Chapter Text
I.
Kala
First, there was nothing. Then, there is everything.
Before the first of nothing came, Batara Kala slept in a spinning tick. This spinning tick that all it knew about was called Time.
Time was born from the depth of its mother’s womb. As ancient legend told about an affair born upon heaven: Dewi Uma was forced to part her legs for Batara Guru on a holy nandhi. Ashamed, Uma spelt a curse from her tongue, making herself and her son turn hideous and ugly. From then on, they no longer acted as family. But the spirit of Time itself had shaped the fate of them into stone.
Monsters walk the earth ever since the birth of hell. Batara Kala was no different. Mankind will remember it as nothing but a symbol of terrible beauty. What’s left? It looked inside itself, saw a dark pit so empty and unknown. Hunger. Hunger created a hole within it. And thus Batara Kala began devouring, hoping this ugliness will be fulfilled at last. It devoured soil, puny mud and minerals within, then built its stomach for organic materials—so the endless insatiation merely pleased it for temporary. Plant life feeded the sun from inside its intestine, and not so long after small life fell victim. Larger beings followed. It devoured everything.
Eventually, humans met face-first into its mouth. Driven mad, it culminated a particular liking to human flesh. The other gods and devas seem ignorant, but still set a rule: devour those who do evils. Because evil covers the entirety of man’s heart. The rule was pleased.
Evils flourished. Batara Kala ate them with eager teeth. It ate every day and continued eating until dusk. Waking up, it always raised its head towards the sky and wished to devour the sun. But four feet was rooted to Mother Earth—and nothing was worth it more than here.
Alas nothing lasted until eternity. Batara Kala found itself bethroned one day on a place unfamiliar: the underworld. Later, the devas proclaimed it once of the god to judge the dead. They did not mention the fear they felt when they saw that hideous face.
Years of devouring to at last discover a true home. Even if home is the litter bin called the last resort for dumping out the worst of all within the animal kingdom. So finally everything Batara Kala had devoured was left behind, spinning. Spinning in a tick. Ten seconds behind each becoming a history. And ten seconds later make the future.
It kept on eating, consuming the evil and ruling the souls who had done misdeeds. And it devoured.
And it continued devouring,
And devouring,
And devouring,
And devouring,
And yet
Time was never satisfied.
- Time Is a Gorgeous Lover -
Written by Mors / Cover Art by Hazel / Story Art by Ichi/ Translation Help by Azzy
“And done.” This bright flash endorses the eyes—Iphone 14’s lens captured both of them in perfect frame after three failed attempts. The case holds within her palm, her polished nails brushing the ceramic glass cover like touching diamond.
Ouro Kronii rarely takes a selfie, but for once it seems like a good way to distract herself from the tale. Tales of Gods rarely come by; where things go then, supernatural beings appear no more than as a brush-off. So she decides to pick her phone and change the subject.
“Wanna put some filters on the photos?” The blonde beside asks. “Or brush some of those forehead wrinkles. Heard people look out for those first.” The comment is brash. It’s fitting.
“Naw, man. I look good enough, always.”
“Sure, sure lah.” Kaela Kovalskia laughs silently. More of a wheeze that hides in the quiet, afraid a louder cackle will wake up fellow passengers. She tucks her hair to the side before pulling her red sunglasses downward.
Outside the fields of white begins a fetch—homerun, a strike, lined ball made of vapor goes out through the blue yard which humanity called the Pacific. Biggest ocean in the world they’re above, stuck in a shaped metal box gone with the way of wind.
“Are you excited?” Kaela asks again. This time with little decency for Kronii to finish doing touch-ups on their taken photo.
“Of?”
“Where we’re going. My home. Two days ago I think, I said to you it’s a place far, far away.”
“Not that far now, really, but,” Kronii takes a quick peek through a swipe down on the screen attached to the seatback. The clock reads: 5 hours until arrival. “We’ll land soon. And I mean soon as in a long soon. But eh I can wait.”
“So are you excited?”
Kronii smiles, “Yeah, of course.”
