Maldives: a Surplus of Light

It’s so bright on these islands it feels like they must be nightless, that with just 24 hours to a day, there’s more than enough light to go around. The light floods water, making it disappear, so boats levitate, their anchor lines making them look like realistic boat-shaped balloons. There is so much light, it spills over into your body and floods its innermost recesses, so that the dark inside is pushed out, made homeless, and has to take up temporary residence on your skin. And the more time you spend there, the more light your body drinks, and the more darkness is evicted from within it. You spend a week, two, on these islands, looking more like the locals by the day, until you reluctantly go home, where the air isn’t overcrowded with light and there’s space for the light in you to drain back out gradually, so the dark that’s been camping on your skin can finally seep back inside your body. No place like home, the shadows sigh happily. Not necessarily how you feel, your mind still in a place where there is a surplus of light.