Quieter than the rustling of rice leaves

In a lifetime that is not yet very long, what he seeks is tranquility. However, he fully understands that cooked rice cannot simply revert to being paddy in the fields. The restlessness that drives him to the arena on a day when the sun scorches cannot be resolved merely by aimless wandering. He is already here. Standing on an oration truck, gripping a megaphone with a nervousness that shakes his own hands after being unable to sleep until three in the morning.

All the turmoil that caused him to close the script far earlier than necessary, then he got up from the table to bid farewell to the director. His hurried steps were accompanied by a pat on the shoulder, a sign of all blessings and prayers. All pairs of eyes watched with an uncertain heartbeat, except for those of Raga, the manager who had been faithfully by his side for more than a decade.

"With all humility, I am here only as an ordinary citizen sharing the same anxiety. The anxiety of a citizen whose heart is torn seeing ancestral land being violated to the point of losing its sanctity!" Elang's loud voice pierced through the expanse of the human wave. The owners of hearts who are equally scraping the remnants of hope towards their representatives in Senayan.

The man flapped his wings on a day when his daughter was not truly ready. However, who can be completely prepared when faced with a fracture? Not for Khayrra until her phone screen lit up, displaying a recording that had circulated everywhere, and Elang, her partner, stood in the ranks of the mass demonstration.

"This country is not inherited by a handful of elites who are power-hungry and resource-driven without regard for the future. This country belongs to all of us who are willing to manage it wisely."

Khayrra's breath hitched. There was annoyance and regret that filled the heart of the woman with eyes as warm as coffee beans. Annoyed because Elang only told her that his agenda that day was to read the script with the director in a production house office. Regret because she found out through the media after hundreds of accounts marked her man's appearance at the DPR RI building. Regret because she was not the first to send prayers for Elang to be okay. Safe in the world and the hereafter even though he had just done something reckless.

May God protect you from all dangers

Summarizing all the words, I am proud.

Always and always

In the end, affection prompted Khayrra to send a message first. Despite a bitter gulp, she quickly stepped towards the camera's spotlight for a renowned magazine, alongside Elang, who jumped from the truck that was leading the demonstration.

The mobile phone of the man with hair resembling a bunch of areca palm flowers rang loudly. Shortly after he stepped away from the crowd that was shouting about how chaotic the state of the nation has been in recent days. From an unknown number.

"Go home, son. Take over the helm. Save the rice pot of a thousand people who don't live for themselves."

The voice of his father. The man who has long been presumed dead by Elang, even at every opportunity during interviews in the promotional sessions of the films he starred in, or when fans attempted to delve deeper into his personal life than necessary. Elang maintained distance through a perfectly crafted excuse. At least until now. Until the day his heart was fiercely debating between vengeance and humanity. Until Raga approached him with news that Elang wished to deny, that he was the son of a king without a crown. He who chose to depart from the throne. Living as an ordinary person until the news cameras captured his face in the crowd on the day his father was taken by the Corruption Eradication Commission.

Since the face of the former high-ranking official, who now occupies a director's seat, graced the television screen, Elang chose to step back from all news coverage. He attempted to remain deaf to all accusations directed at him, from the disappointment of those who felt deceived. In fact, he had no intention other than to seek a glimmer of solace from the arid separation that had hurt him even before he was weaned from his mother's milk.

He was not interested in meeting anyone at all. Neither Raga, his manager, nor Khayrra, his girlfriend. Until his steps led him home to a house with a single broad-leaved ketapang tree. A place where his mother awaited him with the warmest embrace when life had only left him with a fragment of courage that was hardly significant within Elang.

My child's Guring is Guring

Guring in the cradle

Uma is unemployed

His eyes were drenched in papajam

Bapajam janak empty baisukan

 Far from the sea, far from fear

Kuitan damia manggaduh pian

The Saurangan bean sprouts are washed away by the rain

When you are walking along the road

My child's Guring is Guring

My son nang baiman wan parajakian

Allah Ta'ala forgive me

Ka Sidin, be patient and finish

The closed eyes resting on the lap suddenly felt warm. His mother softly sang the lullaby in the Banjar Hulu language from the land of Elang's birth. He blinked with moist retinas, gazing at his mother who lovingly stroked his dark, glossy hair. Her gray eyes, filled with acceptance, smiled amidst the lingering drizzle.

