...For friends in faraway places, rarely out of my thoughts, always in my heart....
Ok ok, if you have read my previous jbr's some of you may think that this one will also involve copious amounts of drinking, it doesn't. So lets get this out of the way now...
Things that go bump in the night does not include, stumbling round half pissed, hopping into someone's immaculate near new kijang and scraping the alloy wheels along the curb as you drive home, there is no groping for god knows what in an inebriated state only to find a pleasant surprise !!...Nor does it cover off the thwack of your head against the headboard from an over zealous ‘friend'. There is no walking into doors, no tripping, no falling up or downstairs, no chocolate bottoms skinny dipping in the pool, no confusion about where one is at 4.00am in the morning waking in a strange room, stubbing your toe on something desperately trying to hold on while you find the toilet....No, there is none of that because this isn't about my daily routine in Bali...... Seriously, that isn't my daily routine in Bali either, but I have been known to ........
ahh forget it..:-)
This is actually about something which has happened to one of my friends I recently traveled with.... It is the 3rd time in as many trips this has happened . So, as I write this it is close to the witching hour or past it. Tonight there are some scallywag teenagers roaming the streets a bit pissed and their laughter has woken my dogs who are proving what great guard dogs they are and barking relentlessly at shadows on the street. I give up and crawl out of bed, it seems tonight I will not sleep easily, between sms messages and the kids I figure I may as well do something....
In 2003 while staying at the Barong Hotel [room 409 or 410 she thinks was the room] an apparition scared the living daylights out of Raels. She awoke and could make out a dark form, a blackness in the room she shared with another friend. She screamed loudly waking her roomy and was filled with a sense of foreboding and terror. At the time we all laughed about it saying that's what too many Jam Jars and nights at the Bounty ship will do to you. ..'There are some horrible looking things that hang out there....are you sure you didn't bring one back to the room?' ... She laughed, we all laughed but privately she was quite disturbed by it. We were convinced she had been asleep, having a nightmare and that it woke her up and she screamed.
Later in 2003 she returned to Bali with another friend and the same thing happened. I think that time they were staying at Ahdi Dharma. She mentioned it in passing to me when I visited her in Perth in 2004. Again, I say oh sh%t really, are you sure you weren't dreaming.....To say that I can sometimes be a little obtuse, on occasion possibly even insensitive would be an understatement... [this will become apparent shortly] In fact , someone on this most recent trip called me self-centred because he wanted to play 20 questions to find out about what I did for a living. When he failed and I still wouldn't tell him, he said, ok do you want to know what I do....My response quote unquote was ...'Frankly, I don't give a rat's arse, I don't care if you are an unattractive cross-dressing tranny...' With that he called me self centred...go figure, maybe he took offense at the unattractive remark... and again I digress...apologies .
Back to 2005. The day before Raels leaves Bali as we laze by the pool she says very quietly there is something I have to tell you. I am up and down changing cd's and getting us a beer and nibbles so I am slightly out of earshot of what she says. Her voice is hushed almost as though she is frightened to say it, but I am in a happy frame of mind and think she is just tired from a big night of partying...
...'It happened again.. you know that thing that I have seen here before. This time it touched me, grabbed my hand... I wanted to tell you before I went to the Gili's but everyone was having fun and I didn't think you would want to know...it's making me sick I think..'
Me, being obtuse...'you sure you aren't just dreaming this mate, I mean it only happens in Bali...but then weird sh%t does happen here...you want another beer...' Sometimes I could just slap myself for being so stupid.... I go get more beers...
A couple of hours pass and we a just making small talk talking about the last 3 weeks when some friends stop by to visit us. We haul ourselves into the villa, open a bottle of champers for the girls and the boys relax on the daybed...
I don't even know how the topic came up in conversation but my friends were telling us tales of weird stuff they had encountered in Bali, vivid dreams about death, sightings of apparitions, black magic etc. So, here comes the insensitive bit....'Hey Raels tell them about what has happened to you here...' and so, still stupidly unaware of how she is affected by this I cajole her into recounting her tale. I don't even take care to listen as I have heard it before....somebody slap me...
My other friends are intrigued. Insensitive me, still oblivious, strikes up a conversation with one of the guys and merrily go on my way... Probably an hour later they all leave and we are still trying to decide on what to do for Raels last night. I decide to make toast to snack on and am in the kitchen, when I look up to ask her what she wants on hers...
...'I know it means death...' Me...'sorry mate what did you say?..' I carry on preparing food....'I know it means death...' again I look up and say ..'do you want 2 pieces of toast?'
and stop for a second staring oddly at her...'mate are you ok, you're not crying are you...sh%t what is wrong...' and at last I go to comfort my friend and sit and listen and take in what she has been trying to tell me for so long....
This thing that visits her, overwhelming engulfs her with sorrow and she says it has no human form but is a blackness and has what appears to be red eyes. There is no doubt in her mind that it is something to do with death. That evening she is inconsolable, sobbing and she has totally freaked me out. I have the odd superstitious moment...touch wood...., don't walk under ladders, before the grace of god etc...am sure many of you know the kind of thing I mean, but what she described and more importantly her state of mind and the affect it has had on her sends shivers quite literally down my spine. She has been nauseas most of her trip and says that this thing is making her ill and the only time she really relaxed was in the Gili islands. She doesn't ever see this apparition in Australia or any other place she has traveled, only in Bali and only since the 2002 bombing.
She asks me to leave my door unlocked that night and I give her a small crystal angel I had taken over to give my friend Made who had lost his two children. It supposedly is a worry angel, the keeper of your heart and will keep you safe. She sleeps with it on her pillow and I for the first time sleep with a light on and a rosary wrapped around my fingers...
While still in Bali I spoke with Balinese friends and they are surprised at what I describe. They don't think bule [westerners] see these things. They do not think that what she has seen is going to hurt her but they say they have seen similar and that it also frightens them.
On Friday night just gone, I called my friend to wish her safe travels as she is off on a 5 week journey to Egypt. Again she is distraught and in tears. I wont go into the details of why, but she still carries this foreboding with her, her gut is pitted with fear and an overwhelming sense that death is watching over...
This has been difficult to write for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because this is not really my story, but that of my friend.. It is an extraordinarily personal thing to share and I have done it in the hope that maybe I can find answers for her and that others who read it, might also post about odd things which have gone bump in the night in Bali....
Thanks for reading ...