murmur journal vol. 1 - Welcome to Warmth

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Published in Indonesia in 2014 by The Murmur House, Jakarta www.themurmurhouse.com #1 Welcome to Warmth Copyright Š The Murmur House, 2014

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Cover Illustration Š Nadya Santoso Book Design by Devi Merakati & Sarah Fevri

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Editor in Chief Agustina Pringganti Editors Syarafina Vidyadhana Rain Chudori Translator Alyssa Syahmina Art Director Devi Merakati Design & Layout Sarah Fevri Fahali Machi Finance Indang Ayu Safitrie Marketing Haryani Dannisa Web Developer Aga Rasyidi Social Media Talitha Luna Siagian Media Correspondence Meisya Citraswara V. Proofreader Arina Azizah Kevin A. Riel Distribution Williana Lee Adinda Rizky @themurmurhouse

themurmurhouse@gmail.com

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table of contents Comment i Foreword Contents

Swimming 13 Khairani Barokka Glimpses 15 Shofwatul Widad The Character of Fire 19 Dwiputri Pertiwi The Warmth of Travel 23 Ben K. C. Laksana

A Modern Prescription for Acute Loneliness Syarafina Vidyadhana

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A Pair of Sweaters 35 Aan Mansyur My Want for You 37 Agung Setiawan In the Abstract 41 Dwiputri Pertiwi Lola 43 Anantagita Sambhava Immersing in You 51 Agung Setiawan

My Love is on the High Seas Zahra Matarani 6

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In the Light of the Burning Fire Aan Mansyur

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All the Lights that Last Rain Chudori

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Your Heart is a Night Market Ferris Wheel Arman Dhani

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A Dream 75 Dinda Larasati If I Come 81 Halida Aisyah Our Own Bodies 83 Adrianne Claudia Triptych 95 Khairani Barokka Sugar Sands 97 Agustina Pringganti Contributors 102

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"Technology was created to bring happiness for humanity, give us a wider room to communicate, and to cultivate culture – communication is culture, and culture is communication. Murmur is one of the many efforts that is both consciously and unconsciously related to this important concept. People said, only 10% of city people read literature—maybe even less.

Serious literature has fewer audience, and serious literature in English language has even narrower readers demography. Yet, technology has given efforts like Murmur to transcend the language boundary. Literature in English language directly falls into the domain of English Literature and nations with English as a first language because literature is language—so their achievement can be measured with its influence towards the said language. It is no other than a challenge for Murmur to show that this nation can produce literary works that can be read by anyone with the ability to understand English language and literature.

Technology welcomes us to overcome territorial borders; this literary journal can be a medium for us to hone our artistic talent, free from the restrain of language. Looks like language is no longer a restrain nowadays— willpower, talent, and resolve will determine everything. I am ready to contribute anything within my power to help. Congratulations for Murmur."

- Sapardi Djoko Damono 8

o raerw w e l c o m e t ofw mot rhd

“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.�

-Ernest Hemingway

In this time and age, modern technology creates a whole new boundary for our generation in which we become more isolated than ever. Distance no longer separates us from experience, and yet, this phenomenon makes us build a wall that disconnects us from reality around us.

In the meantime, writing in specific has been acknowledged as a solitary process that detaches the writers, not only from their surroundings, but also from each other. This is the foundation of young writers nowadays where instant publication, such as blogs and Twitter, without critical improvement is widely acceptable.

This community is the outcome of such condition; it comes from our desire to reconnect with real life, real people, and real emotions from the creative interaction between them. The result is a biannual journal compiled from the works of our handpicked writers, illustrators and photographers that has undergone a long process of editing and revising. We aim to grow and learn from each other, and this journal is our first step to achieving them.

Syarafina Vidyadhana and Rain Chudori initiated the community, The Murmur House, in 2013, and Agustina Pringganti leads this journal project. In this journal, there are numbers of Indonesian writings that have been translated into English. Our purpose in doing this is to break the language barrier and deliver our stories to a global audience.

We also provide the works in their original language to be appreciated and cherished in separate packages.

Most of our writers are young people in their 20s who possess the drive to write and grow creatively in the terms of their works. Our theme for the first edition is Welcome to Warmth; a manifestation of our need to come out of our cold, lonely writing exile and share this labor of work to our readers. For our next edition, we will do an open submission for other writers through blind audition to avoid biases.

We hope to consistently produce contemporary, diverse and limitless works, and a new interesting reading experience for our readers and be a quintessential voice of our generation.

Murmur Editorial 9

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swimming Khairani Barokka

My father warned me not to go to water in Vermont, but the landsmen named the falls “Journey’s End”. Presumably, where illness too could wither and plunge to death.

In flight from a low-lying cliff of wet, the back of my skull escapes cracking by the length of a gasp. Ice throat of the river streaming bullets felt all through the weekend, when allies drive up from the wilds of New York and we play at fey exhilaration, women of the woods.

Cascade with an exceptional name. See how the crackling cold warms your marrow, while all is bursting in another way entirely, rained through the bone and only just beginning.***

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glimpses Shofwatul Widad

You’re surprised as you open your bedroom closet door for a moth is flying out of there, followed by a series of dust that emulates the sunlight. You see the light and you remember.

His skin was the fairest among all the men who had been a part of your life. His eyes were green just like his mother’s. He used to joke about being an embodiment of Yoda, and it was cute the first five hundred times it was told. And for that you’d laugh. It surprises you that a zipped suitcase could accumulate so many dusts, emulating the sunlight to the corners that would never reach it. But it’s seven in the morning, and you remember. He organized his shirts by color, and there were three piles in all: blue, white, and black. Now they were creased and laid lifeless in the suitcase.

In this city five years ago, you bumped into him cheering to Mew’s 156. His eyes were the first things you caught. Marni was the one to blame for taking you to the concert. By night’s end, you were thanking her with no end.

The room was sparse. The only thing you took out of the suitcase when his parents first handed it to you is, was, his Frengers 2LP 180-gram vinyl, which you propped up on your nightstand. You never played it. You never touched it. There are days when you don’t think about it. It has molded itself into your room, so much that if it were missing, you wouldn’t realize it.

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Now you can’t help but smile. You then step out of the room, walking towards the kitchen, suddenly smelling a baked mashed potato. The smell comes out strong and you remember. Every day after work he’d stop by the kitchen, making sure you baked him one. If you weren’t, he’d put his blue apron on and do some tricks in the kitchen—most of the time he’d just spill the milk to the floor and you’d end up cleaning it.

But you didn’t mind. In fact, you loved it.

You see the picture on the wall. Two little girls smiling, holding each other’s hand. It’s your sister and you. You sit in the living room as you remember. For all of the time in your life, you’d argued your greatest fear was being overlooked, overshadowed by the talents and charm your sister possesses. But not that time when you met him.

He’s your antidote. The only one who could intoxicate you from all the jealousy of the world you’d been keeping for more than twenty years.

There’s an explosion—the kind that popped rainbow—in your heart when you realized you made the world jealous of you for having him. For once, you feel like you’d overshadowed the world. You remember him saying how lucky he was meeting you just in the right time. To him, you’re the clearest sight he could see in a storm. * Marni is now gone and you have enough time to stuff some things into your purse. You’re aware that’s not right, but you need to do this. And so you go back to the bedroom and open the closet doors. The smell is still there, fresh and

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invigorating. When you close your eyes, you can see the green grass lay in front of you reflecting the shiny light of the sun that dazzles your sight. You open your eyes and grab three blue shirts from the closet, folding them to the size that is possible to be put inside your purse.

You don’t have much time. Marni is probably bored waiting in the car. So, you close the closet doors and walk to the window. Your hand is reaching for the Frengers vinyl and putting it inside your purse as well. It looks like a pregnant lady, your purse. You almost lurch to the floor when Marni blows the horn twice.

After making sure that nothing else is left, you walk out of the house and to the car. You sit in the driver seat and put your purse in the backseat.

Marni is too busy with her phone to realize that your purse is knocked up. You put on the seatbelt and feel the heat of the sun coming through the window.

You become wordless. You look into the rearview mirror where you can still see the blue color of the house, filling your head with flimsy memories and promises. The only thing to know whether you are sure about all this is to go forward. So, in the intersection, you take the right turn and look into the rearview for one last time. The house is nowhere to be seen.

A breeze of fresh air comes through the window and blows your short cut hair, delighting you with its funny yet enticing smell. ***

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the character of fire Dwiputri Pertiwi

Mocked by cicadas, tormented by impatience, the student cursed her own obsession with the foreign aesthetics of a foreign language. She had to admit she understood nothing.

That day the master showed her how to paint fire—four strokes that did not look like flames. She dipped her brush in the pot of ink she shared with a blue-eyed man from Norway.

They left their countries to sit in a position that caused so much pain it made them numb. She could feel the breath of the old master on her left ear.

“You are doing it wrong.”

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twheel ccohm a rea tcot ew r aorfmf ti h re

The master guided her hand; one, two, three four—fire, fire, fire, fire! Pages and pages of fire! All morning, she had seen nothing but the fire of a culture she loved but did not know.

Hours passed in the company of repetition for repetition, the master said, is the key to perfection. Stroke after stroke after stroke until the hand cannot forget what it has to do.

Frustrated by the monotony of the task yet furious at her own incompetence, she refused to go home when the master announced the end of the lesson. She had traveled too far to quit.

