i console my sadness at sunset that is so fleeting
when night falls let my longing stay strong
till the next sunset when our meeting begets gazes
And that if God still takes pity
and eases my worry that’s reached the point of exhaustion.
Source: Aku Menulis Lagi blog, Featured image from InfoAstronomy.org
Don’t forget to check out:
https://www.instagram.com/tintajemari/
The sun rose this morning
Sniffed the smell of baby piss on the horizon,
Looked at the brown river snaking its way to the sea,
And listened to the hum of the bees in the forest.
And now it starts to climb into the sky
And it presides to bear witness, that we are gathered here
To investigate the current situation.
We ask:
Why are good intentions sometimes no use?
Why can good intentions clash with good intentions?
People say: “We have good intentions.”
And we ask: “Good intentions for who?”
Yes, some are mighty and some are humble.
Some are armed and some are injured.
Some have positions and some are occupied.
Some have plenty and some are emptied.
And we here ask:
“Your good intentions are for who?
You stand on the side of who?”
Why are good intentions put into practice
But more and more farmers lose their land?
Farms in the mountains are bought up by people from the city.
Huge plantations
Only benefit just one small group.
Advanced equipment that is imported
Doesn’t suit farmers with tiny pieces of land.
Well we ask:
“So your good intentions are for who?”
Now the sun is rising high in the sky.
And will indeed be enthroned above the palm trees.
And here in the hot air we will also ask:
All of us are educated to stand on the side of who?
Will the knowledge taught here
Be an instrument of liberation,
Or of oppression?
The sun shall soon go down.
Night will arrive,
The geckos chatter on the wall
And the moon sail forth.
But our questions shall not abate.
They shall live in the people’s dreams,
Grow in the fields that recede into the distance.
And on the morrow,
The sun shall rise once more.
Evermore the new day shall incarnate,
Our questions shall become a forest,
Transform into rivers,
And become the waves of an ocean.
Under this hot sun, we ask:
There are those who scream, and those who beat,
There are some with nothing, and some who scratch for something.
And our good intentions,
Stand on the side of who?
Jakarta
1 December 1977
This poem was presented to students at the University of Indonesia, and performed in the film “Yang Muda Yang Bercinta” directed by Syumanjaya.
Poem for a Student Meeting (Sajak Pertemuan Mahasiswa), State of Emergency, W.S. Rendra, Wild & Woolley, Glebe, 1978, p. 38.
The featured image is from Yang Tegak Berdiri Kokoh dan Yang Lunglai Meleyot-Leyot: Tentang Patung, Ruang Publik dan Kekuasaan.
Tugu Tani Today (Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BXhI9dYAb9J)
For background on the history and controversy surrounding Tugu Tani see Matvey Manizer, Kisah Di Balik Tugu Tani: Patung Pahlawan, Banyak Ormas Menuduh Patung di Tugu Tani di Jakpus and the following article from The Jakarta Post ‘Tugu Tani’ a hero statue, not farmers statue: History book .
National Peasants Day 2017 (Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BZarEQAnIRt)
Shu Li, Peasant Heroes, c. 1945 NGA
Aliansi Badan Eksekutif Mahasiswa (BEM) Seluruh Indonesia yang di dalamnya beranggotakan 150 lebih perguruan tinggi menyatakan penolakan menghadiri undangan terbuka Presiden Jokowi ke Istana Negara …. https://t.co/hAJZV5ax3H
— TEMPO.CO (@tempodotco) September 27, 2019
They were five street children and Gupris was the only girl. The five of them rarely washed, and even more infrequently changed clothes. Of the lot, Gupris was the most active and noisy, and also the most talkative. Gupris was the only one too who had ever been to school even if only briefly.
And now the five children had jumped onto the tray of an open-sided truck that had started moving toward the depot. Every morning they gathered at the truck depot that was surrounded by stalls, mostly stalls selling rice meals. The four boys always slept there, on the floor under the awning of the closed stalls, or wherever they liked. At night, they were used to the mosquitoes. But often they couldn’t sleep when they had empty stomachs. Gupris didn’t join them sleeping rough at the depot. She did something different. She had a small house behind the depot. Her mother was there, but her father wasn’t.
