I've always loved listening to music on my own, but there's

Host:
The beach was half-awake — a liminal hour between night and morning, when the sea still glowed with the ghost-light of the moon. A few scattered figures lingered near the water, their silhouettes moving like embers in a dying fire. Somewhere farther down the shore, the faint pulse of electronic music still throbbed — the last heartbeat of a rave that refused to end.

The sand shimmered with bottles, footprints, and the remnants of freedom. The air tasted of salt, smoke, and something wilder — a lingering vibration that didn’t belong to the physical world.

Jack sat cross-legged near the waves, his shirt unbuttoned, the collar damp with sweat and mist. A portable speaker beside him played a faint, looping melody — something rhythmic, hypnotic, alive. His eyes, pale and reflective, followed the tide as though it were whispering something only he could understand.

Jeeny walked toward him from the remnants of the fire pit, her bare feet glowing under the sand’s cool luminescence. Her long hair moved in the wind like a slow flame. She carried a half-empty coconut shell of water, and her smile was somewhere between serenity and melancholy.

She sat down beside him without a word. The music looped, building softly, like a heartbeat remembering itself.

And between them, drawn in the sand, were the words of Kevin Parker — scribbled in the rhythm of their exhaustion:

“I've always loved listening to music on my own, but there's another side of me that is just fascinated by... like Goa trance, for example — just a rave on a beach in India, you know? Where there's someone that's spinning the music, and it's just this free-flowing, continuous energy.”

Jeeny:
(quietly, gazing at the water)
That’s what he meant, I think. That there’s a rhythm that belongs to solitude — and another that belongs to surrender.

Jack:
(smirking faintly)
You mean chaos.

Jeeny:
No. I mean connection. The kind that doesn’t need words — just rhythm, breath, and presence.

Jack:
You sound like a mystic DJ.

Jeeny:
(laughing softly)
Maybe that’s what we all are — just mixing emotion, timing, and silence until it makes sense.

Host:
The waves rolled closer, the foam catching bits of starlight. The speaker’s sound blended with the sea — no distinction between electronic pulse and natural rhythm. For a moment, even time seemed to forget itself.

Jack:
You really believe in that — the trance, the unity, all of it?

Jeeny:
Of course. Haven’t you ever felt it? That moment when music isn’t playing — it’s happening to you?

Jack:
(quietly)
Maybe once. In a basement club in Berlin. It wasn’t the sound that got me — it was the way it erased me.

Jeeny:
Exactly. That’s what Goa is about. Not escape — dissolution. Losing the edges that keep you separate.

Jack:
(skeptical)
Sounds romantic until you wake up sunburned and alone, wondering who you were trying to dissolve into.

Jeeny:
(smiling)
Maybe the universe. Or maybe just the moment. Not everything worth feeling needs to last.

Host:
The bassline from the speaker deepened — slow, circular, infinite. The world began to feel like a single organism breathing.

Jack:
You know, I’ve always preferred music alone. Headphones on. Curtains drawn. Just me and the sound — no interruptions.

Jeeny:
Because when you’re alone, you’re in control.

Jack:
And what’s wrong with that?

Jeeny:
Nothing — unless control becomes another kind of silence.

Jack:
You mean I’m afraid to let go.

Jeeny:
Aren’t we all? That’s why people dance — to remind the body what it means to surrender.

Jack:
So, a rave is a religion.

Jeeny:
(laughing)
Exactly. Music is the god. The DJ is the priest. And the dance floor is the confessional where no one has to speak.

Jack:
Then confession never ends.

Jeeny:
Nor should it. The rhythm keeps the soul honest.

Host:
The sky began to lighten. The horizon was painted with faint streaks of indigo and rose, the first suggestion of morning. The music shifted, the beat slowing, softening — like a pulse preparing for rest.

Jack:
You know what’s strange? Music is the only art that disappears the moment it exists.

Jeeny:
(smiling softly)
Yes — that’s why it’s sacred. It reminds us that beauty doesn’t have to be permanent to be real.

Jack:
(looking at her)
And yet we keep chasing it — capturing it, recording it, bottling it.

Jeeny:
Because deep down, we’re terrified of silence.

Jack:
(half-smiling)
Maybe that’s why I never liked raves. Too much noise pretending to be meaning.

Jeeny:
No — too much meaning pretending to be noise. You just have to listen differently.

Jack:
And how do you do that?

Jeeny:
Stop listening with your ears. Start listening with your pulse.

Host:
The waves kissed the sand just inches from their toes. The rhythm was perfect — infinite yet fragile. Jack stared at the horizon, his face softening as the sky began to bloom.

Jack:
You really think that kind of connection can exist — that moment where everyone’s heart syncs, not because they know each other, but because they stop needing to?

Jeeny:
I don’t just think it. I’ve felt it. Once, on a beach like this. I looked around, and every person’s face was glowing — not from lights, but from belonging. It wasn’t about ego, or fame, or who we were. It was just... us. Breathing the same sound.

Jack:
(slowly)
Sounds like freedom.

Jeeny:
It was. The kind that only lasts until sunrise.

Jack:
Maybe that’s the only kind that’s real.

Host:
The beat faded to silence. Only the sound of the ocean remained — steady, ancient, eternal.

Jeeny reached over and turned off the speaker. The sudden quiet was both jarring and beautiful.

Jeeny:
You see? The music never really ends. It just keeps echoing in what it changed.

Jack:
And what did it change in you?

Jeeny:
Everything. It made me realize that solitude and connection aren’t opposites. They’re the same note — played at different volumes.

Host:
The sun finally broke the surface of the sea — a slow, golden explosion that washed their faces in warmth. The world smelled new again.

Jack stood, brushing sand from his hands. Jeeny followed, their shadows stretching long and soft behind them.

Jack:
Maybe Kevin Parker was right. There’s something sacred about both sides — the private melody and the collective trance. Maybe we need both to stay human.

Jeeny:
(smiling)
Maybe being human is the dance — between isolation and immersion, between silence and sound.

Jack:
Between self and surrender.

Jeeny:
Exactly.

Host:
They began to walk along the shore, barefoot, quiet. Behind them, the last echoes of the night’s music blended with the new chorus of gulls and waves.

Perhaps that was what Kevin Parker meant — that the soul needs both solitude and surrender. The stillness of private sound, and the chaos of shared rhythm.

Because music, like life, is both the wave and the listener —
and its truest form isn’t heard in the speakers or the sea,
but in the heartbeat that dares to keep time with the world.

Fade out.