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Outside, the sun showed no mercy. With her silk handkerchief, the master wiped sweat off her wrinkled forehead. Proud to have shared her knowledge, she smiled and got into her car The blue-eyed Norwegian went back to the tatami room to look for the driven student but what he found was a pile of ash where she once sat; the most beautiful fire burning on the table.***

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the warmth of travel

Ben K. C. Laksana

If someone were to ask me why I’m just so full of it, that is, being full with a lust for travel, endless wandering and my often wild-eyed ravings of my travels, I’d have to blame it on my excessive, perhaps even unhealthy, childhood addiction to Indiana Jones. It was him and his unceasingly and sometimes unnecessary deadly adventures to unfamiliar lands, exotic cultures and his search for lost artifacts fit for conspiracy theorists to drool over, that became the prime reason of why I wanted to, no, needed to, travel. My subscription to the National Geographic magazines and their aesthetically pleasing photos also contributed to my obsession with traveling.

In addition to wild Indy and beautiful magazines, I should also ultimately lay the blame on my parents, especially my mom. As she dragged me along on her dissertation ‘researches’, making the American outdoors my playground. Being around 7-8 years old at that time, this was a pretty huge playground.

It was our days of long road trips to national parks, new big, small cities, shanty towns, American Indian reserves, faraway lands, the endless corn fields littered between states, nausea inducing winding roads, quaint hotels, towering frigid mountains, unnerving white

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dunes and monstrous trees all in the name of my mom’s academic research that instigated my desperation for lonely meanderings.

It was from a young age I’ve had this romantic relationship with the outdoors, with traveling, with seeing, meeting new people and learning of new things but even more so, it was due to these inconspicuous monthly trips that sealed my fate of longing for a healthy dose of precarious living and solemn solitude.

It was out there where I felt a sense of serenity.

The wild, wide-open spaces where I was subjected to the harsh reality of nature, that feeling of vulnerability and powerlessness, where a small miscalculated step will result in the end of one’s fragile and ephemeral life.

It was out there where I squatted until my legs went numb in the rocky hills of Arizona, being fascinated by a myriad collection of rocks, crystals and fossilized clams that left me wanting to know more.

It was out there in the open field, where I saw the seemingly black skies that were in fact never really black. There was never any glaring into the abyss, as so much a glare to other worlds filled with endless possibilities. Even in the darkest of nights at least one distant star had always heralded its existence.

And it was out there where I learned to enjoy

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the warmth of solitude in the faint winds of summer.

It was with these travels, there was this sense of uncertainty that kept me on my toes, a constant striving for security, a constant struggle for safety.

Little did I know that this understanding was not only useful in traveling but would also later help me understand on how life actually is. Which in sum, life has always been about constant struggling. Maybe Schopenhauer was right; “we take no pleasure in existence except when we are striving for something.�

Fast-forward to 16 years later, I found myself fighting with my significant other, Rara, in the busy streets of Ankara, Turkey. Why? At that moment it was seemingly due to irreconcilable religious differences, though looking back, it was more because of clashing egos and the unwillingness to accept neither wrongness nor defeat from both parties.

A loaf of Turkish bread was the cause and also the victim of our bickering. Our egos however remained unscathed, but that was the start of a much-needed personal reflection.

My story on how I got to Turkey, ending up in the same city with Rara and the immaturity that plagued us both deserves a tale of its own. Forced maturation in the face of social-cultural unfamiliarity as the obvious result of traveling in a foreign land, played a major part, if not the main part, in getting us through. But it’s not merely this that

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became pivotal in our travels around Turkey. It was the journey in Turkey itself and everything that came with it. For me especially this included the extra-added bonus of having Rara tailing me.

Her presence forced me to understand the full capacity of travel in reshaping one’s self.

See here’s the thing, traveling for me has always been a personal spiritual journey to say the least. It was about me trying to learn and understand not only of this beautiful world around me, but also of me. How I related to all this newfound knowledge of the world that I have personally gained. And with this, my mind had positioned itself to believe that having an extra person in traveling with is an unnecessary burden that will provide zero benefit towards this egotistical wish to understand that ‘thing’ that needed to be understood.

I know this sounds vague and rather hyperbolically new-agey of me but after being so accustomed to solitude (back when I was still in America, when I wasn’t traveling with my mom, she would sometimes leave me home alone or in the audio-video section of the library while she did her research for hours end). I am comfortable with this, there was and still is a sense of security in this loneliness even when where there is a hint of a much-needed vulnerability in being alone.

It wasn’t shyness or extreme discomfort in the accompany of others, it was more of being able to get in touch my inner self that often hides its ugly face when I am with others, that had me wanting to indulge myself in solitude so much. Or at least I believed that it was so. I thought I needed just myself to understand myself better.

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Yet as I now understand, traveling with someone you supposedly love and care for changes this.

There is no such thing as finding oneself by merely living alone. Yes, solitude can often bring much needed benefits to this hyper connected society we live in. But it is only in relationship with the people around us that can we understand the relationship with ourselves. The obscure self can only be understood not when we run away from the things we are uneasy with but when we engage with them. It is only through this, that our true selves will show and it is that, which we need to deal with.

Both Rara and I were forced to learn to compromise with what we had. Whether it be our money, as we both would often out-stretch our funds to buy tickets to distant places hundred of kilometers away, or our sense of entitlement towards something that we actually both did not deserve or the butt-numbing hours end bus rides or the excruciating Turkish heat or being oh so lost in the middle of nowhere. We needed to comprise with this in addition to our raging egos, which sometimes sees no bounds.

This act of compromise with another means the lowering of one’s selfish ego. The ego that latches deep inside when one is in a place of fear, insecurity, and a place that is wholly foreign. Both of us were forced to understand and accept one another.

Both of us were forced to change. Perhaps this is the purpose of travel.

We see the world with our minds or perhaps, better put, we understand the world with our minds.

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The experiences we have procured, the knowledge we have gained, shedding light on our ignorance that often blinds us. We travel great distances, to see, to experience, to know and to understand.

We shape and reshape our understanding of the world, of ourselves and how we act, react or relate with the world around us. In a way our views of the world is constructed. A constant dialog, a dialectic as Marx aptly describes. It is a constant death and birth of the self, a deconstruction and reconstruction of the self and the reality of which we perceive until it reaches its peak state, a final form, an evolutionary supremeness.

It is to question and see objectively the things we vehemently yet often unconsciously hold on to.

It is to destroy you, to burn not only the bridge that connects you and the reality you believe to be true but to burn your concept of reality itself. On what you think is true.

It was never about the luscious colorful bags or the finely hand woven carpets in exotic markets, it is always about the striving journey for an end, hopefully for a happy end. The striving for happiness itself. The steps, the moments of fatigue, the questions of why, where, how, which.

It is to learn and engage with the people you meet, the connections you make, the sorrows you share, the happiness, that sweet happiness, that is given and that is taken.

It is that struggle of trying to understand the gestures of hands waving erratically, 28

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non gracefully with that desire to understand and be understood. Sometimes often ending in a show of frustration and desperation of two people laughing, divided by the chasm of language, united by the absurdity of misunderstanding and linguistic ignorance.

There is no leisure in traveling, there is constant struggle with intermittent moments of joy.

This I dare say is the purpose of travel.

It is to destroy you, to shatter to you, to break your understanding of the world around you. It is not to merely entertain you, nor is it a form of escapism, where you look for your comfort zone and security but it is to break you and give birth to something fresh and of a new understanding of the world around you and ultimately a new understanding of you.

Living, as Michael Foley describes is “perpetual self-transcendence.” At the end of all this what I have found when we talk about the deconstruction of the self is the warmth and comfort that come with knowing the self one step deeper. The warmth and comfort that comes with not only the better understanding of one’s self but the acceptance and acknowledgement of one’s flaws, failures and vulnerabilities. As the coldness of one’s heart reigns supreme when it is repetitively neglected and tucked away to the forlorn corners of the self.

And it is with the harshness of travel that I have found the warmth of living.***

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a modern prescription for acute loneliness Syarafina Vidyadhana

from: Dr. Frieska Anindya <f.anindya@xxxxx.com> to: Bhima Pratama <bhima.pratama@xxxxx.com> date: Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 01.37 PM subject: Re: I’m Still Feeling Lonely Dear Bhima, I am sorry to hear that you are not getting any better, also for the fact that I’m not available for any consultation due to my pregnancy. Regarding your request, I provided two options of medication.

Compulsory Medication 7 mg of Anti-Denial pills One pill every night before you sleep It is very important to be able to admit that you are lonely, especially during the toughest times.

Keep in mind that the more you deny, the worse it will become.

Option 1 • 25 mg of sense of companionship Three times a day, after meal • 20 mg of sense of purpose Once a day, every morning right after waking up

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Side effects: delusion, mood swings, false hopes and disappointment Sense of companionship has always worked wonder for my patients, if I may say so myself. The best-selling brands are Platonic Lover (available just about anywhere) and Fictional Friends (mostly available in bookstores and libraries), although there are some patients who still prefer the old-fashioned Stuffed Animals or Decorative Pillows for their compact.

In the past couple of years, a new brand named Idol Group emerged and it has been a new favorite to many people just like yourself. It comes in many flavors, too. (Yes, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re chewable.) Two favorite flavors are EyeCandirection and Fruity48. Earlier this year, S & J Inc. released a brand called Artificial Intelligence. Although I believe the idea to be very appealing, the product is still on trial and has only been distributed in L.A. and Shanghai.