How can she not be? Weeks of earthbound foreplay loosened in the mist of Japan. The fog born on the eighth day, duty’s final breath for HoloFes and the time is broken free. A week-long diet of the heart filled with sweet and happy moments. Time stands there when she is thinking: where am I going? It’s either back to Canada or into the unknown.
The third option is a secret. Unlocked by her ruthlessness at first to tease Kaela. Their time spent, ten hours minimum on a date, merely a flick of the shoulder and in all honesty they can go for much, much longer. She did not alas photographed many places they went on the date but the memories in her head are enough.
Now the plane takes her to another place. The unknown is in Southeast Asia, after all. One place where the secret of the universe has not come to surface when she was here at the beginning; through the explosion of black hole, the made avatar scattered through the stars, her soul put inside a long dream. She did not acknowledge this floating continent until millenias in, progression of literature and internet huge in play.
“Hello? Earth to Kronii.”
“Huh?” She flinches as a tap jolts on her shoulder. “What?”
“I was asking about the plan. I sent you in Discord what I think will be great to do when we’re there,” Though the sun beats on her face, the blonde hair blends in like skin camo. “Also, could you lower the curtain, yeah?
“Oh—uhm yeah.” Kronii reaches out. Closing the window through a simple swipe. “Yeah…” Then she slumps back on her seat, ignoring the crawling protest from her legs to stretch. Five hours to go then her life will start its next biggest checkpoint.
She’s back once more lost in thoughts. To the mind’s landscape nurturing new things she wants to discover: In another life, she is still in Japan dancing on stage in front of fans on the second week set. In yet another, she has never known the existence of Hololive; and instead is auditioning for a K-pop experimental group. In one last another, an ambitious version of her is chasing money in downtown Toronto, about to become one of Forbes’ youngest millionaires. But here in this life, those possibilities dissolve into mud. The shape of clay now spells out Indonesia.
Here lies the breath of a new stratosphere. A long heave takes Kronii further into the deep unknowing light. What will become is but a journeywork of herself countless lifetimes ago, repeated by a pinwheel’s lucky guess. Time awaits.
Bon Voyage. Under the airport ceiling lights when she steps off Terminal 2 arrival gate for international passengers there reads a sign, Safe flight and happy flying. It takes quite a handful to cross the security checkpoint, their pat-down for illegal smuggling, their grumpy looks and all-black attires. But just like the catchphrase she’s cruising through the air. Breathes in. Excitement gnawing at her lungs.
A short wait. They ask her questions, her passport, takes off your sunglasses please. Put your thumbprint on the scanner here. Thank you, ma’am. Then they let her go, and straight down the crowded white hallways—Kaela already there at the baggage carousel waiting for their stuff they have trunk-loaded.
“Want anything from those shops? You know it’s tax free.” Kaela smiles. She points to several duty-free shops. Perfume, alcohol, snacks lined on shelves as tall as six feet. The price scares her away, though.
“No thanks.” Kronii replies. “Something’s just more important right now. Look, I brought some snacks from when we went to that cute place after Fes. Caramel loquats, I think.”
The thing more sweet is already in the mouth: the taste of a new adventure. She’s not exactly the type to go zip line or parachute from the sky. But just a simple walk on this undiscovered side of earth is enough. No loquat or fruit will satisfy now.
Kaela grabs luggage out of the conveyor with ease. “Done it a million times before.” She says with a smirk as Kronii gawks at the speed. Her arms hide no attempt to flex. It’s a mystery how such a person can at the same time be skinny yet this muscular.
Two huge luggages rests on the cart trolley. One littered over by miniature stickers of raspberried feathers, a saturn tilted sideway, a finely-carved greenleaf, and a dice with rat ears poking out. Another is Kaela’s, unmistakable for its plainness. “I don’t get why you’d put on so many bumper stickers. Not like anything inside will get a dent anyways.” The blonde shrugs.
“It’s the thought that counts.” Kronii replies, half amused. “All good now? Okay, let’s go.” She grabs on the trolley’s handle and pushes. To the outside gate and beyond.