Three o’clock in the morning was the time Gupris hated the most. She was often woken by the fragrant smell. She would often see early in the morning that her mother was already washed and dressed, and had put on her makeup and lipstick. Then her mother would take the handbasket and say she was off to go shopping at the market. At first, Gupris didn’t care. But then she came to hate it because her mother would always come home with an empty basket, her striking brightly colored clothes and makeup a mess. Gupris came to hate it more and more. So now every morning at two-thirty she got up and went to the depot to join her four friends before her mother arrived home.
Gupris and her four friends sat cross-legged on the tray of the empty truck that was headed for the cement factory. The truck was huge, it had fourteen wheels, the tray was steel, and it had no sides. One of the children played a small drum, one played a tambourine, and another played an old battered guitar. The result was a traveling dangdut* stage. The truck drivers were never angry even though the five street kids would often make a noise banging on the floor of the tray. Gupris usually sang like a dangdut singer, but this time she preferred to play on her cellphone. She had become fond of looking at rude pictures. Gupris still wore her hair in two pigtails.
Approaching Karangasu intersection, Gupris got up and stood unsteadily. She invited her four friends to get ready to get down. If they were lucky, the traffic lights at the intersection would turn red for them. But not this time. So one of the children who couldn’t wait jumped down along the side. He slammed into the ground and immediately streamed. Gupris ran to the front pounding on the roof of the truck cabin. The truck finally stopped after crossing the intersection. The driver looked back but wasn’t angry. The other four children jumped down. They wanted to help their friend who was sitting in pain but the traffic was very heavy. Gupris took action. She moved to the center of the road, raising her hands high to motion for a chance to get cross. The sun’s heat had started to bite.
The five street children who rarely took a bath walked away from the intersection, the one being helped to a sheltered place and left there alone.
Gupris invited the three friends back to the corner of the intersection. The drum made from PVC pipe and a membrane made of tire started to pound. The tambourine and old battered guitar started to make a noise.
Gupris got ready for their dangdut show. But suddenly she stopped still. She saw something. Something had changed at the corner of the intersection. Near them a noticeboard had been erected. The writing was black on a white painted wooden board. Unlike her friends who weren’t interested because they couldn’t read, Gupris was different. She wanted to read the writing. She began to spell out. Her friends approached and stood behind her to listen.
“A-n-y-o-ne be-gg-i-ng a-n-d b-us-ki-n-g w-i-ll b-e… pu-n-i-s-h-ed b-y… i-m-p-ri-s-o-n-e-d …”.
Gupris stopped, then turned to face her friends.
“What is punished? What does being punished and imprisoned mean?” they asked.
The four boys grinned and then each shook his head. None of them knew. They just stared at each other. Gupris was annoyed and felt useless. So Gupris invited her friends to leave. But they suddenly stopped.
“Now, read that! You are wild kids who just wander around aimlessly, you have to read it. You have to!”
Gupris and her friends looked to the side at the same time. There was a watchman coming out of the food stall wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Above the right pocket of his shirt was clearly embroidered with the name Karidun. He was moving in a half run. And he stopped, puffing himself up. His loud voice sounded over the noise of the cars and motorbikes. There was still some rice or coconut pieces stuck to the corner of his lips. The left over food continued to dance following the movement of his mouth as the watchman spoke. That was the sight that made Gupris almost burst out laughing.
“Go on reading. You have to!” said watchman Karidun, hand pointing to the noticeboard there in a commanding style. “I’m a security officer, see, security from Community Services. I was the one who put the sign up this morning. For people just like you. Get it? Remember, I’m security from Community Services, right?”
Quietly Gupris stopped, her face blank. Then she looked behind her in the direction of her friends.
“Hey, why stop. Read on. I’m security. And I told you to read. Go on,” shouted watchman Karidun, voice becoming louder this time.
