced at Nina, trying not to make it obvious how much I wanted her to say yes. The idea of the night ending without her felt unfinished, like stopping a song before the last note. She hesitated for a second, then smiled and nodded.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I’m in.”
A rush of relief washed over me. Just like that, we were a crew. The journey back from the jungle to civilization seemed like it would be as adventurous as our trip here.
We gathered the group and started to walk away from the rave when Nathan spotted Max in the distance and waved to signal that we were heading out. Max noticed immediately. He dropped whatever he was doing and ran toward us, his glitter-covered bare torso peeking out from beneath the small vest he wore, his eyes shining beneath a fedora. The makeup around his eyes sparkled in the morning light.
Sophie stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug.
“Thank you guys,” she said. “Seriously. That was an amazing party.”
Max grinned. “De nada,” he replied, eyes sparkling.
Nathan leaned in curiously. “How do you pull off something like this? I’m really curious. If we meet again, I’d love to hear the story.”
Max shrugged, “Sure thing,” he said. “In short, it started with a handful of DJs. A few speakers, a generator, and some courage…”
“And the Cambodian police didn’t give you any trouble?” Nathan asked.
“Trouble? Of course they did! We have an annual agreement with the landowner, but the police still put pressure on us.”
Sophie chimed in, “Amazing! It can’t have been easy to start with just a few people and turn it into such a big event.”
“At first, we didn’t even want it to grow,” Max said. “But people kept showing up. Lights, visual artists, tents, fire dancers. Someone brings records, someone else brings materials to build decorations, and someone just brings their body. The next thing you know, Kerfuffle is born.”
He spread his arms toward the forest behind us. “Now it’s kind of Otres’s little legend.”
When we reached the edge of the path leading to the raft, Max pulled each of us into a tight hug, one by one.
“See you next time,” he said with a wink.
And somehow, we all believed him.
3
Then we stepped onto the wooden planks of the raft and began pulling the rope, ferrying ourselves back across the lake. With the sunrise, the details the night had concealed slowly came into view: reed beds pushing through the thinning mist, soft ripples breaking the surface of the water, birds stirring somewhere beyond the trees. We were all still drifting in the gentle comedown of the night’s MDMA, hauling the rope toward a morning that felt suspended between reality and dream.
When we reached the opposite shore, a few tuk-tuks were already waiting. We climbed into one of them, sleepy, smiling, still buzzing. I was hoping Nina would sit beside me, that the night would stretch just a little longer. She stepped closer, then paused. With a faint smile, she shook her head.
“I think I’ll leave from here, friends,” she said softly. “I have to get some rest. I have a flight this afternoon, and I’m goint to meet a friend who’s flying with me.”
A small pang of disappointment hit me.
“You’re leaving today?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, shrugging lightly, her smile still there. “I’m flying back to Germany. But… thank you. For the dance, for the conversation. It was really beautiful.”
I stepped closer and kissed her gently on the cheek. I stepped closer and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. Despite the other guys hovering like spiders looking for prey, vying for her attention, she had chosen to spend that morning with me; I was grateful for that. I didn’t ask for more, I didn’t even ask for her phone number, or social. I didn’t want to spoil the magic.
She turned to the rest of the group and gave a small wave.
“Sorry, guys. I’ve got a plane to catch today.”
They smiled back, a chorus of nods and soft goodbyes. Nina climbed into another tuk-tuk, looked back one last time, and waved.
Even though Nina had left my side unexpectedly, my heart was still beating with joy. The idea that my story with her was just these few hours we spent at the party and whatever she drew on a page in my notebook, the contents of which I still didn’t know, felt beautiful to me.
Now, however, we had another matter ahead of us: a champions’ breakfast. The tuk-tuk started moving, heading toward the center of Otres Beach. The morning wind whipped against our faces, the palm trees by the roadside quickly falling behind. We, half-tired and half-excited, continued on our way.
“Right on time,” Nathan said, rubbing his eyes. “Coffee, bloody mary, and an omelet. What else do you need to survive?”
Sophie laughed. “Maybe a little more sleep?”
We threw ourselves into a beachside restaurant bar and settled at rough wooden tables, stubbornly pretending we were not exhausted. Wearing sunglasses to shield our eyes from the harsh post-party sun, we studied the menus while the waiter came to take our orders.
“An omelet and a draft beer,” I said after a short pause. My mind was still humming with the music of the night. I knew I could only manage something simple. Eating solid food after MDMA was always a challenge. My mouth felt dry, like the “kepçik” we used to say in Çanakkale. Still, I needed protein and carbs in my system. If I could swallow a few bites, that would be enough. Just knowing the nutrients were getting in felt reassuring.
The food and drinks arrived, and we raised our glasses. “Good morning.” “New day, new victories.”
Sophie smiled faintly. “And new stomach cramps.”