Also, there has been a debate regarding the ethics of the medication itself. In other words, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t encourage you to try this particular brand. However, if you insist on purchasing it you will have to order it online at your own risk.

Regarding sense of purpose, the best-selling brands are Virtual Pet, Regular Unfeasible Pet, Organic Plants and Hot Mess. Hot Mess is very high on demand, but unfortunately itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the least effective and efficient brand among others. I strongly advise that you choose one of the other three brands.

Meanwhile, written below is another option with

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lower dosage, fewer side effects and permanent results. But surprisingly, this option happens to be the least preferred by most of my patients for some reason.

Option 2 •15 mg of Social Interaction & Participation Five times a week •5 mg of Humility and 5 mg of Tolerance Five times a week •5 mg of YOLO Pills Once a week, preferably during the weekends Side effects: rejection Once you have made your choice, please notify my assistant, Marsha, at the clinic so that you can get your prescription as soon as possible. Make sure you take your medicine accordingly, and I hope you will get better soon. However, if you still feel lonely, I strongly advise that you consider rolling some joints or drinking sufficient amount of wine.

Because maybe, when people say that happiness is a state of mind, it could also apply to loneliness.

Perhaps it’ll be gone the second you stop thinking about it.

Sincerely, Dr. Frieska Anindya

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a pair of sweaters Aan Mansyur

In my closet, lies a sweater which inside longs to embrace my body, and outside longs to be embraced by your body.

In your closet there too lies a sweater which embraces the same feeling Yet our bodies are nowhere embracing their own solitude What patience the pair of sweaters holds in the cold of separate wardrobes apart without apparent address What envy the pair of sweaters holds hearing how much the seasonal rain loves the slow building of the year All the while our bodies are nowhere embracing their own solitude What longing the pair of sweaters holds to abandon the embrace of their own memories all alone ***

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my want for you

Agung Setiawan

i want you one more time this time i will not let go it is time for us to come home it has been so long and our dreams has reached its end o, lover we will never know the time to love, we make we will never know the time to hate, we fight we will never know the time for happiness, sadness, we reach and elude we will never know the time for sickness and pleasure, we savor we will never know the time to grow old and die, we forget and revive what harms the most is having to revive

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o, lover though we walk through the night we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to carry light we live inside a house, with windows so wide we cannot see what is outside but they can watch us from the other side this is our plight: we choose hastily when there is no choice the wind does not blow from the southeast, darling itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been too long since we conversed o run to the people, and disappear within them sometimes we simply ought to have faith

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is this how my reflection looks like? we lack of the decency to judge death is the only thing that’s real but there’s far more to reality than death alone i want you one more time this time i will not let go it’s time for us to come home it’s been so long, too long for dreams feel like our end o, lover ***

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in the abstract Dwiputri Pertiwi

It moves me…

The way you say the things you believe in, the way you don’t say the things that you don’t. Why harm the beliefs of others? Let them rip out their own hearts and soak them in the pool of ideals they so freely swim in as the sun begins to set.

You and your affinity with metaphors. Your talent for tolerance Were you born with it?

Drowsy and giddy with many possible meanings of existence we lay on a bed of sand. Thousands of grains and the strands of our hair mingle as the birds begin to fly south hundreds of meters high above our heads.

I want to kiss your thoughts, make love with your tenderness But only if you let me.

The beating of your heart breaks the earth in two and it shatters the universe. The image of destruction intoxicates me and I watch your gentle eyes looking at the empty void that waits beyond the limits of our world.

My face is caressed by the coy evening breeze. Into the night We speak of comfortable silence. ***

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lola

Anantagita Sambhava

A cathedral fell into ruins in the middle of the city where the sound reverberated through every corner. The word was that a skyscraper would be erected from the ruins.

The event triggered a controversy and the city government tried to handle it by stating that the cathedral would be rebuilt in the more quiet and serene suburbs. But some people werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t happy with it. Most of them insisted that the cathedral was a cultural landmark and should be preserved.

Meanwhile, the other half said that its location was too economically strategic if it was only preserved as a cultural landmark.

As a place of religious importance, the cathedral with its iron tower and wooden ceiling stood in a peculiar place. The building was located in the middle of a business district, surrounded by skyscrapers, apartments, five-star hotels, banks, nationwide manufacture company buildings, and crowded streets. Between the shouts of controversy, Lola could still hear the defeat of the majestic cathedral. She couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care less about the whole thing because her lover had just left her for a faraway island. She fell back to sleep in the 20th floor of her apartment in front of the old crumbling cathedral. The echo of the falling cathedral could still be heard in her subconscious as sleep slowly engulfed her in an embrace.

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* A spark from her match shed a momentary light on the balcony railing, but the wind immediately put it off. Lola tried to light it again, this time with the palm of her hand in between the fire and the world, and she made it. Then, she started to realize that it was in vain—when the smoke rose and was blown away by the wind, her lover, the one thing that mattered, was still in a faraway place. His return was still a long time coming, and that was if he returned at all.

The balcony was too small, just two times three meters, and there was only one seat facing a distasteful landscape view—another skyscraper.

Sometimes in a midday heat, the employee from the building preferred to watch Lola in her apartment instead of having his lunch. It was terribly inconvenient for her.

There wasn’t much of a point in coming back inside the room either for Lola. She and her lover’s sense of boundary had disappeared entirely. They were a pair of exhibitionist, and what use were doors and windows for them when they were already used to making love in public? Every inch of their bare, naked bodies had tangled and fused to the core so that every fabric of their clothes unraveled in every step they took together. The entire world was already familiar with her curves,

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her skin, her bated breath and strangled sighs.

And yet, the memory of their intimacy was useless now. Each second, each moment, was infecting her mind, but did nothing to her insatiable desire. In the middle of all the reminiscences, Lola recalled the pain when her lover casually said that she could sleep with whoever she wanted. She didn’t share the same sentiment with him; she couldn’t just sleep with anybody else. She would rather indulge in whatever fetish her lover had, as long as his penis was still hers, and her vagina was still his, she would not just go around sleeping with any men or women who came in her way. It was the same like bringing the foundation of their relationship into ruins; like the old cathedral outside. She believed that if she was unfaithful, she wouldn’t share much difference with the land that was violated of its real, noble purpose. * Day after day came around, shaping the clay of the moment into a pot. Lola was more similar to a beautiful carved ceramic vase from the Ming Dynasty instead of a cheap clay pot. There was an A Mild between her fingers; she watched as the bulldozers and cranes drove into the bare land where the old cathedral used to stand. Her lover hadn’t surfaced yet, even after ten long novels passed her hand. *

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One day, her phone rang when she was making a cup of instant coffee in the kitchen. It wasn’t her lover. It was some Irish man she met last night in the pub. She accidentally gave him her number without thinking about it further. They were awfully drunk; the words that came out of their mouth were utter nonsense and among them turned out to be her phone numbers.

The message reads: Can I come over?

Damn, she thought. It wasn’t the right time. Her lover hadn’t come back, and she was very clear about her place right now; his penis was hers, and her vagina was his. She felt the longing for her lover’s body again; her vagina ached for the warmth of her lover’s seed. Unconsciously, her fingers began to trail a path down her crotch and played a tune like on the strings of a harp. Lola then pulled out her slightly damp hand and blamed the gene she inherited; it was responsible for her hunger and sexual desire for her now faraway lover. Her eyes returned to the screen of her phone with the words Can I come over? on it. For some reason, the irony in her mind fueled the heat in her stomach.

The man did finally come; Mark touched her for the first time like the heavy machines driving on the bare cathedral land outside, bringing the altar down and blowing up the beautiful wooden ceiling. The windows were shattered and the face of Jesus Christ turned into rubbles of stones.

Everything was done with a touch that even God couldn’t hold. *

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The skyscraper was getting higher. They have just started building the fifth floor, which was still a long way to go. Of course, Lola knew that the construction workers would bother her when they finally reached the floor she was in. She felt uncomfortable because of the simple fact that this high building could be built through the seemingly small road in the space between her apartment and it.

The wind blew her dress and brought back the reminiscence of her lover who was still very far away from where she was right now. No means of communication could reach him. Sometimes, when the tides were high, even the satellites couldn’t find that place. There was never any phone call, any news on television except about the presidential election and illegal campaigns; even the internet didn’t possess any trace of her lover.

Mark woke up and pulled the white sheets from his body to showcase his bare torso and the morning wood between his thighs, while Lola was making a cup of coffee with her first cigarette of the day, also completely naked. The man walked into the bathroom to clean all the traces of their lovemaking last night and then went home without saying anything meaningful except: “Call me.” * One day there was a hail and the construction was delayed for some undeterminable time.

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There was no sound of heavy machines that could disturb her sleep. Instead, the sound of falling ice hitting the rooftop, cars, balcony railings, and floor filled the silence. The television signal was still strong, and a news channel showed an image of a familiar island. It was the faraway island of her lover.

What was going on in that island? There was a video footage of high tides, and what she did was skirting the image of the shore to look for the man she had been waiting for.

Nothing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We report that at least fifty global mapping and global positioning satellites have forgotten the location of the Island of Mortimer, which I am currently standing on right now. Multiple archipelago countries are in dispute regarding the exact coordinates of the Island and their corresponding borders...â&#x20AC;? * Rain started to fall and she was drenched on the balcony, staring down the cursed building that replaced the old cathedral. The first two floors were already in operation while the rest of it was still in construction. The building looked like it was about to finish; the spaces were already occupied for business and everything it was built for.