If you were God, you’ll understand the why which spelled from a girl’s mouth. Her lips raked by dryness from week-long rehearsals followed days after by nonstop singing. The girl talked often in slow-motion, hands clasped, sometimes fidgeting nervously if another soul dipped by. Back in the hotel room, she sat alone. She flaunted her hair to herself in the mirror, blue as the crumbling sky hitting water, the one quality she’s only good at. On the nightstand her phone was plugged in, hot at the touch from a long day out.
The phone buzzed, revealing a discord message offsetted by the background. The navy girl had set up a wallpaper which was recent. Taken alongside the rest of her friend group—Promise. All the five girls struck a pose in front of a castle scarred by the history of ancient Japan. If you were God, the existence of other gods in another country would enrage you deeply. After all, what is power but to control oneself and others? You don’t know the true reason, but a single misplaced ‘ why?’ is strong and rewrites everything.
“Because maybe that might be a better way for us to connect.” Kaela Kovalskia once said. She sat opposite to Ouro Kronii in a cat cafe, a black neko purring at her lap, mischief in those little flashy eyes. The two of them had agreed to meet up in the afternoon days before the end of Color Rise Harmony.
“Why?” Kronii asked again, for the fifth time. For the questions and non-answers were answered by the blonde easily as a machine would be provoked. She wanted to say a word that is different. And still that took a struggle.
“Because I want us to spend more time together.” Kaela looked to the outside streetways, hand busy scratching the cat’s chin. A meow. Then a light body roll. “Ma said something to me the other day when she called: why don’t you bring some of your friends from overseas? I listened to her and thought, yeah, that’s a great idea.”
“Why me, though? Why not somebody else?”
“Because you are someone who really matters to me the most.”
Kronii took a sip from her milk latte. It’s awkwardness dampened on her chest, the aversion of her eyes casual enough to not look rude. Yet her face was an open book with the ways Kaela could read her—for too long. Kaela’s awkward ESL English writes something in her body, like she was never born with the word heartbeat or that it might have leapt out right as that sentence had her spilling a few drops of latte onto her shirt.
“Maybe I’ll go. Have to look at my schedules though. Y’know.”
“I know you’re free, Kronii. Don’t lie now.”
“Eh—well, whatever you say, man.”
“I mean,” The cat slid out of Kaela’s lap, and ran away towards the sound of the cafe owner coming out the backdoor. Still, she fixed her gaze to the outside. It seemed like she’s distracting herself from the objective. Like she, too, was alone. “If you don't wanna go, that’s fine.”
“What! No, no, no, no.” Kronii shook her head profusely. “If you want me to go then I’ll go.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Yes, I’ll go.”
“I mean you should think it through first. Still lots of time to think about it. But also don’t be scared to say no, alright?” Kaela beamed at her. It was a potent sunray that Kronii’s afraid she’ll tear it down. It was innocent at heart and now she wants to protect it.
“Alright.” Kronii cleaned the table with dry tissue. “Alright...” She repeated, following the tail of the sentence, its ending still a question mark. She followed the other’s gaze towards the window, the single escape point for her eyes. And in her peripherals the realization: Kaela was looking at her now. And the cat leapt back onto the blonde’s lap with yet another purr.
A day later she made herself a promise: let go of the past and spend this upcoming month as a better person. Because with a new country comes a second chance—that one thing you rarely get and even rarely outlast. You could be in a new place and learn nothing from it; that the home, once entered your body, never leaves you. And the word is uttered not so carelessly because the value stays deep, a root with trunks the place you are born from.
Two weeks was so little time. So Kronii gained the courage to say it as the two of them sat there overlooking the whole of Chiba atop a four-story-tall tower, when HoloFes was about to end and their next destination still undecided, “I will go.”
Kaela’s eyes—and she wouldn’t repeat it again because too much was told in one flash, one blink—lighted up with sparkles. She counted each succulent glint all that noon. Kaela kept smiling throughout the day stretching to a small party held over at Cover’s headquarters.
