Dari dulu, ia merasakan bahwa laut memanggilnya, dan ia ingin melahirkan di dalam rahim asinnya. Tentu saja ia takut bahwa anaknya akan menelan air yang tak sudi menjadi rasa yang pertama kali ditemui oleh lidah kecil itu. Tentu saja ia tahu bahwa dukun beranak terakhir di desa ini telah hilang ditelan keinginan untuk pergi dari pulau, maka proses kelahiran akan jauh lebih sulit. Emak sakit dan kakak-kakaknya merantau. Di manakah dia akan berdarah dan merasakan kepuasan itu...

I stir to the sound of the azan from the neighbourhood mosque. I usually sleep right through it but this morning it cuts through my dreams. I do the unhealthy thing of picking up my phone right off the bat.

The WhatsApp from Abah says: “I read your article. Good luck.”

Is he worried about how the Islamic authorities—the religious gestapo, as I see them—will react? Is he being ominous? Sarcastic? Playful? I curse the inscrutability...

There was a knocking on my window when there shouldn’t have been.

On a remote island in the middle of the Riau Archipelago, mornings usually arrived without interruption. There were no vagrants wandering the streets begging for alms, no vendors loudly hawking their snacks, no choirs offering to sing Christmas carols when the season had already passed...

The hunter paddles into the night, hook-blade spear close at hand. Panning his head from side to side, he casts his eyes across the water, looking out for the slightest of ripples. His ears, too, await a signal in the enveloping silence. But he detects no major sign of movement—not here, not yet. He navigates further into the darkness, tracing invisible feeding trails. He waits. Minutes roll into an hour, and then two. He moves to light a cigarette but suddenly stops, catching his own restlessness...