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The rain put off her cigarette, the light died as soon as Lola realized that the cursed building was almost finished and her lover was still nowhere near. At the same time, all the satellites in the world slowly but surely erased the traces of her lover from the surface of the earth. Would he come back at all? What would happen if he came back? Would all the satellites in the world remember the location of Mortimer Island once again?

Like it or not, the old cathedral had long since disappeared, and the new skyscraper was almost finished. Lola touched the screen of her phone and after two rings, Mark answered.

And so she asked : â&#x20AC;&#x153;Would you come over tonight?â&#x20AC;?

***

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immersing in you Agung Setiawan

the scent of the sun on the branches of the day buried in the petals of romance sweeping the blue morning fabricating a smile our lips are not for speaking crafting pain and false happiness disquiet always stays waiting for you to appear am i alone in my immersion of you or can we immerse together you are too precarious to immerse in alone ***

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my love is on the high seas Zahra Matarani

Duma has always had a funny way to express herself to probably every single living being on the entire country, this being simply because she’s never been anywhere else. Oh, how her mother used to say to her poor Pa, “I think you may well have put something funny on my breakfast the day you snuck in to me.” But it didn’t stop her from being who she is; a brat, but a beautiful and rather intriguing personality, nonetheless.

The boys, though only six years of age, would’ve said the same thing had they experienced her odd behaviors of interpreting her internal psychological stimuli some 10, 20 years back. But they would rather stay quiet and nod as their mother hauntingly sneaks into their room, no slightest sound made by her rat-munched floral flops to match her dress, carrying the largest mug of home-made hot chocolate on one hand and an even larger mug of tuak in another. She closes the door, but halts its course about five inches before it touches the arch, and then sits on Anju’s end side of the bunk bed, right below Jogi’s who is now, with his bangs matted to his forehead, fumbling down the bed ladder to join his brother under the modest but warm quilt blanket she made for the boys’ birthday.

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She places the chocolate mug on Anju’s freezing hands – they never had appropriate room temperature despite the heavy rain – and grip the tuak mug in her hands as she snorts and takes a woeful look at the boys. Jogi, his head half buried under the blanket, stares at his mother with blinking, sparkling eyes, twitching them back and forth from his mother to her brother and back again.

He sensed something strange in the atmosphere, that’s why he came down the ladder; he wanted to know what was going on. He’s always been the first one to notice a situation, quicker than his brother.

Anju, mug in hand, stares at Duma, unmoving, until Duma opens her mouth to let a growl out that surprises both boys.

“Drink up, both of you, I didn’t make that for the cat.”

They quickly shuffle for the first sip that eventually falls on Anju. He drinks, not paying attention to the heat, as Jogi watches in dread before he finally gets his share, which he delightfully slurps slowly and with passion. As the boys settle down, Duma looks down on her mug, somewhat shaking.

The boys grip each other’s fingers. Something is happening; never did their mother scare them like this before. Anju slaps Jogi in his head when he hears what the dark-haired boy is thinking; she’s going to have a spasm!

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“I want to tell you boys a bedtime story.”

That does it. The boys freeze, unable to conceive a word of response. Jogi’s fingers twitch uncontrollably, sending a pulse that runs down Anju’s knuckles, and wrists, all the way to his elbow, shoulder, and then his neck. It wraps him in an undetectable emotion his brother is trying to message him, but something alien is backing it off in its way. Anju’s grip on his brother’s fingers tightens.

This is going be messy, Jo. Just don’t eat your nails.

Duma clears her throat, straightens up, and tries to look, for the first time in many years, like an actual mother. She observes her boys in the deepest, most piercing manner. She waits; after making sure that they won’t say anything, she proceeds.

“Never have I told you any bedtime story, since that one about the wolf and the baby goat when you were little; I took it you didn’t like it much.”

The boys shiver at the same time. No, they didn’t like that one any bit.

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“So I came up with another one, and I’m really hoping this one will do you good dreams tonight.”

Anju turns his head to Jogi who looks as uncertain as he is, which doesn’t do him much comfort.

So he turns back to his mother, and slowly rises out of the blanket, followed by Jogi, who pulls the blanket up with him.

Duma gulps a big one off her tuak and looks over to the window positioned exactly between the two bunk beds. It’s showing a beautiful scene of a midnight meadow in which there is a tree far yonder. The meadow is lonely, and its only friend for the night is the tree, but the tree, too, save for one tact leaf, is lonely of other leaves. She begins to try weaving the right words and combining them to the perfect sentences made to lull her boys to a sound night sleep.

Her eyes suddenly water. The boys dare not move a muscle, except for the little quiver Jogi makes as he pulls the blanket even further, now covering most of the freckles atop his nose.

“On a quiet evening at the beginning of May,” she begins, “a man walks up to a hill, when he suddenly stops to hear a young girl singing beneath her tears. It was dark, but the young girl’s still sitting there, lamenting something he hears as, ‘My love is on the high seas.’”

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“The man waits. His worn boots gripping his beaten feet, but still he listens to the girl’s song, sung quietly and peacefully like a June dew, repeating the same chorus over and over again, ‘My love is on the high seas.’

Duma halts for a moment. Jogi’s nose is now exposed to the cold wind seeping from the window frame, but for once he doesn’t notice as he is enticed to his mother’s voice, twisting and miserable yet containing an indefinable kind of warmth he rarely discerns from her. Anju is already on his elbows on the quilt, clamping both his fingers into one knot, resting his gaping jowl above it. The boys are listening, but Duma keeps going without looking at anything but the meadow and the tree and the leaf.

“The man can take no more of her singing; it’s too beautiful to ignore. She’s at the roof of her song as he walks even nearer to her, noticing her brown long hair and an equally pair of brown eyes, beautiful, they are. She prays to the King of Heaven, “Protect my love on the high seas.””

“So the man advances his steps, and stoppin’ by the rock she’s sittin’ on, keepin’ her heart from breaking any further, he takes her hand, feeling her skin on his palm, and says, “Wipe your eyes, your love is safe. I’ve returned to you from the high seas.””

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The teardrop is a grain of salt to Duma’s lips. She endures it as a reminder of a time not long past, still warm in her chest, knocking at her front gate, asking to be let in to her life just once again, because it knows that it makes her happy. She looks at her boys, who are, judging from their ocean blue eyes and almost equally blue faces, holding their breaths. When she lets her smile paint her face, the faces come back being pink again.

Anju feels his freckles joining. It wasn’t the evil, bone-stinging wind or the way Jogi’s gripping his fingers to perish his great desire of nail-munching. It’s the fire burning from every intonation his mother’s voice emitted during the tale, the twirling and binding of the words coming out from her mouth alongside the fog, forming the scenes.

There was genuineness in the tale; it’s not exactly a fairy tale. He knows now that he’s in the rabbit hole of Duma’s pit of thoughts and sentiment.

They’re both there. She’s just written an imaginary page of her diary on their minds.

He dares himself and Jogi both to speak.

“That was awfully pretty, Ma.” Duma turns her head slowly to the boys from the tree. It looks vaguely happier now; at least it’s not weeping of forlorn anymore. Maybe her story’s quieted it a bit, and that makes her feels particularly content. She faces both boys, her smile still lingering about her face, coloring it warm pastel colors she once lost.

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“No missing tails this time, boys.”

“It is better without missing anything,” Jogi declares with a firm nod.

Anju ponders for a moment, and his thought catches Jogi’s nerves. They both adjoin glances for a quick second, quietly deciding if they should utter the question their minds just raised.

Anju swallows. “Ma?” Duma mumbles in her rush of palm wine to the throat. “Yeah?”

“Do you think....Pa’s on the high seas?”

Duma falls silent. The boys knew this was coming, and scowled at themselves for making it so. She doesn’t move, her eyes fall to nowhere but the holed quilt, not even to the lonesome meadow and the tree and its leaf. She can hear the meadow whispering to the tree, something she can’t make out, and that drowns her even deeper in the dumps. But she somehow lifts her head up, ignoring the dampness of her cheeks and how the sight lights fear and regret in the boys’ hearts.

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“Can’t tell. Might be.”

She puts her mug down and leans closer to the boys.

“But I tell you one thing; if he does come back, he ain’t going to see me raining my eyes out.”

Jogi pulls the blanket up.

“But you did pray for him to come back, didn’t you?”

Duma kills herself trying to restrain the enormous waves of forthcoming saltwater banging at her sockets.

“Every day, love, every damn day.”

The small plastic cuckoo clock on the door strikes 9 pm. She rises, pats her dress off the dust that’s never there, and holds the empty mug of tuak in her plump fingers. She crouches and gives each boy a kiss on the nose and a finger run along their hairs. She takes a good look of each as she departs from the bunk bed. Jogi is so much like her – fiery eyes to match his temper, baby fingers that never shed off its baby fat, and a challenging glare as if trying to take anyone on a fist fight not to mention his sharp tongue.

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He’s always the one to first follow her suit in swearing. But Anju, beneath his copper colored hair and inquisitive air, is an embodiment of the boys’ father; strong little nose and jaws, silent furrows, blazing charisma. Hands that warm as perfectly as a castle furnace, a flowing manner of speech like the river Duma used to swim in during summers, the scent of a July sun filling his every pore. But their eyes remind her most of the more beautiful days, when every poppy bloom is a gift, when every goat birth represents miracles, a proof of a life well lived.