“Are you sure?” Kaela asked her again one time when Kronii was found in the main room's corner, a cup of berry juice in palm. The party’s a sort of thing she couldn’t vibe with.
“Yeah. One hundred percent sure I’m going.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Not lying?”
“I’m serious—either you’re not as well or you’re bringing me there no matter what.”
“Well, well, well,” Kaela laughed. The kind of laughter that’s genuine. “Looks like I got my oshi to go. But don’t let anybody else know, okay? I want to keep this as a surprise.”
“Promised.” Kronii returned a soft grin, looked to the side.
They spent their leftover freetime on the basis of nothingness. Each day left was a deadline foretold in calendars. By the last day Kaela came over to her hotel room to help pack with stuff.
“If you want to go, then you have to know one thing.” Kaela said, busying on folding clothes. The clock woman watched from behind. “It’s the most gorgeous place on earth.”
Kronii didn’t understand what the blonde meant. Her brain a ginkgo leaves intertwined with haze, nothing important enough but packing her backpacks and luggage up and making sure nothing was left behind. The next time she almost pried out the answer of ‘why? ’ it was under the roof of Tokyo airport. But by then, they’d already busied themselves in boarding the flight.
They are waiting at one of the outside gates. Near them, rows of moving cars fill up the column of airport traffic. Some stops to haul luggages and people alike. Taxi in the distance arguing over price with tourist. A large Damri bus chugged and filled out by hollers and white noise. From there, not too far, the pool of people that has streamed from another gate carries with them journeys and cash flows which will support the underground government for a decade to come.
Kaela has her hands clammy on the phone, on the lookout for any dings or updates. Meanwhile Kronii is busy taking it all in. The perpetual thought: she is here—I’m here. The place far, far away, once called dreamlands and peninsula ocean trades. Where boats go and history along the tide the riddle of men. She is in a place too far from the west yet the sky is ceiling-high. Her hands are tight on the trolley handlebars. The waves called excitement spills over her shoulder and into the fading fields of crowds.
A flock of birds made a flyover above the giant sign spelling out ‘JAKARTA’—like a welcome show, the next episode. Through the horizon devoid of clouds and forecasted no storm for the following week. The airport’s the size of a god’s little meal. Cars the moving constant which fills in the sound of get-going. The first crease line appears on the forehead as sweats begin from the sun.
Two minutes passed before a ding. Kaela bounces excitedly before looking side to side; “We’re here,” said the message on the phone. Kronii takes a peek before another message comes shortly after, “Right behind you.”
A flat, pulch black Toyota four-wheels at the pace of a snail along the left lane, having teared through the swarm of cars, taxis, and buses and the honk blares for the first time in the fashion of luxury. Suddenly, every noise falls into a mere background, leaving Kronii and the blonde and the car in the spotlight.
Then, her first warmth:
“Nice to meet you!”
You’d be stunlocked from a sweet voice coming from two people. A woman somewhere in her thirties steps off first from the car, joined seconds later by a sharply-suited man, their hair the first thing Kronii notices—blonde. A specific type. It’s this color even if olden by time in the rough shine of gray and faded yellow.
She bows as manners. The puzzle piece comes together at last: it’s Kaela’s parents. And if she cannot tell by their hair then the second best thing to look at is their smiles. Ample and naturally there, and the friendliest way they stand and bow a little in return.
“Ma, Pa!” Kaela starts. She closes the gap between herself and Kronii, “This is Kronii! The girl I talked about a lot. I’m so happy you finally get to meet her!”
Kronii doesn’t hear any of it. Not because she doesn’t care but because a pink crayon has spreaded across her entire face.
She stays bowing until it becomes too awkward and her head must resurface. She feels her hands a little sweaty as she traces to grab the luggage. It moves again, that feeling, the air and the ground. So slow she feels the world moving in slow-motion.
“Let’s talk more when we’re in the car.” Kaela’s Pa gently ushers. He beelines towards the luggage trolley, “Here, I’ll help you with these.” He grabs firm on the bags, two at a time, tossing into the opened trunk with ease until all emptied out.
