A Girl in Train Station

Wikan had arrived quite early at the station, despite his train to Bandung not departing until seven thirty. It was the holiday season, and most people travelling to and from Yogyakarta had booked their ticket at least six or seven days in advance. Not having planned his trip, (it was a last minute decision the boss employed to show his power) Wikan had therefore been left with the unenviable task of managing his ticket purchase from one of the many scalpers, who plied the main hall of Tugu station.

After the feverish bartering for tickets, Wikan successfully defeated his ticket rivals and entered the platform at 6.10am, holding his “double priced” ticket with a woman’s name on it. He grabbed a local newspaper, looked for a chair in the waiting lounge, but then, unexpectedly, his attention was instantly captured by the girl, whom he recognised immediately. Her complexion, dark and divinely beautiful, distinguished her as a single, luminous black pearl amongst the bustling crowd of the pale morning light. She had tied her curly hair with an ochre band, but much of it had escaped and now impulsively framed her face.

The Couple

==== I've just found this old short story I wrote back in 2000, this one is a repost from The Jakarta Post, 1 Jan 2001 ===

"I'm tired." The woman drinks her orange juice slowly. Her voice has no intonation. Her face does not reflect any particular emotion. In every sense she looks like a stone sculpture. Even the man sitting in front of her has difficulty in knowing whether she is breathing or not.

"It's all over. That's all." She was not furious, but the man felt burnt by her words. The smoke that was getting into his eyes was more than the smoke from his cigarette. Unfortunately, he dared not guess what was causing his vision to become clouded. Because,

Trifling Matters

==== ==== ====(FB Version) Notes: Aku unggah ini untuk Hendri, the only real person I use for character in this short story, a person who "disappear" some eleven years ago and his "lost" had inspired me to write this during the chaotic days of 98'.
Geez, I wrote fiction. Any similarity to the characters, events, and places was a mere accidental and you could read this at your own risk. EF 2009)==== ==== ====

My blood stopped flowing for seconds when the lightening sparked and I saw silhouette of a man peeping through the stained glass wall of the foyer. He moved to the door and after the thunder ceased, I could hear him knocking.

I hurried to open the door. Fumbling with the novel I had been reading, I struggled to hold the door open in the wind, “Yes?”

“Is this Mmmm... Mot... Mo,” he groped around his pockets, took a wet note outside, tried to read blurred words, “…Mo ... Momit’s home?”