She doesn’t get much of those, not even pinches of it, but actually being inside the boys’ ocean blue eyes drop sounds of the waves into her ears, and it satisfies her to know that she’s going to be sleeping along those sounds tonight.

“G’night boys, and finish the chocolate.”

She turns the light off as she closes the door thump of the wooden frame. She rests her back to the wall; her back’s already a little hunched, much from the excessive drinking. She walks down the creaking stairs into the kitchen and puts the mug in the sink, leaving the tap and the soap to wash the mug themselves. She wearily opens the heavy door to her room; the kitchen lamp still alit, the tap dripping, beckoning her to tidy up the late dish, and is ignored. She’s in need of an irregularity in the household for tonight.

She’s relieved that her room is so far down, far

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from the boys’ incredible wolf ears, and she lets herself have the liberty of sobbing into her pillow, every tear that taps her pillow sheet in perfect rhythm with the waves colliding with the sands. * Curled into a ball next to his brother, Jogi opens an eye to ensure whether Anju was asleep or not.

He finds him staring directly at his eyes, two identical sets of eyes intertwining into each other’s head.

Jogi searches for Anju’s pinky.

“Ju?” “Yeah?”

“Is Pa really coming back?”

He rarely lets himself fall under Anju’s self-proclaimed older twin title, but this is one of those moments in which he doesn’t know what to believe.

Anju stares down at his knees, letting Jogi’s fingers grasp his pinky in damp sweat.

“I dunno, Jo. Ma says he is, doesn’t she?”

“She does, but that was a big glass of tuak, that one.”

Anju knows no more of what to say. He looks into Jogi’s eyes, dreaming of his own unsatisfying answers. They’re both in the brink of hope and disappointment, of whether to still keep their

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distant affection for their father or to let it go with the evening breeze. Anju pulls his pillow closer to his chin, and snuggles into the universe of soft white sheet while trying to close his eyes, keeping the image of their father as close as possible.

“Then let’s hope the tuak’s making her tell us much of the truth.”

Jogi stares at the bottom of his bed above him.

They both pull the blanket over their shoulder in union. As Anju turns his back on him, Jogi opens his eyes once again, as if resisting sleeping, questions playing firecrackers in his head.

“Hey, Ju?” Anju grumbles.

“Hmm?” “The woman forgot to say ‘O Lord’ in her prayer, didn’t she?” * Duma doesn’t sleep that night. She only stares at the image of them both in her mind, amidst the tall grass in the meadow. It was a beautiful sunset.

“O Lord, return My Love from the high seas.“ “Amen.” ***

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in the light of the burning fire Aan Mansyur

In this city, a playground is a missing space no one hopes to find. The children donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to play. They will choose their leisure when theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve grown. Growing up is not waiting for a city to be builty. Growing up is a favorite menu in a fast food restaurant.

The neighbors seek higher fences in lieu of a higher education. School is a fine way to rest from fighting at home. Children buy an abundance of erasers and too little books. They say too many things and fall in love too easily. They think love is a verb and they must speak of it often. They do not know that to love and be loved are two different miseries.

Streets and houses grow. More people live in loss.

Hope is a forbidden word, something that has been erased by the police at every door they find.

Living without suspicion is an ill-fated way to live. Friends are foes who smile at you. The rest, without them knowing, a pair of lovers quietly changes this city into ash. I love you and you love me -- although not all the time. We spend all our marriage savings for gas.

And we will kiss in the light of the burning fire.***

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all the lights that last Rain Chudori

There are some things, like light, that last a long-time, and then there are some things, like love, that last forever. Huygens published the The Treatise On Light in 1690, speculating that when a luminous form creates a series of vibrations on an empty, formless space, an ether, light is created.

Then Newton theorized in 1704, that perhaps light is nothing more than corpuscles that we can’t seem to capture because they’re too small or too fast, or perhaps we just see through them. What scientists, and other human beings don’t realize is that this ether where light is born, is nothing more but themselves, and those particles that seem to touch their skin when morning comes, are love. But love, like light, when careless in preservation, will leave and such a thing is a human’s greatest fault.

As if understanding her apprehension, he walked up to her and held her hand. It was the same tender touch that he emitted when their hands first touched on the train platform. She would come every Thursday, clutching a paper carnation to her chest, and watch all the passengers alighting the

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train, waiting but never finding whom she waited for. When the last train came, she’d search through her pockets, taking out a matchstick and light the paper carnations. Depending on her temper, she would buy something from the kiosk where he worked -- cigarettes, hot honeybush tea, cough drops, a handkerchief, a newspaper -- and leave.

That particular Thursday, perhaps because of the heavy rain that still showed its forms on the hems of her coat, she was having trouble lighting her matchstick. For some reason, he felt like he wanted to add something to her morning, and offered her his silver lighter even though there was so much more that he held. She took it from him and lit it, the glowing warmth osculating the tips of the carnations and threw them on the train tracks.

“Thank you.”

They created light on a Thursday morning. He came into the attic, his face hitting the paper carnations she folded and hung up for every time she thought of her father. He undressed slowly and with meaning, as if every thread was a liturgy to

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be endured, and therefore while she waited naked by the window, he was still lining up his shoes and hanging up his coat and unbuttoning his shirt. As if untying the purity she had lost so long ago, he pulled the ribbon on top of her head, letting her curls fall and hide her knees. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Now youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re finished.â&#x20AC;?

She stood by the window, clutching the curtains quietly while he observed the cobwebs; each of them weaved on the ceilings like somatic dreams.

The light from outside marked their skin with patterns, though they knew these were the kinds of light that just passed through, instead of etched into them forever. There were many things she wanted to thank him for. His ocean-like hair always covered his eyes that created little deaths in her, his kisses that felt like foam pulling back from the shore of her nape, his fingertips that emitted the kind of warmth only felt from light on a window pane, but thoughts of him seemed unrefined compared to his being. Now that she knew what mornings were like with him, she found

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it difficult to comprehend those where he wouldn’t be next to her, touching the cobwebs gently as he had with her skin.

“Where are all the spiders?”

“They died off last winter but I thought I’d keep the cobwebs in case there were other creatures looking for a place to sleep on.”

“Has there been any?”

“You’re the first.”

Then they became ether. Then they created light.

Then they clung to each other as it was up to them to create something in this otherwise lackluster world. That’s the way love happens. It is polite and slow at first, asking for permission to pass through the curtains. It waits, patiently.

But when it is let in through the demarcations of emotions, it embraces you in its entirety. It caressed and uncovered the visible parts of them and then some parts that they thought they had hid so well, but love, could only be as thorough as they let it be and they were careless in preserving it.

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Huygens was right in thinking that the creation of light is formed when luminous human beings create a series of vibrations that, like Newton theorized, is too small, too fast, and see-through for our perception. What they will never realize is that this ether where light is born, is nothing more but themselves, and those particles that seem to touch their skin when morning comes, are love.

But perhaps, now I realize, humanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest fault doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t lie in being careless when preserving love, but in searching for it when it seems to have left. If they searched long and hard enough, they would find that there are always remnants of love in everything it has ever touched. You can find it on the cracks on the ceiling, the dust accumulating on the edges, the curtains, and even in me. For I am the bed where their love was born, and unlike them, I am still filled with light. ***

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your heart is a night market ferris wheel Arman Dhani

Your heart is a ferris wheel. You spin on the first night when the moon is the brightest. Your lights are red, yellow, sometimes blue. Your pillars are thin, made of steel that wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t rust. Your bench is santalum wood. Everytime I ride you, I forget how to cry. My sorrow slowly withers, like water washing off effervescence.

Your heart is the brightest ferris wheel. Children bask and frolic in the terrace of your heart. Cotton candies and sweets are your guests. Longing is their ticket, laughter their assurance. With every spin you are taught how to smile. This is how you eternalize the clamor of your soul. Your heart is too cordial to eternalize anger. With every broken heart, you offer a cup of warm tea and your embrace.

In my wait for you, I fade. Your ferris wheel is forever filled with the worry of others. Meanwhile, you let your heart, the ferris wheel, slowly rot from the inside. How long will you pretend to be strong? Existing as a resilient coral who continuously brings happiness to others? Take care of your heart. The care taker of the ferris wheel that is handsome and true. That understands when to offer some rest and when to fix your damages.

Your heart is a ferris wheel. The commotion of the night market does not lessen your luster. ***

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a dream Dinda Larasati

On a dilapidated pile of abandoned wooden blocks, I stare at the sky in vain. Thick clouds in the horizon seem too close for me to touch and unravel from its grief. I find the pale moonlight with red angry lines looks like the tired eyes of gold diggers who have to trap themselves in the crowded night train.

Now the sky is dirty—as dirty as the little tissue-seller boy in the streets. A frown emerges in my forehead from a question: Why don’t I have a roof over my head?

The moon turns into the sun in a blink of an eye.

The green grass field around me seems too green and plastic to give away any space for the earth to show itself. The intense heat vibrates the air in my line of sight. A speck of salt on my cheek comes into my mouth; but then the rain suddenly falls with a dreadful, dirty stench. The hair behind my neck stands automatically because of the smell: like the armpit of a bus driver.

I hold the edges of my smile with two of my fingers while ignoring the pain, so that my mouth doesn’t fall down from my blood-drenched jaw.

And then I hug my own body with both of my arms; all my fingers are pale and blue like a body prepared for a grave hole. I joined the people who bring forth unconsciousness into the conscious in the dimension between them.