“P-u-n-is-he-d, what does that mean, mister?” Gupris asked in a normal tone. Although she was still a little girl, who didn’t wash often, Gupris dared to quip back to Karidun, who wanted to be called security.
There was quiet again. Watchman Karidun didn’t seem to be ready to answer Gupris’ question.
His face changed. Like somebody with a stutter, confused, but his eyebrows hardened. Then he turned himself around rubbing his forehead.
Finally he snapped back to face the five street kids as he also puffed himself right up.
“I am a security official. Right, now?”
“Yes!” Gupris answered very quickly.
“So, in my opinion, to be punished is definitely not the same as being given some money. Being punished might be the same as being convicted. Yes. Being punished by imprisonment is the same as being sentenced to confinement, put in prison, sent to jail. Get it? That’s it, so don’t you go begging and busking. You should all be going to school. So you can be like me who’s a security officer and knows what being punished means.”
Gupris fell silent a moment. Then turned back to face her friends. “You hear, we should be going to school.”
“Do you get money going to school?” interrupted one of the children.
“Seriously! Schools, see, don’t get you money, in fact you have to pay,” Gupris answered.
“Wow, that’s a problem if it’s like that? You don’t get any money? So what are we supposed to buy food with? It would be better to keep on busking, keep on begging. Then we can keep on eating.”
“Wait, what?” exclaimed watchman Karidun with a fierce face. “I have just told you. Begging and busking will be punished by imprisonment. P-u-n-ish-ed b-y i-mp-ri-so-n-me-nt for 30 days, with a fine of 50 million rupiah! Do you hear that?”
Gupris’s face sank. But then she smiled faintly as she noticed the leftover food in the corner of Karidun’s mouth dancing again.
“Why is that?” Gupris responded again. “Begging isn’t pickpocketing, or stealing, is it?”
“Yes, but it is against the ban. Anyone who breaks the ban is definitely going to be punished, convicted.”
“Why is it like that? Who made the ban?”
“Well, I’m security. So I know who made the ban on begging, the mayor and the city council members.”
“What’s a mayor?”
“Really, you wild child. The mayor is an important official.”
“Are the city council members too?”
“Yess. Now listen. As security I want to explain everything. The city council members are the representatives of the people, so your representatives too.”
Gupris’ eyebrows narrowed. She was confused. But at least now she knew. The city council members were a type of human too. And they along with the mayor had made the ban, whoever begged and busked would be punished by imprisonment.
“Yes, yes. We beg and busk every day. But we’ve never been punished.” Gupris grinned. Her four friends laughed.
“Oh, so you’re all asking to be punished, are you?” Karidun hurriedly rummaged for his cellphone in his pocket. He muttering to himself, the leftover food still not yet gone from the corners of his mouth. Gupris and her four friends laughed again.
“Hang on. I’ll call for a city police patrol car to grab you guys. Just hang on. I’m the security who calls the city police. So they’ll be right here.”
“What’s the city police anyway?” Gupris stared up at Karidun. But there was no answer.
As Karidun was busy with his cellphone, Gupris turned to face her friends. She whispered. The four friends nodded together. Then they glanced to the side. The traffic lights was showing red. Two large empty trucks with open trays and an expensive car were pulled up. The light changed to yellow, then to green. Gupris moved the fastest, the others following. They deftly jumped up like monkeys as the big truck with the open tray began to move off. Then they waved wildly to watchman Karidun.
“Hey mister watchman, we’re off to Tegal, then Cirebon. Then to…, then, then… If you want to punish us, chase us there, OK, mister?” Gupris shouted as she laughed. The four friends danced wildly on the truck as it sped off. Gupris’ voice was still audible, but grew fainter and fainter. The cement truck drove on into the distance headed north in the direction of the city of Tegal.
