Water gurgles. Slosh, slosh. A heavy thud defines the work of a human to the alpine trees.

Rubbing, rubbing, scraping. The cloth rolled and squeezed; when opened, the dryness of the fabric was apparent in the set of wrinkles.

A thundering thump and a gentle breeze ends its treatment. Aeti took the last cloth into the clothesline near the bathroom and neatly presented it rightly at the western remaining spot. Then she returned to the bathroom, pouring greedy scoops of water onto her head.

It is long after the meal in the early morning, the house is occupied by two. Amar said that he wanted to drink and see his friend to collect news. But romance is the greatest desire, Akbi is prepared above all else to meet his lover, Amalia. It will be his twelve meeting in the thirtieth days of their relationship. He had been standing next to the untethered horse in the dirt road below the house, what he imagined in his mind made his teeth shine to the sky. Amar was in a hurry, and it is not because of Akbi, it is something else. He ate in precise serving, and left. Was that the reason why Aeti’s eyes wandered and speak so little word inertly?

Aeti finishes her morning bath and the bird’s song is heard for the first time, she enters the house without looking at him. Farid sat on the large wooden bench on the porch, silently watching his yard exposed to a larger and warmer sunlight, in front of him is an guava tree’s canopy, swayed by the mountain wind, reflecting glares around like expensive metals.

Ah, what a peaceful scenery. He looked at the beautiful wrap on his delicate upper arm, the color blended with his skin. What a strange feeling to like it after yesterday it suffocates like a chain. He raises his arm, the tails of the wrap flutter like a butterfly. A seal to protect your dignity. Aeti’s voice unburied from his head.

He scooted along the chair to the left to meet the window, looking inside to the door at the right, the door is slightly opened but it was complete silence. She must be sleeping. Amar, Akbi, and Aeti are absent. He is truly alone, and it excites him terribly.

It has been a long time since his last visit to his beloved place; it is all because of the first murder of the series of murders in the island. He was no longer allowed to go anywhere far without supervision. But where else could he see the view of his house, the ocean on the east and the west and the entire island in one place? He had turned an adult, he said to himself. Besides, there is no logic that could lure anyone to that place. The dear calls of the alpine’s breath made the seat itchy. He ought to go to the mountain high at the back of the house.

Farid went inside of the house, his eyes fixed to the right, peering at her mother by the opened space of the door. A dark shadow of seemingly a thigh is laid on the bed, she is sleeping. He tiptoed outside and closed the front door quietly. Three times he counted to ten if Akbi and Amar’s presence happened to appear, the road that perches the forest answered with emptiness. He walked by the northern facade, where a low stone-fenced ascending road bridged the low land main road and the animal farm. He shifted to the right, passing bamboo fences and small huts to the foot-sized grassy pavement of raised dirt. The divider of the plant farm and animal huts is a straight line from the south of the house into the entrance of the mountain. He sneaked to the back again, no one was watching him.

When he was finally covered by the bushes, he slowed his pace. Farid steps over the fallen leaves, resting his feet on the ground and leaving crunching sounds. Under the embrace of the forest, lights are moving along with the filter of the canopy, the faint songs of the birds now gracing above him.

He almost forgot his usual route of pathway because of the long period of being untouched. In an intersection, he mistakenly followed the road that was going nowhere which was formed by the rain. Luckily, it was short and he came back immediately.

There is nothing to doubt when the road of the soft leaved-ground turned into harsher, rocky stones. He is high enough that the cloud was overhang beneath his feet. He is almost at the top of the mountain.

Afar from the right hill, are lines of alpines the mountain’s hair, the architect of the city stood inside the forest on the mountain’s body down to the shore. Below him is his house above the endless sea, in its vastness it is merged to the sky.

He rested his feet in his beloved place. A very welcoming seat of a long flat rock. Behind him is his rain shelter, a small cave whose opening barely extends into the interior, formed by rocks that protrude outward to create a roof. At the cleft just below the roof is a perfectly built nest of a bird of his dear friend, Sidra. A bird with bright chirps and in the color of a young leaf. She is fond of singing. Everytime Farids arrived at the place, she would twirl around his head and sing at the sight of berries he collected on the way to the cave. She had one child before but was nested far high above the tree. Her acquaintance with the location, because of her meetings with him, laid in her the confidence to place her eggs there. The last time he went to the cave, she was still building her nest, and now she already has three fledglings with grey feathers. When he called his name, Sidra answered from above and suddenly swooped to him, her little feets attacking the air in front of his face. She is angry that he visited after a long time.