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Rain slowly recedes with the warmth of morning sun that touches my bare skin. This is what I’ve been waiting for: a simple and unpredictable saturation of sorrow. Morning dew on the top of the grass floats in the air and falls down drop by drop on the palm of my hand.

These drops of water…aren’t they refreshing?

Compared to the embers of fire that I always put with care in the bowl I inherited from my father; sometimes they light up, sometimes they fade and people couldn’t see the spark or much less the fire.

Oh me with my embers of fire. I can’t even light them up for myself, how can I give warmth for my surroundings?

I admit that I am helpless. I’m tired of wearing glasses in the real world—where people forcefully hide the things I want and I need. They say, the ones that are normal are not worth noticing by me.

The uncivilized and the lawless are forbidden from taking a role. And so they create a fantasy world where truth has to be filtered before it can interact with us. The real world is supposed to be a place to free your dreams and desires and make them come true because they are margins that separate our needs from our unfulfilled wishes.

Desires are hidden and not entirely missing. Its place is in the deepest of the heart where it can infect the unconscious and leave traces of uncompromised trauma. Only with channeling desires I can bring my own truth to reality. But the real world, a place where people like my father are free to torture me is clearly not a place for truth.

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social escapism. Here, in my realm of dream, I live in my deepest heart where hopes are born. When they aren’t manifested in the real world, they would come true in this realm of dreams. And the consequence is; I have to be ready to be thrown away to the most terrible nightmares.

This realm of dreams has stripped my naïve thoughts bare. Here, I can never gamble. Everything is so comfortable, even though it hurts.

I have forgotten for how long since I have lived in this real world of mine. If in the real world they have the ‘menolak lupa’ movement, in my real world, it is proven that you can’t refuse to forget about anything because it is out of your control: the forgotten slips away in a blink of an eye and more so when you close them to live in the realm of dreams.

There is one thing that I believe: if you forget to wipe away your trace unseen, keep reaching. That trace is in the way towards your deepest heart, and it becomes the most interesting game in the realm of dreams. There you can find a trace so real, a mark that you can feel: a scar.

Scars will remind you of the existence of the past. The past is a condition for you to reclaim the desires in your unconsciousness. Admire that scar and let it mend so that when it’s dry you can tear it again to feel the pleasant sensation of a feeling you’ve created yourself, to save yourself.

Open the old scar and turn them into wound to make you feel.

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Now, I’m still sitting on a dilapidated pile of abandoned wooden blocks, tending my wounds. I believe that I’m not alone here, but who is keeping me company? Am I not alone, in a sense that someone else is keeping me company?

I turn and grasp my surroundings, tearing the air uselessly and destroying the shapeless wind. But after that, I can feel a pleasant sensation.

Here, I don’t need to hide my desires. I’m not like my father who lives in the fantasy world. Think about it; isn’t leaving someone behind feels better than to be left behind? * Little girl, I could feel your warm breath I could see your rising breasts Both of your eyes are still moving under their tight lids Both of your hands grasping hard like you’re lost Kid, Where in the world are you right now?

You’ve been asleep for too long And god knows how many steps you’ve taken Without going completely off-course And even you know the thinness of the edge Little girl…

Isn’t this the wish you’ve been praying for?

Before you lie yourself down and close your eyes to return to your everyday dreams for nights until you don’t return at all 78

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I hope you’re happy I hope your smile is still there And I hope you’re still laughing To keep the familiarity of your façade Little girl, I will close my eyes in the same hour like when you went to sleep that time To find you in the curves of time before you go too far I hope you’re still alive there ***

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if i come Halida Aisyah

Says he’ll get me a Lexus when I turn seventeen, allow no curfew on Friday nights and make time so we can have supper together IF I come with him Says she’ll take me on a cruise on semester breaks, buy me the Lab pup I’ve always had my eyes on and plant roses for me to smell as the morning dew drop IF I live with her All the buts make no impact to the couple with “irreconcilable differences” But still, still all I want is a family. ***

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our own bodies

Adrianne Claudia

Morning had not settled for long after I finished the disturbing matter between my tongue and my throat with the burn of Jasmine Tea that I just brewed. A usual Sunday morning, except for the employees who had patiently and diligently worked overtime to earn a peaceful weekend. I have started the day accordingly with the sense of continuity and necessity, and I would continue to do so: I checked every letter, bills, and flyer that had arrived.

It was a normal routine in a usual morning in a normal life of a woman with a normal career, but don’t you dare say it’s boring because my life and yours aren’t much different after all. They’re all normal and boring! And you who have adopted spontaneity as one of your talent and skill probably wouldn’t understand my routine, so there’s no need for you to have a say in this. A series of activity is required to be done methodically, harmoniously, and categorically to avoid contradiction and keep them from overlapping. They also need to be supervised so that they wouldn’t potentially be a disaster that could ruin a perfect day.

But, of course, sometimes surprises are unavoidable. Like the lone envelope of alien origin that slipped between the routines that morning.

Well, perhaps it’s not a suitable analogy. In truth, surprise had just materialized in the split second when my eye met the content of the said envelope:

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a letter with a simple “How are you?” written with a sloppy handwriting that tortured the eye of every unfortunate reader. My surprise didn’t come from the size of the empty space on the paper and the insubstantial content—three words, nine letters with a question mark—but by the feeling of familiarity towards the sender.

A man who had transcended time and space. My head was full of a thousand urgent thoughts and blazing feelings, lighting up the memories of times past in one side of my mind. It felt like a newborn baby who swore in front of my face and truthfully, if that was the appropriate analogy, already one liter of the filth from the baby’s mouth flooded every single cell in my body. Then, after the sensation had receded, a question emerged: what was the appropriate response for the man who had been out of time for ten years?

I introduced the letter to the crackling flame and they instantly came together in the presence of each other. * Morning had settled for long when the mourners filled the room with black clothes and anticipated their tears with a handkerchief or tissues in hand.

Meanwhile, I never intended to cry. I watched some of the people who flaunted the most pathetic look on their faces—made me felt a bit of guilt for choosing not to mourn at all—while the other half had readied themselves for the oncoming, unapologetic flow of tears. Sun was reluctant to rise and show its warmth in the middle of the crowd due to shame. “He was a good man,” I heard it said to me once.

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The guilt separated me further away from comfort: it crept up the back of my neck that was riddled with one or two stray hairs. I fixed my sitting position, a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right, but the feeling intensified and tightened the sensation on my neck, like threatening to strangle it. Was it really guilt, or was it only an excuse for me to have a valid reason to run away from the macabre room? In that split second, my ears rang painfully and forced me to stand, rushed through the wretched faces of mourners, and left the room hurriedly. My black overalls were in danger of being ruined by the abundance of sweat all over the curves of my body.

Head down, eyes set on the ground, I hurried to the direction of my parked car. If only he wasn’t standing there—at the end of the corridor, donning a slick suit that seemed ill-fitted with his pale, white face. His lips moved, repeating sentences and words of poetry. For the speech later, I thought. I was stunned. His long hair drew my fingers, how I long to touch a mere strand! I was so caught up in my wonder that when he suddenly turned to face me to recognize the person who shared the same space with him, I just realized through the look in his eyes that I was awfully charmed by him.

Damn. I have lost all sense of control.

“Hi.” * “Are you happy now?”

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“What is happiness, anyway?”

“You tell me.”

Silence filled the space between us for a while— I was aware of his eyes following my fingers when I tried to tame the stray curls of my hair and bring them to the back of my ear—until finally I decided to give him a fully calculated answer.

“For me, happiness is a letter out of time, appearing in an inconvenient moment and unwise occasion.”

“Oh.” He coughed and fixed his tie with a sorry look in his eyes mixed with a dash of relief.

“Who do you think you are?”

“I’m…” he took a long breath and let out an onslaught of words without pausing: “….maybe I’m Plato who returned to Socrates bare-handed, and you’re the tender flower of the hills which I left behind.”

“And you still didn’t tell me about your intention to die?!”

“It’s a need, My Lady, not just an intention! What for, anyway? Who are we? Just two strangers who don’t even know each other.”

“Look at me now, crying for a stranger out of time!”

I saw behind the curtain of his hair, the piercing

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look with the softness of morning dew trying to set an embrace. We were two awkward strangers who stood and shared nothing short of a mere glance, cold the loneliness of our own bodies.

We were drifting further away and we decided to end something that never even had a chance to start between us—he took a step back into the room first while I stood there, fixing my outfit and making myself decent before following him.

Between our past and present, life and death, we could only find sadness and pain. The wind had picked up more dark clouds and brought more gloom to that morning.

I could see him clearly from the threshold; standing tall on the podium, uttering words of poetry and making a favorable speech even though nobody seemed to care. Both of his arms opened wide heroically like Moses, delivering the simplest speech about life, justice and fairness, humanity, love, anything out of the mind and out of my understanding. But the faces present were devoid of any expression—none of them understood a word of it—and so the mourning faces turned into confusion. I was so close to laughing, if only he didn’t end his act of poetic oration by slamming down the microphone.

“So, that’s it. I’m kind of dead now, yeah. Like that! Did you see it? Like the annoying insect that woman there just killed. Or like, uh, feel it; the oxygen burning in your lungs. Even though I’m still standing here right in front of your eyes, I’m not pretending to be dead! But still, yeah, it’s very beautiful, right? Thank you for coming,

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I’m so flattered. I hope my guitar would be auctioned or taken care of decently instead of just sold via e-bay to an ignorant buyer. God bless you all!” And then he took out a cigarette and lighted it immediately with a lighter. How dramatic.