One of Nathan’s friends pulled a bag from his backpack and gave it a shake. “Look what I’ve got.” Inside were several bundles of grayish mushrooms.
“Are those mushrooms?” I asked.
“Yeah. Cubensis. Freshly picked,” he said with a wink. “Enough for everyone.”
The bag made its way around the table. Everyone took small pieces of shrooms with their breakfast. I took one too, popped it into my mouth with a bite of omelet, and started chewing. I kept chewing but I just couldn’t swallow the damn thing. The taste sat somewhere between dry straw and rust. Nathan was having the same problem. He raised his hand to the waiter.
“Do you have fresh orange juice?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Great.” He glanced at me, still chewing, and I gestured helplessly toward my mouth. “Could you bring two. Actually, make it four.”
The juices arrived, along with Bloody Marys with salted rims and lemon on the side. I chewed for what felt like three or four endless minutes before I could finally swallow. The next five or ten minutes stretched out strangely. As I sipped the juice, a faint bitterness lingered on my tongue and a soft flutter spread through my head. As the midday sun climbed higher, the heat grew heavier. We sank into the plush seats, our bodies loosening as the beach view drifted before our eyes.
Nathan pulled a small Bluetooth speaker from his bag. “We need music.”
“Damn right!” said Sophie.
I interviened.
“Could you play something if I ask? There’s a track that’s made for this moment.”
“What is it?”
“Shpongle. Around the World in a Tea Daze.”
“Alright, let’s hear it.” he said, and pressed play.
On Otres Beach, under the gentle breeze from the high wooden ceiling fans, in the daylight after a night of rave, we fell quiet as the small dose of shrooms began to settle into our minds. The blue of the sea shimmered, the sky turning into a warm, vivid painting. The music felt like the thread holding everything together. For a while, it seemed as if we were inside the painting ourselves.
The Manchester kids had a sharp, dark sense of humor that delighted me. Mischievous, politically incorrect, yet clever. Their energy was infectious, and around them I felt like a playful kid again. My face hurt from smiling. After Shpongle, the day rolled on with reggae, dubstep, and jungle. We drank, passed joints around, and stayed on the beach until the sun began to sink.
Finally, the full weight of the night began to settle over us. All the substances we had taken were slowly starting to wear off, and all we wanted now was to find a place to lay our heads. When the kids got up to head back to their bungalows, I remembered I still didn’t have a place to stay.
“Where are you staying?”
“Well, I still don’t have a place.”
Nathan turned to me. “Our bungalows are great. Clean as a whistle. Private showers and everything.”
Sophie smiled. “Yeah, they’re really comfortable. You can join us if you want.”
I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I needed real sleep. “Okay,” I said. “But I have to grab my bag first.”
We stopped by the Russian bar to pick up my backpack, then headed together toward their bungalow hostel.
When we got there, Nathan and Sophie proudly showed me around their little nest. Each wooden bungalow smelled fresh and had comfortable beds and its own shower. Sophie winked and said, “And the best part…” Nathan finished her sentence. “There’s a hammock in front of every door.”
The luck has it that the bungalow just next to Nathan and Sophie’s bungalow was vacant, and I booked it immediately. Their veranda was connected, with hammocks side by side.
I took a long shower first. The oval stall was tiled with stone, and every drop of water echoed off the walls, making it feel like showering inside a tropical cave. Grime, sweat, and dust that had clung to me for days washed away and disappeared down the drain. Steam rose in a thin mist, mixing with the damp scent of bamboo and filling the air. When I stepped out, I felt reborn. Clean clothes, a deep breath, and my body finally felt light.
We stepped onto the veranda and rolled one last joint at the small table beside the hammocks. A cool evening breeze brushed through our hair as Nathan started playing his drum and bass mix.
“So drum ’n’ bass, huh?” I said, handing him the joint.
Nathan took a strong drag and smiled as he exhaled through his nose. “Yeah. I grew up in Manchester. Drum ’n’ bass and jungle are huge in the underground scene there. I used to play a different basement party every weekend. We weren’t exactly professional, but our parties were kickass. What about you? You said you played too.”
I looked at him through narrowed eyes, took another drag, and said,
“I mostly play psytrance. A few friends and I used to organize small indoor events in Istanbul. All-night blacklights, UV backdrops, bass thumping like a pulse until dawn. They were small but intimate parties. Maybe fifty to a hundred people, and together we would almost slip into another dimension.”
Nathan nodded, smiling.
“I can imagine. The small, intimate ones are the best parties. I should definitely come to Istanbul someday.”
I grinned.
“And I’ll come to Manchester. You take me to the jungle clubs, and I’ll take you to the craziest psytrance nights in Istanbul.”
I took one last drag, stubbed out the joint, and we finally we retreated to our rooms. I sank into crisp white sheets that smelled of fresh detergent and closed my eyes. That night, for the first time in a long while, I truly slept in peace.