He unties the dried tendril knot he made on the Sarong at his right thigh. The small lumps reveal two pieces of ground berry. Sidra did not wait to ask, one berry quickly flew in the air and brought into the nest. Her children jumped at their mother’s arrival, welcoming her in cacophony. At the instant of quietness, she flew again to the fingertips of his open palm, stiffly dragging the remaining berry with her beak then carrying it with the brevity of falling.

Sadra is a good mother, She built the nest during a rainpour. The rain fell heavily with thunderstorms. Farid remembers that he had to refuge at the cave, and stood by the utmost interior wall. The curtain water from the roof bended inward by the push of the wind, he thought that he want to fainted or dying by the severe shivers but was too ashamed when Sidra did not stop taking the alpine’s hair to the stone’s cleavage, strand by strand. Pause for a moment, he consistently shouted at her but at his mockery of foolishness turned to curiosity by the look of her determined shining eyes; it is a strange and unworthy, yet a necessary appreciation once she finally halted and rested on the nest for her future children. He wished he could understand her.

He wonders if Sidra became human, would she do the same too? When her children’s needs are not just because of starvation, will she or Aeti be a better mother? But they are babies, he thought. Mothers always care about their babies. When one grows and left the other, the ‘mother and child’ dissolved into ‘peers’.

Farid looked at the wrapped on his arm, it is slightly heavier because of his profuse sweating. Those bones that are firm under a delicate, warm and ripe veils; lie before his eyes. He is an adult in shape. Then it is shameful to expect to be touched with utmost care like a child. If he was a bird, he ought to live on his own now. Yet, the prospect remains beyond his imagination. How would he get his food? His arms are just like what his father said, a ladylike. They are a shameful design that can not carry weights like ‘any man he ever met’. They are breathless and exhausted, they are nothing but dangling ornaments.

When he was a child he wished for the fallen stars to become a prince, brave and powerful. Once is awake, he closes his eyes for a long time, smiling at the imagination of a tall and intricate interiors around his bed, a guard in shining armor stood in the corner and a maid just right in the front of the opened door, bringing a large plate of just-cooked chicken meat in warm smoke next to banana and peeled oranges. He waited until he heard the first noise, anything of falling, clanging or human voice before opening his eyes. But it was at Aeti’s call for Akbi underneath, the imagination falls and twirls, like disruptions to a painting on the canvas of water. He cried and refused to open his eyes then slept in his stomach. He is awake with a weave-pattern of the bed painted on his right cheek, marking his face with reality.

When Akbi’s voice fell deep, he was getting stronger and scarier. And alike unburied a soul, Amar became different, so excessively joyful like seeing an old friend after years of painful separation. He suddenly becomes frenzy in schedules and always invites Akbi to join. There were many months that the house almost left with them two and slowly Akbi cultivated many skills at once. There, he thought that Akbi might have turned into a knight, and he is an unworthy companion. “You will be brighter, someday you will be the strongest of us” Aeti once comforted him. He waited, and waited for that moment. His voice deepens on his fifteenth of age, one year later compared to his brother. That morning, his childish tone vanished into the night, it plunged much deeper than what he expected and when he spoke, it sounded like an ape without a tongue. The shame is immeasurable, no matter whether the entire family cherishes or laughs each time he opens his mouth, but it was a humiliation. He felt not only loss of soul but also a seizure of innocence. But Amar despised Farid’s manner of isolation and unwillingness; he buried his joyful soul again in a week afterwards.

Within those two years, his frame had elongated, yet retained a certain spareness. When Aeti regarded him, her gaze conveyed, “My child, strength escapes you and I lament this circumstance.”

He leaned his back on the long stone, staring at the naked sky. “I wish I had a body like father or Akbi. Then I will go far away and build my own farm to live in peace. There is no noise that could instruct what I against. A fearless and honorable man, people would say. But what if I were a woman? Oh, what an easy thing to do! I will certainly be preserved by my family at home like they are gardening a pretty flower. They would not expect me to perform magical things or conquer the world. I would simply smile the entire day, sit in sweetness, reap someone’s heart, got married, and bear children.”