“Oh, why are you going to die so soon? What makes you rush?!” Ah there it was, a woman had come forward. He really was a good man, but, screw all those attention whores. One by one and without acknowledging each other’s presence, they started to utter their regrets.

“I’ll miss the sound of your music!”

“Look at you, so thin! I know I’m supposed to treat you better! I’m sorry that you have to die as a bag of bones like this…”

“Is it too late to ask for forgiveness? I’m so sorry, truly.”

“Thank you for everything!”

“Don’t you dare forget me in the afterlife there, you hear me?”

“You bastard, you haven’t paid your debt!” ......

“Listen to me!!”

The air turned quiet, unwilling to move. Dust and tongues followed and settled in silence.

I caught the man’s eye and recognized his amuse

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ment. A small victorious smile broke through my façade and in the next second I was walking towards him with an unquestionable anger. But, as soon as I arrived in front of him, the rage melted and turned into longing.

“You! You can easily say you’re completely dead, but this is the world of the living. Look at me, set your eyes on me! Don’t you have something to say to me? Do you want to run away like what you did in the past? Wait, I’m not finished talking!”

I took a long breath before continuing to keep the rising anger from turning into something else entirely. “Do you think I’m done with all the suffering you have caused me? Do you even know how my heart wanted to tear itself to pieces when I saw you jumping around the stage like a 17-year-old boy, pretending to ignore me like just any other woman? You’re disgusting, you know?” I took another series of long breath, like preparing to blow down the hay cottage of a little pig. I was the furious wolf, fasting to wait for the dead pigs. Don’t cry, woman, I entertained myself. The room was not dense enough to hold my fury and my patience didn’t measure to hold all the fight I would give if I went out of control. You would think I’m mad, but you would be wrong. No mad person would have enough patience to hold back from tearing their own heart for ten long years.

“You’re the stranger of my dreams. Why wait for so long, why wait for the end of everything? You smartass, I know you’re afraid of me. I know you need me, and I likewise. We need each other.

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You’re already dead, what else that you need to deny, what are you still afraid of? Break your promise to death, take my hand and let’s run away!”

Yes, run away with me. * I could see him clearly from the threshold. It was the time when I wish I was braver, or more of a romantic person. And yet, my heart was still in one piece, beating with abandon, and I was afraid.

I chose to stand and look without doing anything that could delay his burial. Maybe it was because I had waited for long in vain, maybe I was hoping for new possibilities that would come from the mutiny of routine and order. Maybe I simply missed a touch, a surge of feeling and affection once conveyed by a glance, connected fingers, the same line of breath. Maybe we knew love in one point, but then what?

And then nothing.

So, nothing it would be.

Love is a substance of destruction. A substance of unaccountable effects that could direct the trains all over the surface of the earth out of their need of scheduled routine and order. A substance that produced thousands of accidents, thousands of explosions, thousands of deaths, thousands of regrets heavier and darker than death.

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But not for me. I had chosen to resist.

welcome to warmth

And so, with a sense of decency, I came forward after he laid down inside his unremarkable coffin that gave out a dreadful impression. Even I could craft a better coffin than that, I thought. After watching all the stiff and self-conscious people who gave him white roses and flower petals, it was finally my turn to exchange my last words with the deceased who was lying beautifully in front of me. I put a lone white rose on his side and I saw his eyes following the movement of my fingers yet again. In my mind, we were dancing through glances and light touches between the flowers and the air around us, softly, connecting each of our hearts. Then, the emptiness came. He really was dead, what else could I hope for? That man, in the end, couldn’t actually transcend time and space.

Neither could I. “How does it feel?”

“Dead? Hmm, a bit crowded in here. I think this box makes me look stupid.”

We giggled ungracefully.

“You look fine.”

I reached for two pieces of bronze filled with strange carvings that was foreign for me—it turned out that I didn’t really know everything about him after all.

“I think this is goodbye.”

“Yeah, a long-denied goodbye, asshole.”

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“Don’t be rude to the dead people.”

“This one time, let me close them for you. It would be much more painless than doing it yourself.”

“Yeah. See you later.”

“See you.” I closed both of his eyes with the two bronze coins; the peace was apparent in them for the first time in forever. It was suitable enough to deliver the deceased. But look, even in the end he still gave me hope for a coming reunion someday in the future. That coward—still, I was smiling.

The audience came out with the same wretched look—how could they fake their suffering when so many people wished to be spared of them? The pallbearers lifted the coffin with ease, and I followed on the front side—beside where I was sure his head lay—through the cold gravestones.

Drops of rain fell reluctantly as a warning for everyone to open their umbrellas. Meanwhile, I was worrying about the state of the open casket— what if the deceased caught a cold? It wouldn’t be comfortable to begin your journey to the land of the dead with a cold.

After we had arrived on the side of the lake— or a wide patch of quicksand? The lake was too mysterious and frightening to be called as a lake anyway—the pallbearers brought the coffin onto a small boat. The light rain filled everyone with a sense of haste; without any further non sense, the small boat was launched to the middle of the lake—or quicksand. The man inside, who

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was supposed to be dead, waved his hand for a final goodbye. “Stupid brat, don’t ruin this sacred ritual by pretending to be alive!” his mother whined. I imagined he was laughing all by himself.

Alone. After a while, the rain started to fall heavier, and everyone rushed to come back home—to their warm kitchen filled with food and bathrooms with hot water, to the comfort of their balconies and sofas in their living room, while I stood there watching the small boat disappeared in the midst of the unapologetic fog that had settled.

Wasn’t he alone? Would he be lonely? Even a loner would feel a strain in their breast due to the affecting absolute silence. Maybe the silence burned his inside in the middle of the falling rain? How painful was it? For once, the train had stopped in a wrong station. But all was well in the world.

“Hello? Yeah, of course I remember your mother’s birthday. I’m coming right away. Yes. I’m sure she will like me. Okay, I’ll see you later. I miss you too.”

Before I go, I glanced at the fog for the last time.

Don’t be alone anymore. I opened my umbrella and took long strides towards my car. Someone was waiting for me.

It was still possible to end the day with routine and order as usual. ***

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triptych

Khairani Barokka

//////// Hymn Thank you claws in muscle and bone for tearing me whole to bring into being this naked, barefoot heart. This wild heart, slinging blood-ribbons slicing precision-thin; this gasping makes me whole, I am all-cells awake, my aorta to dirt, my limbs ground to pain and rising so many times, my breasts leak sky and phoenix-wing. Thank you abysses, rock-bottoms, cruel mind, false masters, morasses of salt--I am singing. //////// The anaerobic crumple begins again in quiet, in the dark, red habit. / You fold us in; eyes too open meaning brave. / Cracked paper, you and I. Miasma. / Origami and patience and breath. ////////// Asymmetryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s electrical thunderstorm--lightning splints the ribs, splits the fist, tempestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s temper in the palm. Dawn. ***

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sugar sands

Agustina Pringganti

The last sentence of a story is the beginning of a tale. Like a night ending with the beginning of a morn. And here we are standing on the side of a beautifully blossoming beach. Nine years ago we met here in a red dawn, in a time-devouring dawn, and yet, dawn was not the end. Today, we decide to meet before the first light appears, before the dark fades away, in the beach that embraced us into a world of nirvana nine years ago. I still remember the soft, powdery beach. I still remember the fading sun. I still remember the drunken waves. And, I still remember the gentle curves of her body, her flowing hair, her knee-length blooming dress that trailed up her thigh when she sat down on the sand. Her face as clear as the first dew in the morning, her eyes as tender as the full moon, her sweet and happy smile. She would run around and I would just sit down to watch the orange sunset light fall on her smooth, tanned back.

But today, I couldn’t even look her in the eye.

Her body plump, wrapped by a jacket and a scarf.

Her hair tied instead of flowing freely. “Why meeting here at such an hour?” I asked.

She went quiet, holding back her tears. That beach felt like closing in on us. I felt sick and I couldn’t breathe. My question went unanswered.

Why? At such an hour? She looked down on the soft, powdery sand. I trailed behind without saying any words, prayers, or lamentations. Words could be dangerous. It was better for me to wait for her

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to speak first.

No more of that fading sun, everything was dark.

Endlessly dark. “I’m tired of being with you. I’m tired of being a mother.”

The woman turned back at me and still I couldn’t find the tenderness of full moon in her eyes.

The faces of our four innocent, oblivious children appeared in my mind. Their eyes sweet and naïve.

Moaning when they’re hungry…Crying when they’re abandoned…Acting selfishly when they’re tended to. Hurriedly, I averted my thoughts and tried to look at the woman –or the shadow of one—in front of me. I pulled her into my embrace. She cried and I choked back a sob. Aren’t women supposed to be happy becoming a mother?

Maybe…Maybe this was just an excuse for her to run away with another man.

I remember when she was stunned after hearing that she was pregnant for the fourth time. The rapidly fading tenderness in her full moon eyes…and suddenly, all the memories were crumbling down.

I hold her closer and she says she can’t breathe. I loosen my grip and try to find her eyes again.

I can’t.

She slips from my embrace and takes one step away to widen our distance. She avoids me when I try to come closer. She says, “We need more space.

I’m running out of air.” I don’t, I don’t understand what she’s saying. We’ve already been married for eight years. We live in a beautiful house. We have a fancy car. Isn’t that enough?