The Karangasu intersection would continue to be busy but it was left behind by Gupris and her four friends. The five street kids who were still just young children had gone on a journey. They would wander through Tegal, Cirebon, and who knows where else. Watchman Karidun was still standing on the corner at the intersection. He stared at the sign that announced the ban on begging he had just built that morning. Oh, and once the sixty by one hundred centimeter sign was up it had immediately proved its potency. Five street children had left the Karangasu intersection. Watchman Karidun was proud because he felt he had done a good job. Or, had he. Because the vision of Gupris’ cute face and two pigtails continued to linger before his eyes. The voice of Gupris as she spelt in a halting voice, “…what is punished by imprisonment?…” continued to ring in his ears too.
They Spelt The Begging Ban (Mereka Mengeja Larangan Mengemis) was published in Kompas Daily on 15 September 2019. (Retrieved from Mereka Mengeja Larangan Mengemis.)
Ahmad Tohari, was born in Banyumas, June 13, 1948. He now lives in the village of Tinggarjaya, Jatilawang, Purwokerto in Central Java province. His most popular work is the novel trilogy Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk. His collections of short stories include Senyum Karyamin, Nyanyian Malam, dan Mata yang Enak Dipandang. Other works includes the novels: Kubah (1982), Di Kaki Bakit Cibalak (1977), Bekisar Merah (1993), Lingkar Tanah Lingkar Air (1995), Bclantik (2001), dan Orang-orang Proyek (2002).
*On dangdut check out https://www.britannica.com/art/dangdut or
You’ll probably also enjoy the film Jalanan https://www.youtube.com/user/jalananmovie
Kebiasaan menghukum korban. Mengapa?https://t.co/P8dXgXw0W9
— Ariel Heryanto (@ariel_heryanto) September 18, 2019
Pengamen, salah tangkap, diduga pembunuh oleh polisi. Minta ganti rugi, ditolak. Alasannya
“Pihak Kementerian Keuangan menilai, seorang pengamen tidak pantas mendapatkan ganti rugi karena profesinya sendiri telah melanggar secara hukum”
…
— Mouldie Satria (@mouldie_sep) October 7, 2019
Only her eyes are visible. What can you see from a pair of eyes that radiate the enchantment of the world with every blink?
That is how enchantment radiates from the eyes being watched to swallow the eyes watching, which are instantly dazzled and instantly stunned, as if struck by a blaze of heavenly light that completely obliterates the self and every desire, leaving the body devoid of all thought, except that of surrender and willingness in the yearning to be enslaved in the sacrifice of the soul.
“That’s enough! Stop standing there like that,” says his wife. “Let’s go home.”
But he no longer knows the words go home. Gone is home, gone is wife, gone is family. Vanished is all the cheerful chatter of children filling his life like the crashing of surf filling the silence of the universe.
He leaves his shocked wife who grabs his arm only to have him jerk it away, who can only watch the man who is her husband, the father of her children, vanish into the crowd and disappear…
Who would ever have thought that happiness was so fragile, the miracle of love so transitory?
***
From a distance, he continues to follow her. She steps without ever looking behind again, even though in all the reflections of all the glass at the intersection, in the shop windows, and in the side mirrors of motorbike taxi drivers waiting for passengers, she can see how he has been following her since the market.
She realizes he has been walking along the sidewalk continuously following her at a distance. If she turns into a lane, he follows her into the lane. If she climbs onto a bus, he follows in a minibus traveling the same route. If she gets into a taxi, he follows her on a motorbike taxi or in another taxi. If she catches a train, she knows too how he is in the same carriage, and immediately follows her when she gets off at whatever station she’s going to.
Later, when she arrives at her house, she kisses her husband’s hand, takes the little one back from the hands of the babysitter. Then from behind the window with the curtains that are always drawn, she needs to peek through and she can see the outline of her stalker darting into the small cafe at the end of the street. She is certain that from inside the cafe he’s constantly staring, waiting, hoping. Dreaming.
She and her husband look at each other. The little one is asleep. The babysitter has left.
From the small café closing up a pair of eyes stare out at her dark house and sips coffee.
***
From day to day he moves around the daily life of the woman whose eyes alone are visible. It is not enough to follow from behind, sometimes he pretends to pass her by accident.
It’s when they pass that he stares at her eyes, and at whatever else other than her eyes he can see. And it’s when they pass each other that his chest heaves, his heart comes alive and something else pounds more quickly than usual.