“Ma’am,” he called in a hoarse voice.

His mother just mumbled, still faithfully rubbing the head of the boy who had been lying in her lap since this afternoon.

"Why did you accept when Elang asked you to spend your life following your father's way of praying?"

A perfect smile blooms from a pair of lips painted pink. Truly, the section of the face that Elang gazes upon from chin to forehead is beautiful.

"Because Mother had suspected that one day that day would come."

"It means?" A pair of eyes waited with a questioning gaze.

"You were conceived and born while Mother was still praying in the same way as Father. Your first cry was accompanied by Father with the most beautiful call to prayer that Mother had ever heard, even though it was proclaimed with a trembling voice. If nine years ago you were still praying in Mother's way, it was solely because that was all Mother knew to teach you."

When you then choose your own way—similar to Father—there is no reason for Mother to refuse. Because, the best of humanity is not about the way one prays, but the lines of prayer that should contain love for everyone. Both Mother's and Father's ways teach you love, do they not?

"If it's the same, why did Mom and Dad decide to take different paths?" he asked, as if dissatisfied.

However, a mother, as is the case everywhere, is an open field that selflessly accommodates rainwater even though, as land, it must be submerged. Elang's mother is no exception.

"Because there has never been a master oarsman capable of making two boats row together. Mother chose to drift ashore before sinking in the current of betrayal."

The noose seemed to tighten around Elang's neck. The air suddenly felt constricted. It pressed against his chest. He knew that the man had built a family that did not include him or his mother. However, Elang never knew that betrayal accompanied the reason his mother carried him away from the wooden stilt house by the river 32 years ago.

"On the evening before you were taken away as a defendant, you managed to call Elang, asking to come home. If Elang does not want to return for someone who has committed that betrayal, is it not a fault?"

Her mother nodded. "It is indeed not your fault, and you did not return for that reason. Your father has settled his guilt on his own. No one inherits his blood and flesh except you. Return, not to defend anyone. Instead, to repay the debt of the heart to the ancestral land that he cleared, to the trembling cries of mothers whose babies cough from inhaling dust, and to the bones that cannot be visited because their graves have been replaced by the boundary markers of your father's company."

"Lang," whispered his mother. ”Sjaifroeddin Ocean Arena.”

For a moment, everything felt quieter than the rustling of the rice leaves. There was nothing Elang could hear except the sound of his own breath and his mother calling him by the childhood name he had long discarded, wishing not to remember it again. Although it was clear that he could not, for fate was not in his hands.

The dim morning was accompanied by sheets of newspapers spread out on the glass table. A cup of coffee had cooled without a significant sip. Khayrra sat facing it. Her slender fingers repeatedly spelled out each headline that had caused a stir across various media. Her gaze was vacant on a photo of a man sitting cross-legged on a tarp spread beneath the shady branches of Gandaria. The photo was accompanied by various scornful remarks regarding inheritance, disputes, betrayal, power, and a double name that had been carried for more than a decade.

Everyone is talking, some are passing judgment, and very few are behaving normally. Khayrra is trying to be one of the few. She stands guard on the night before Elang flies back to his childhood nest following a business deed that names her as the new president director, replacing her father who is facing a state trial.

"The sins of my past and my family's are too extensive, Khay. One day, it may demand more loudly than it does now. I doubt I can provide you with peace in life."

"Which human is without sin in this wilderness of life? Even a prophet who is most beloved by God," Khayrra said. A tremor accompanied the quiver of her lips. "Especially us who live too close to the end of times. Therefore, God entrusts us with prayers to seek forgiveness for past and future sins, for sins that you declare and conceal, even for sins that God knows more about than we do ourselves. Solely so that we may understand, God's love surpasses His anger."

Miranda Seftiana, was born in Hulu Sungai Selatan. Completed her education in Psychology at the Faculty of Medicine, Unlam. Her works entitled Jendela Seribu Sungai and Semusim Setelah Kemarau have been adapted into films that will air in 2023 and 2025. Another work entitled Lalu Tenggelam di Ujung Matamu (2019) was selected in a novella competition. Miranda's short stories were also included in the book Kumpulan Cerpen Pilihan Kompas 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2023. Miranda was also selected as an emerging writers for the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival (UWRF) in 2024.

RB Ali, Lampung-born artist. Self-taught in painting. He has held dozens of group exhibitions and at least eight solo exhibitions since 2012.