Mother is a foreigner. This she knows. There are women wearing sarang, there are women wearing headscarves, there are women wearing modern wear. Mother has worn each of these at different times, but in the moment Mother is not thinking of herself in the context of her clothes. She is a lone spirit traipsing her way to land from a distance. She follows the cakes of sand she makes with her steps—that is her path.
The island she thought she was coming home to is a distant city of another culture, and it is sinking. This is a city of over ten million people, one of the economic capitals of the world. This is a city that thrives in Mother’s world, but it is also crumbling with each of her steps. Mother sees the potholed and well-built roads, and the bemos honking along, and the Metro Minis waiting, and the nasi goreng stand serving to the visitor, and the Turkish restaurant serving to the locals, and the skyscrapers that were meant to shape the city’s skyline, and the pieces of tin and rubbish floating in the water.
What she is seeing is all of the city, alive for one second, and then completely submerged.
Mother thinks she sees the women of this city, but then she blinks and there are corpses floating in the water.
Mother sees the living and the dead all at once.
Where is Son?
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