What can be expressed by a pair of eyes whose brightness excites, with a gaze that pierces and grips, that conquers? What can a pair of eyes express? It seems so much, but how can you be sure?
He hopes those eyes will recognize him, and if they recognize him, then pay him a small amount of attention, and if possible, not only pay a little attention, but still more also desire something in return from him. But not just desire something in return, also crave for something in return.
Is it possible that what he has hoped for, that what has never existed in the relationship between them, can happen? But those eyes seem to be saying everything! They seem to be paying attention, appear to be hoping for something. They seem even to crave for him…
Over the days, his guess seems to be becoming a reality.
***
One day when he follows her, she turns around and looks straight at his eyes.
He thinks, she’s looking for me! She wants to know if I’m following her today! She wants me to follow where she’s going!
He quickens his pace, draws nearer. But she doesn’t turn around again. After a while just walking behind her he ventures to speed up and draws alongside her.
They walk together, against the current of the surge of urban humanity swirling along the streets. Who among so many people in this world would think that something so important has happened between the two of them?
With all these feelings flowering in his heart, he still can not be sure of anything.
How can he be sure of anything just from the look of somebody’s eyes, even though it has certainly been proved that the blaze of a radiant pair of eyes has captured and uprooted him from his old, comfortable, serene, problem-free life to enter a world that, despite its uncertainty, still promises the happiness of a heaven like the one created by the glow of her eyes?
The waves of humanity continue to swirl around them. He observes their eyes and it seems that not one of them passes with the glow of the eyes of the woman beside him. How is it possible?
How is it possible that all these people flowing past from the front can miss so blithely the shining radiance of the most beautiful eyes? Are the eyes of city people any blinder than when they are looking for something false which has in fact never existed? But they are there in front of him!
Walking alongside her, he cannot see anything, until it’s dark and the woman is gone. He searches everywhere, and doesn’t find her…
***
The house lights have to be switched off before she squints through the curtains and sees that he’s in the small café, his glare penetrating the night directly in her direction. She closes the curtains quickly as if that stare were a whirling arrow able to pierce the glass of the window, able to penetrate the window and pierce her heart. But then she parts the curtains again. He won’t be able to see her. She can see him. There’s a large crowd in the cafe, but his back is turned to them and he stares in her direction. A slight sense of sadness passes over her, but only for a moment. She’s used to disregarding her own feelings, for the sake of the larger interest she believes in.
She turns in the direction of her husband who’s reading verses from the holy book to their son before he goes to bed.
Her husband raises his head, looks at her, and nods.
***
The dark cloudy sky surges as he follows her from a distance for the umpteenth time in as many months. She glances back just before disappearing into a lane. With a gaze that shines brightly, fleetingly, but which takes complete possession of the soul which has cried and worshiped for so long craving a response. He feels how his feet are so light, as he weaves between the thousands of people in the street to follow her. He wants to never lose her again, even though he can always go back to the cafe in front of her house.
Rain thunders down the moment she reaches the back of the lane. She is waiting there, leaning against a wall, soaked to the bone, staring straight into his eyes. He’s frozen. What he has become accustomed to experiencing as a hope, a yearning makes him giddy as it transforms into a reality.
Not only stare, she takes his hands, draws them in the torrential rain that makes every other human disappear from the streets, vanish from the lane, and leaves only the two of them breaking through the rain hand in hand. Although the rain is so heavy and the torrent from the sky feels like the rubber bullets that hit him randomly as he watched the demonstration, he is not conscious of them.
***
A door opens. they enter a darkened room and inhales the odor of old metal. But what is he going to worry about when in the darkness his wet clothes no longer cover his body, when hands as soft as cotton draw his hands to the other unclothed body?
In the darkness and the thundering rain, he cannot hear the sounds and sighs but is able to feel everything.
***
He carries a backpack on his back. As ultimate service what is there that he would not do? He does not even feel the need to ask what is in the pack. He does not want to worry about that out of fear of losing the one who has mastered him.