Then Kronii and Kaela double-check their stuff. When they’re done they get into the back seat and the wheels move once more.
In the car, the words come out like popped wine. Kaela’s Ma chit-chats turn into long talks with mixed Indonesian that Kronii still hasn’t gotten a hang of. Not halfway into the ride Kaela’s Pa too get lost in the conversation.
“How’s your trip been lah?” Kaela’s Ma turns to ask from the front seat.
“It’s great. Well, of course,” Kaela beams. “With Kronii everything was really fun. I knew you saw that one photo of me and Kronii at a cat cafe, Ma. And the other, uh, I think it was on the phone’s album; We went to a karaoke studio.”
“It’s really cute.” Kaela’s Ma laughs sweetly, “ And how about you, nak Kronii?”
“Oh—uhm, yeah it was awesome.” Kronii breaks out of her trance. “Lots of things to do. I sang a lot and got to see my fans. Signed a lot of merches. And, uh, with Kaela I got to do a lot with her. Like—I also took her on a ten hour date.”
A whistle. “A date~?”
“Wait, no, no, no!” Kronii sputters.
“A friend date!” Kaela shouts, and joins Kronii in shock. “Ma, don’t get any weird ideas. We were just hanging out a lot of times.”
“Ten hours?” Kaela’s Pa chimes in. “That long?”
“It’s just… uhm… uh, easy to get lost in all the sightseeings. You know, like, we are on a friend date that’s because… Okay nevermind. ” Kronii says, her half-assed attempt makes the blonde girl beside facepalms. “Aside from the idol stuff, it’s great to just… spend time trying to forget you’re deep in the job.”
Kaela’s Pa laughs. Then as his lighthearted chuckle fades you can see his eyes turning coy, “Ini pacarmu apa gimana, ‘La?”
Kaela flinches. Her eyes widen as cheeks turn rosy. “Bukan pacar kok, Pa! Temen dong!”
Kronii raises an eyebrow, “What did he say?”
Kaela glances back and suddenly blushes, “Don’t worry,” She turns her head quickly to the other side. “He just asked… if we’re hungry.”
She looks outside to feed her ever-growing curiosity. From the Toyota here on the parallel side of the road, the left lane now occupied by a pickup truck, and more motorcycles than cars charging through red lights. You can count it ten—then eleven, twelve, and poof—when the light turns green hanging there over a pole amidst intersection, and all is gone but the slow-moving ones.
The truck is no joke compared to the car she’s in, even if less fancy. Up on the cargo bed of such an engine sits several people. These people who Kronii has to squint what to make out of. Clothes wrap their mouths, straw hats over their head reflective at sunray. The whirr-twirl mixed with the wind halves themselves into mere living scarecrows guarding fruits and harvest.
“Gwak!” She slips a surprise.
“What’s wrong?” Kaela asks. “Oh, you’re interested in that type of truck?”
“No, but why are they covering themselves up like that? Aren’t they hot?”
“Ohhhh,” Kaela snickers, “They wear them like that. You mean the people wearing the masks, right?” She points as Kronii nods. “We wear them like that all the time, you know. We do it naturally. It helps protect against dust that is left from the motor engines.” Next she points to the clump of gray, the product left behind under the motorbikes and cars and all types—metal cylinders protrude in all shapes and forms underneath the bases, clanking.
Kronii stares as the light-faded smokes disappear into the air. Its lifespan no more than two seconds. The men and women on the truck sunk their neck into the facemask and scarf and some hung cloth sways gently with the newly-propelled dust. She can hardly see their eyes with the shade of their caps.
They’re shaped like faded animals running away, these things hazardous to breathe in. It’s air pollution of the finest quality invisible to the eyes. Once dispelled out, she can only see a dim outline of everything within the smoke cloud. And when she squints again she has turned to the other side and meets Kaela, sitting relaxed on the seat, hand tracing the base of the window.
“Road dust is very dangerous.” Kaela’s Pa adds. “Breathe them in and you get bad lungs— hati hati, nak.”