He looked at the sky again, the canopy swayed gracefully by the wind from the opposite hill, flying the weak attachment of the brown leaves. What if I was a tree? I can live for a long time, I can view the beautiful earth everyday. I just stand and grow, and it benefits everything, living things praised me everyday as I shelter them, the dead things bow me to become one”

Sidra sings from the cave, fluttering in the air and her feet grasped onto the branch above him. She twirls around in every stroke of a wind, and in stillness, she inspected the horizon inattentively, offering her head eclipsed the sun. She seemed to rest following her guest. If Sidra can speak, what would she say about me? Is she asking how I feel? Does she love her children or is she just performing a duty by the will of nature? Will she ever consider being a human if she can?

Farid turned his head down the westside, their house in clear view, perfectly sitting beneath the morning glow. At this time, Aeti should be at the garden in their small yard, then spend a lot of time on the same fence with the animals behind the house. Upon knowing that he was not at home, it is imminent for her voice to reach the mountain and reflected back to her.

“Farid! Akbi! Where are you!” She would scream, and most of the time they were just under the guava and banana trees, or at the barn, or simply in their room. “She is not even care to look, as long as they are out of her sight, though momentarily, she would committedly desiring the entire island to hear her scream” Amar once complained from afar after what she screamed only for the children to carry two buckets of water from the spring in their bathroom to the house. But Akbi never objects, particularly after his turning. “An excessiveness because of her wariness” explained Akbi, yet it can not shift the feeling of how her orderic command as nothing of being protection but annoyance.

He gave the last glance at the house, it is quiet. The woman is still sleeping,

As he closed his eyes, leaves from the breeze, falling upon him gracefully. The sun is steadily climbing to the top, it is not a scorching heat. As nature wrapped him, the sun was a blanketing warmth, isolating him from the coldness of the shadows. He felt ethereal, sacred alike a flower of sacrifice to the earth, yet he does it willingly. The frequent touches of wind that sweeps on his face surrenders his will. Steadily, he closes his eyes. It is not an uncommon picture, the light still shone, and he can see it perch through his eyelids, exposing a root on the red color of his flesh. He tries to cover his eyes and turn it back to black. However, the warmth on one side of his face is receding. He wants all the warmth, we want sunlight to engulf him entirely. His limbs finally return to each side of his figure. He is watching black orbs appear in his view, watching his breath slowly sink, watching his hand weakly drooped and kissing the stone.

The light of the sun shining mercilessly and his eyes are like a fish in cold water that is just starting to be heated to a boil. He opens his eyes, his head trembles, what he can see is only an ocean of lights which slowly sustain a figure. His head spun heavily upon his waking, so he rested on his back again. But the figure does not move, it even formed like a human, sitting on the edge of the stone right beside his feet, looking contemplatively to the sea.

“You have slept for a long time. The wind indeed is very seductive, but what a grave danger you are inviting by sleeping alone” The light figure seems to speak but the voice is coming from somewhere far off, but at the same time feel very close to the ear. His voice is clear, melodic and deep. The noise of the whirlwind, the sound of birds, chickens and goats all muted into a unison of silent, calm noise.

“If you are sleeping a lot in the day, you would have trouble sleeping at night” The voice spoke handsomely, then it chuckled. He wrinkled his eyelids .

“What an exhaustion, eh? live by pretensions, the name of a man feels so heavy and the name of being a child now is an insult.” the shine’s head looking at him. Who is he?, he thought.

“A friend of yours” the voice replied Farid’s thought.

He was startled then realized that his face, the raised neck and sleeping body are immovable. What happened to me… what do you want?

“I’ve come to you from the eternal sun, we will be together until you are ready to meet him” Who is this man? His body pleads to jump from the stone. The man then grabs his feet, the light from its body disbursed everywhere, blinds everything to white. A serious coldness travels his arms, melting his stone limps, he jerks his body and head to see the figure that holds his hand. The cheerful air suddenly returned, the sun hiding itself among the clouds, the dizzy silhouettes now merge and he could see the face of the person..

“Akbi” Farid chants with surprise.

“Mother is looking for you” Akbi complained, his pretty white shirt translucent because of sweats.

“We have agreed for you to not come here don’t we? You are sleeping here beside a cliff. What were you thinking? Some beast can devour you or if I did not hold your hand in your surprise, you can fall to your death”

He looked at the dark red clouds; he had slept from morning to afternoon.

“Did mother notice me?”

“Yes I can see you from the house you…foolish child. Mother thought you are sleeping in the house, it is lucky for me to find you first before mother sees you. Come, off we go and finding path with lush coverings so nobody could see”

“Thank you. Will you tell her?” he stood from the stone.

“I won’t, for this time. Next time, I will tell mother and father altogether”