“What is it, darling?” I grab her soft hand, but she yanks it back. Women! After you gave her everything she wouldn’t even let you touch her hand.

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If you hadn’t bought her all the luxurious lotions and soaps, her hand wouldn’t even be that soft.

“I’m done.”

What is she saying? At this hour, waves are still rumbling and pounding the shore relentlessly.

I can’t hear my wife’s words. “What?”

“I’M GOING AWAY!” She shrieks. Madness! She probably thinks I’m deaf.

“Where, darling?” I drag the words slowly. You can’t conquer women with harshness.

She turns around and walks away again on the suffocating beach. “Wherever as long as I’m not with you.”

What a joke. I know she has wanted to run away with another man all along. But I can’t accuse her.

I love her. All my breath disappears when I think about how much I love her.

“Why, why are you doing this, love?” I hold her closer from behind. She struggles and pushes me away until I fall down. She cries and still I long for the missing tenderness of the full moon in her eyes. She kicks me and runs away. She runs far away.

I could see her face, nine years ago, on this beach. I could see our marriage, sweet and colorful. Until... I found her on our fifth anniversary, lying on our bed with pure whiteness on her

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face. Our three children were playing around her, screaming and laughing with mirth. She snapped and told them to be quiet. As she saw me coming, she got up and trailed her steps toward the kitchen to make dinner. Her hair was a mess and she was fatter. She smiled bitterly when I said, “Happy fifth anniversary, sweetheart.” But the next day, she was happier again. Her body warm and delightful, her hair flawless. She fried some fish, tofu, vegetables, and chili for us to bring for our picnic. This kind of thing happened over and over again. And I thought yet again. Women! They’re so changeable.

As a man and a husband, the most important thing for me was loving her still.

And then, I could see the faces of our four children lying on the soft, warm bed. I could see our four children laughing, running around their mother’s feet. I could even see the faces of our four children if they can’t find her around; in the kitchen, in the garden, or in the bedroom. The happy faces that would turn sour.

I hold back all my pains. I open my eyes widely, but still, I find no light. I stand up and I discover the woman I love walking towards the sea. I see her curves that once were beautiful. I see her hair swept away by the sharp, cold wind.

I freeze on the soft, powdery beach. I see the mother of my children walking towards the yellowing sky. At first, the water reaches her breasts.

And then, her eyes. And at last, the top of her head. She becomes nothing. I see lights coming out on the horizon. First light of the day. The night is ending, and the morn has begun. Like the last sentence of a story that becomes the beginning of a tale. ***

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contributors Aan Mansyur He lives and works in Makassar as a librarian in a creative space with katakerja. His published books of poetry are Aku Hendak Pindah Rumah (2008) and Tokoh-tokoh yang Melawan Kita dalam Satu Cerita (2012).

You can reach him at @hurufkecil and www.hurufkecil.net.

Adrianne Claudia She is like the weather. Everytime the wind blows, she changes; everytime the sun ray merges with different tiny spots of earth in tropical forest, she is no longer the same.

Agustina Pringganti Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a huge fan of SGA and writes mostly in Bahasa Indonesia. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a student journalist of Suara Mahasiswa who is now in charge as a general secretary. Being a senior-year university student keeps her mind busy thinking of what her undergrad thesis will be.

Anantagita Sambhava He loves to write poetry and prose. He was Chairman of the Markas Sastra literary club in FIB UI during 2012 to 2013, and is the proud founder and editor of the literary zine Kucing Zine. Several of his works are published in mixed anthologies under various pseudonyms.

Anzi Matta

(Pg. 72)

She is a student in Magelang and self-taught illustrator who uses her emotions. Her works are mainly influenced by many elements, including filmmakers like Takashi Miike. She has also shown her work at an exhibition in Portugal.

Agung Setiawan He is a graduate student of Philosophy who prefers to spend most of his time interracting with other people. His works are much influenced by Getrude Stein, Mochtar Lubis, Aldous Huxley, Dante Alighieri, H.G. Wells, J.M. Barrie and Dipa Nusantara Aidit.

Arman Dhani A journalist and failed poet. Born and raised in Bondowoso.

Writes for fun, and struggling for life.

Asty Ramadhani

(Pg. 78)

She is a 21 year-old amateur illustrator. She sheds legit watercolor tears for being a fangirl.

(Pg. 20)

Ben K. C. Laksana

He mostly writes about his life and other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lives which he often finds utterly fascinating. Sometimes he writes opinion pieces for English newspapers when he feels like it or takes photos when heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s asked to. He currently lives in Bogor, keeping an eye on his beautiful yet aging mom and six well fed dogs who bark too often.

Deni Iqbal Teruna

(Pg. 32 & 62)

He is a delightful chatter with a notebook on his hand. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also into making arts. Born in Batam in 1994, he is now a student of Visual Communication & New Media in Bina Nusantara.

Devi Merakati

(Pg. 94)

She spends most of her time sleeping, admiring urban scapes and pretending to be good at what she loves until she really is.

Dewie Anggraini She is 19 and an interior design major in Universital Pelita Harapan. She likes art, music, and travelling.

(Pg. 70)

Diedra Cavina

(Pg. 34 & 48)

Describing herself is one of her weakness. Its so much easier getting to know her in real life.

Dinda Larasati She spends her days as a student of media studies and a contributor for a number of mass media. She founded Taman Bacaan Bulian and is an editor at Suara Mahasiswa UI. She’s into plants and lights and resting next to the cats.

Dwiputri Pertiwi She writes poems and essays. When she is not busy writing and reading, she enjoys listening to music and spending time with her friends. Her interests also include photography and languages. A number of her writings can be found on the Jakarta-based online publication, www. whiteboardjournal.com.

Blog: writingsfromnowhere.blogspot.com

Halida Aisyah She is a book hoarder and children’s reads enthusiast. Reading has literally ruined her eyes. Guilty pleasures: reality TV shows and spending hours planning a trip she wants to take someday. Find her on Twitter under her (mostly travel-related) Internet ID @___rubyslippers

Khairani Barokka Okka is an internationally-working artist, writer, and advocate with disability, whose poetry, fiction and nonfiction have been published in many countries and who has taken her innovative spoken word, performance art, disability and transdisciplinary workshops to many places.

This year, she premiered her hearing-impaired accessible solo show, “Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee”, at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as part of her first European tour, performing as well in London, Vienna, and Italy. @mailbykite

Laksmitha Widyanie

(Pg. 12)

She is a 21 year old girl currently studying Biologial Engineering. Enjoys deconstructing things just to assemble it back together again. Loves taking pictures, traveling, and reading. Easily distracted by all things cool.

Nadya Santoso

(Pg. 10)

She draws pictures sometimes. When not taking the occasional walk in the city, she enjoys holing up in her room to play video games, waste away time on the internet, and go to sleep, pretending she doesn’t have responsibilites. She is currently studying visual arts in the rainy seaside city of Vancouver.

(Pg. 64)

Prinka Saraswati A creature made of ancient particles which allow her to tell stories through photos and words.

Rain Chudori She is a writer and light sleeper. She has written for The Jakarta Post, the Jakarta Globe, Whiteboard Journal, and other publications. Her debut short story collection will be released by KPG publishings titled, Monsoon Tiger and Other Stories. She likes tea, plants and highways.

Ratta Bill Abaggi

(Pg.50)

He’s born in Jakarta, May 1994. Currently a student of graphic design and a visual artist who also sings and plays guitar in a band called Bedchamber.

Shofwatul Widad She is a senior-year university student who is more of a netizen than a citizen. She prefers reading than writing. But then again, aren’t all books first written? So she gambles, just like people, and calls herself a novice.

You can find her on the interweb under the name @ddoxy.

Smita Kirana

(Pg. 16 & 38)

She is a second year graphic design student. When she’s not drawing, she is probably on the internet, playing the bass, eating instant noodle, or dozing off on a daybed.

Syarafina Vidyadhana She studies lit by day and tries to write one by night. Her faith lies in the very humane trait of practicality and decent Chinese food. She’s really not into cats.

Talula Zuhra

(Pg. 40)

She’s a 21 year old design student whose main interest is filth and everything in between.

Toro Elmar

(Pg. 28)

He is an artist, designer and art director, was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia. He spends his spare time running an independent record label and publishing house, Rally the Troops. He also plays in a number of local bands.

Uta Verina Maukar

(Pg. 80)

She’s a design student who wishes to be an illustrator for children books, although she’s not a huge fan of children. Recently into surrealism, with Wickana Laksmi Dewi as one of her muses. She’s both an introvert and extrovert.

Zahra Matarani She is probably most notorious for her annoying habit of drunktweeting, binge gaming, profuse reading, and sleeping on any sleepable surface. Growing up, she thrived on her love for Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror, old Triumph motorbikes, Jack Kerouac, and Coppola movies. She is also a proud owner of a proudass cat she proudly calls Thranduil.

aan mansyur adrianne claudia agustina pringganti anantagita sambhava anzi matta agung setiawan armah dhani asty ramadhani ben k. c. laksana deni iqbal teruna devi merakati dewie anggraini diedra cavina di dinda larasati dwiputri pertiwi halida aisyah khairani barokka laksmitha widyanie nadya santoso prinka saraswati rain chudori ratta bill abaggi shofwatul widad smita kirana syarafina vidyadhana talula zuhra toro elmar uta verina maukar zahra matarani