“Hati hati?”
“It means: Be careful.” Kaela smiles back, locks eyes with the time warden for half a second before moving away. “Be careful, right. Also don’t walk along the side of the road.” Her fingers stop at the pane’s side hung. “And, well, I think you know already that us Indonesians drive very recklessly.”
One city, two suburbs, countless highways. Past the hills here and there, across the face of Java and down further westward. Roads stretched on, interlinked, dirt blotches long spawned from government negligence and cement following the trail fenced by steel guardrails across minor mountains, where Kronii almost dozes off as she looks. Somewhere still in west Jakarta, the car comes to a sudden stop, then she’s gently tapped on her shoulder by Kaela.
“Wake up, we’re here.”
“Huh?” Kronii brushes her face with her palms, then blinks. “Where?”
“My house.”
“O-Oh! Okay, I’ll get going.”
When she steps off Kaela’s parents are already chugging the luggages and bags out of the trunk. They proceed to the door. The house stands before the four in the world’s loneliest secret base. There is beauty lined up on the walls, sun-kissed, fixed lines of bricks and upon further inspection most are renovated blocks of tough concrete.
Back along a road, she realizes they’ve passed a village entrance, an arch passageway with street lamps donning the asphalt trail. And through the end her eyes map around five houses similar to this one. She’s in some sort of townhouse, luxurious in a sense. No usual neighborhood like in Canada, but nonetheless a place you’ll instantly call home. Trees grow like beasts here, prying for sunlight and to provide shades. Beyond the foliage more structures appear; a water tank poled up, wires dug deep underground to connect the waterways and sewage, then a new pickup truck appears, more heavy-loaded this time on fruits and natural Vitamin C—farmers’ race with time against the evening local market. Rightward lays patches of small farms, rice paddies-filled, becoming a green gateway which once a year feeds the world.
A fiddle of keychains on Kaela’s Ma thumbs, “Our house isn’t much. But I hope you’ll like it, dear.” She inserts a key with a mini plush at the end ring into the keyhole.
The door opens to reveal a modest outlook into an Indonesian upper middle-class. Bourgeois living room encasing a TV the size of a family portrait, two chairs and a couch facing steadward, twin bookshelves inside one corner. On the right, bordered by batik-style carpet on smooth tiles, the kitchen stands welcoming. And the staircase to the second floor leads straight just shy of the bathroom.
“Wow…” Kronii has no words. She stares at everything that’s perceptibly there, even if the least or minute detail. She takes a cautious strut until she reaches the area behind the couch and on second observation it’s purely made of beanbags, how her knee almost sinks into the leatherskin. The blonde girl follows up behind, “Your house… it’s incredible—like, I want to just sit here and forget about anything else.”
“You can do that.” Kaela muses. “Here. How about we go sit at my favorite spot?”
“Right now?”
“Right now,”
“Where? Take me.”
“It’s on the second floor; Come.”
“Lah! ‘La, don’t you just bring your pacar away already. Me and your Ma just got to know her!” Kaela’s Pa teases.
“I’m fine! We’re fine! We’ll be back in ten minutes.” Kaela shouts back as she guides Kronii out the doorway, brushing off Ma's whistles. “Don’t worry about our stuff, Ma, Pa. We’ll sort it out ourselves.”
Kronii follows the blonde upstairs, into firstly the spare bedroom. Clean folded pillows and Doraemon mattress sheet, and the empty opened closet five feet gaps away from the bedfoot. The room is right beside another, a hammer signet carved onto the door label—Kaela’s.
“Put your stuff here,”
“And you’ll be staying?”
Kaela sighs, “No. Can’t stay with you still. Privacy stuff, Ma said. Best for you and me too. Blah, blah, blah. You get it.”
“…Yeah,” Kronii tosses her backpack onto the bed and moves the luggage to rest beside the nightstand. Then she closes the window curtains, turns on the A/C. She turns her head back to see a faint smile spreading on that caring face. “Something wrong?”