Those are still his feelings as the world disappears suddenly from his consciousness as the explosive in his backpack goes off destroying everything, everything. Buildings, ants, and humanity…
The Slave of Love (Budak Cinta) was published in Kompas Daily, 20 January 2019. (Retrieved from lakonhidup.wordpress.com)
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, born in Boston, United States, June 19, 1958. Now serves as Chancellor of the Jakarta Institute of the Arts (IKJ). Seno became better known after writing his trilogy of works on East Timor, namely Saksi Mata (collection of short stories), Jazz, Purfum, dan Insiden? (novel), and Ketika Jurnalisme Dibungkam, Sastra Harus Bicara (collection of essays). In 2014, he launched a blog called Pana-Journal (www.panajournal.com) about human interest stories with a number of journalists and professionals in the field of communication.
Oetje Lamno, born in Yogyakarta on May 31, 1978, completed his art education at the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) Yogyakarta. He has participated in various art exhibitions in several places, including overseas. In 2010, he attended Beijing Biennale # 4 at the National Art Museum of China. In 2017, he returned to exhibit in China on “Silk Road, International Festival Art, Xi-an”. Oetje was a finalist of the 2015 Indonesia Art Award art competition, whose works are on display at the National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta.
He would not have swallowed the poison if yesterday’s incident hadn’t happened. A week earlier, he’d had a dream about a woman dressed in red with shoulder-length hair who came to him on a beach he did not recognize. Without the chance to get a clear look at her face, the woman had straight away hugged him from behind, so tightly that his bones felt like they were going to break.
Only on hearing a cracking sound, along with the feeling of excruciating pain, did he then wake up.
He saw the clock on the wall still showing forty-two minutes past three. Only the sound of the clock ticking could be heard. He decided to close his eyes again and remember absolutely nothing of what had happened in his dream. But the pain in his back was still there making him change his sleeping position several times.
He managed to fall asleep and woke again at ten in the morning. Usually, he woke up in the afternoon after staying up late translating some of the manuscripts that were on his laptop. The pain in his back made him wake up early. Even though his sleep had been disturbed earlier in the day, he tried to look for possible causes of the pain.
“Maybe my sleeping position was the problem.”
“Hang on, just maybe it’s because I was sitting for too long working.”
“No, it seems to be because last night I didn’t drink enough water.”
Among the possibilities, it didn’t enter his head for a moment about his dream.
While thinking about the pain, he suddenly remembered his promise to Eka, the publisher who wanted to print his translation. He had twice asked for an extension to work on improving the translation. And in six days’ time, the deadline would expire. He also didn’t want to ask for an extension, but on the other hand, he still felt as if he wasn’t finished the translation.
While struggling against the pain in the back of his body, he walked slowly toward the bathroom holding onto the wall of the house. His steps were exactly like those of an old man who had lost his walking stick, one hand on the wall, the other on his back massaging his own lower spine.
“What’s happen? Why do you have to be sick like this, Lord?”
There wasn’t a soul in the house. In the past, he had kept a cat and it had been given the name March — the month of his birth, as well as several his favorite authors. Now, the distance to the bathroom felt like a long way for him.
He took a few steps back and dropped himself onto a brown sofa in the space that was his office. He took a deep breath returning to the quest for the correct position to ease the pain. Sitting in the chair made him feel better.
He then lifted a book from the small table next to his chair. At the table, there were several novels which he was reading and a thin notebook with a white cover that had no pictures. There were also two fountain pens he often used to take notes or make lists in his book. If not used for making notes, the fountain pen often became a way of relieving anxiety by using the end to tap on the table.
The book he was reading still had around a hundred and twenty-three pages to go before it was finished. His felt better after sitting down and reading a few pages of the book. He leaned back and let his back be swallowed softness of the chair.
All of a sudden, he felt that he wanted to do a wee but the comfortable position made him feel like not getting up. To his right, the window hadn’t been opened, so the sun’s rays weren’t fully entering the house. But he could feel a warm sensation around his thighs after he allowed himself to urinate where he was. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the flow of his urine.
