The Signs that were Something Else

[Following short story, mostly fictitious, has been published in The Jakarta Post, Sunday, July 01, 2007]

A package had arrived by post when Ungke returned from work that evening.

He reached for the package, which was almost the same size as a shoe box. He looked for the sender’s name: Yanti Suryanto Putri, Solo, Central Java.

A Friend’s Spirit of Living

I met him for the first time in a disability centre where he had been living for some period of time. Perhaps, he had been there longer than my time, until then, walking on this earth. I would soon start my Australian university and my English was in its early stage. It so happened that my dormitory was in the same establishment as he lived. From his age, he could be my father but that, along with our language barrier, did not prevent us from connecting to each other.

A Grandfather’s Legacy

One thing I am fond of remembering about my maternal grandfather is what he would do during my school examination period. It was the anticipated time when I, and all his grandchildren,

A Wife’s Devotion

All the grandchildren of my maternal grandmother call her ‘Mama’. I was not around to know the reason why we should call her that way.

A Father’s Defence

The last time I met my father was in 2001. It was our third meeting, if I could remember it correctly, since he left mother when I was just a boy of eight years. The previous two encounters, shortly after his departure, were brief and in secret, because I didn’t dare to incur mother’s wrath.

My sister, with her own initiative, finally located him after a long time of lost contact. She suggested that it’d be nice should I visit him too.