“No, just… nevermind.” Kaela shakes her head. Back to a stoic demeanor in a second. “Come—I’ll show you the balcony.” She disappears from the doorway with a gesture.
At the end of the hallway stands a glasslike mosaic double door. Once opened Kronii sees a complete overlook of the cut forest and townhouse. It’s a balcony. Two chairs and a table for accommodation on this flat wide space, done in fine handcrafts. “Here, sit, Kronii.”
“This is your favorite spot?” Kronii scoffs playfully, though half-tired. She accepts the chair, sits on it with a satisfied hum, “It’s not even in the house.”
“It’s still part of the house. One point for creativity, right?” Kaela pats the warden on the arms. And she moves to lean out on the balcony ledge. The house, as both of them dip in complete air, stands at more than ten meters. Their bodies unease at once. Overhead, the sky turns into a mix'n'match of white and blue.
“Why here?”
“Because here you can feel the wind from all directions. Wind—it’s love, you know that? You feel it best when it is ‘overwhelming’ you. I think that’s the word.”
Can we just lay here and forget about the world? As she lays splayed this no longer becomes a question nor a desire. Instead, a sensation replaces that emptiness, so which a momentary needs become heartfelt.
She stares at the clouds looming luscious in cotton-white. Then something catches her eyes down below ten kilometers ahead: a group of kids reeling in kites. Big flying papers upon the sky. Its flaps of variety, corners cut to gain more control over air. She continues looking. Sees a gathering juveniles of sort not too far from the kite-ridden fields, their hands holding cases after cases of brown bottles, where a weekend party has begun and will last until two in the next morning. They sit round a single table on plastic footstools on a single street as cars and motorcycles pass by and begin cheers as each men clink glass one by one.
The commotion floats down the road, where it ends on a flat, lavendish field. On it, a group of farmers are laughing. Their laughter spread across the patches of weeds and rice paddies and still-growing corn and tobacco. The fields are bordered from the kids and the party through one puny alley. In their hands, nothing of kite-making or alcohol, but the tools they traded with their lives for in hope of continuing the family-inherited farms. The farmers toss the crops and gears onto the back of two Hilux Champs. Four from the total six continue onwards sandals-footed back home, where she notices one of them a kid no older than ten, whose eyes, innocent and curious, gleam in the sunset like a peaceful lamb.
They come down at five o’clock timed evening. Kaela’s Ma shouts from the kitchen. “Dinner, sayang! We’ll go out for dinner now!”
She follows Kaela downstairs while gliding her right hand along the wall. Footsteps leaving prints on floorboards, that is a makeshift Serimpi dance, one she recalls on TV in another life, and disappears one second later until no more foot is bared. Outside the window, she glances a stage, the doorway becomes a portal towards another dimension: of conifers swaying on low wind, a distant noise of a dog barking before panting away, replaced by motor engines revved up by teens on bike races, and the sky, having turned orange, squeezes its juice called the drizzle of rain.
Back in the car ride, on a playing radio station FM 87.6, a group called The Lantis is singing about love in the language of traffic lights. Tapi ku berada di lampu merah— but I’m at a red light. She doesn’t understand much, but for a second she can relate to the beat as they’re stopped on a busy intersection. All the way, even until the light turns green.
The lights of the evening become a flood. A type of disaster unnatural and yet so harmless you’ll never guess it’s there. The lights come from bulbs hung down on poles to illuminate the streets and alleyways and roadsides, where cars and motorcycles headlights times the brightness by sixfold. On balconies, fire lamps are lit to keep away mosquitoes and pests. As the scent floats down the road, meeting another junction, it disperses into million flecks, to discover the mother source. Each swept alas, pulped, under rows of moving wheels. Then, darkness unveils itself from the ground, the asphalt darkening—the rain comes gently until the sky turns timid gray, devouring the sun.
And then they stop at another red light. Kronii feels her shoulder heavier: Kaela has leaned her head onto her, smiling, hair strands of blonde feeling her forearm—before a heave, a trust. And just before she knows it, the light turns green—and Time moves again.
I.
Kala
To be continued.