He only left his chair when he had finished the book.
***
After returning to read his translation, he lay down on the floor. That afternoon, after contacting his friend William who worked as a doctor at a health center, he was told not to sleep on a mattress. He didn’t want to go to bed yet, but the pain in his back was becoming worse. The only way to feel better was to lay down. Before going to bed, he once again tried contacting his girlfriend Nadira.
Two days before, Nadira had left to return to Selayar Regency to organize their wedding which was scheduled to take place in the middle of the year. But Nadira just didn’t pick up the phone, or even respond to his WhatsApp chat messages.
The day before Nadira left, the weather in Selayar had turned extremely bad causing an interruption to the signal. Yesterday, Nadira had still been able to message, she had mentioned that the weather looked as if it was becoming worse and that communication might be interrupted.
In a media report from Selayar, he saw strong winds and continually pounding high seas. There was no news from Nadira. That night he began to have a strange sensation, a sense of dread over something. His pain was sometimes forgotten when he went back to looking for news of Nadira. As he waited for a miracle, he read the chat on WhatsApp from several days before.
Reading it made him smile, then laugh to himself, until, unwittingly, he fell asleep that night holding his cell phone.
And once again, the dream reoccurred, over five consecutive nights. In the end, everything that happened in the dream was clearly recorded in his memory. He was able to remember what happened but could not recognize who the woman was or where the beach was where they were.
That night too, before going to bed he again tried to contact Nadira, to tell her about his dream and the worry that he had been holding back for several days. But again, a bad feeling pressing in on his chest. Something might have happened. The news reporting about Selayar still had no new reports after the extremely bad weather of the last few days.
The pain in his back then spread towards one place, his tailbone. That same night, he could no longer sit. He allowed himself to lie down on the floor. He looked at the ceiling of his room, noticing the lights that appeared to be glowing. The lights in the room then went out and instantly his whole body became completely paralyzed.
A few moments later, the lights came back on. Again he saw the figure of the long-haired woman dressed in red who had appeared in his dreams. Only the difference was this time he could see her face, and the woman was Nadira.
His chest felt tight, not because he was scared, but instead because the bad feeling he’d had the whole time, seemed to be coming true.
Something had happened to Nadira. The figure disappeared quickly, in just the blink of an eye. Right then he thought his body was normal again and he stood up, despite the pain in his tailbone.
His laptop was still open, the text of his translation was still not complete. There was still no news of Nadira. The pain was becoming more and more unbearable. As he rose resisting the pain, he grimaced. He felt as if his life was in chaos. A voice in his head asked him to go straight into the kitchen. A bottle of insecticide was stored behind the back of the kitchen door.
The figure he had just seen was indeed possibly his girlfriend Nadira. Death has taken her before him. He wasn’t able to translate events as well as he translated the manuscript on his laptop.
He took stumbling steps towards the bottle of poison. Now as he started to draw near, it was me who then hugged him from behind until everything in him was crushed, while it was me who had embraced Nadira before him in the high pounding waves.
Why had he not translated me first?
The Death of a Translator (Kematian Seorang Penerjemah) was published in Kompas Daily, 24 March 2019.
Wawan Kurniawan, writes poetry, short stories, essays, novels, and translations. Joined the Kompas Daily short story writing class (2015), published a book of poetry entitled Persinggahan Perangai Sepi (2013) and Sajak Penghuni Surga (2017). One of his novels entitled Seratus Tahun Kebisuan (A Hundred Years of Silence) is a Unnes International Novel Writing Contest 2017 Novel of Choice. Check out https://www.instagram.com/wawankurn/
Nyoman Sujana Kenyem, born in Ubud, Bali, 9 September 1972, Nyoman studied at STSI Denpasar (1992-1998). His solo exhibitions include A Place Behind The House at Komaneka Gallery Ubud, Bali (2016), Silence of Nature, at Lovina, Bali (2015), and his solo exhibition at G13 Gallery, Kelana Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia (2013). See https://www.instagram.com/artkenyem/
