Belongs In The Sea

To be competed in Creative Writing: Short Story Competition by Sasing UGM

Karya dibawah ini sebelumnya belum pernah dipublikasikan di media manapun, cetak maupun elektronik. Dan karya ini adalah hasil karya saya sendiri. 

Senja disposed of her bag full of textbooks down on the pavement road, releasing some weight from her stiffed shoulders. Her breath was heavy and her legs went all shaky after that long, stupid run from a bunch of gangsters she saw on the intersection. Senja knew that she would not have to turn around before they caught the glimpse of her back and ran for her life, when she got six knives secured in a pouch attached to her arms, hidden underneath her long-sleeved shirt. She would not have to fear anything when she knew best that at least, threats like this would come to haunt her eventually. Senja only had not gotten used to it, to be hunted.

After soothing the tempo of her heartbeat, she continued her journey to home. Her eyes caught a squad of birds, flying in V formation. White, great houses owned by the riches. Green, tall trees planted along the roadside. And her own two feet calmly treading the street. She reached the gate of her house when a postman was slowing his motorcycle to stop right in front of her.

The postman wore a full-faced helmet, black cotton jacket and a pair of dark gloves. Just like the other typical postman and courier, loaded on his motorcycle was two huge bags full of letters and packages. Each bag was hinged at the either side of the motorcycle. The postman then handed her an envelope without recipient name and address.

“Thank you, Sir,” Senja said with a wide smile painted on her face.

“Don’t be too excited. That one could be worse than before,” said the postman.

“I cannot help it, Sir. Have a good day,” replied Senja.

“Have a good day, Senja. You know I will always be with you. All of us will,” said the postman and he began to drive further.

Senja stared at the postman’s back until he was too far away to be sighted. The postman was no ordinary postman. He was an undercover navy man ordered to deliver those letters without recipient names and addresses. And all this time, Senja had received at least five letters containing very secretive orders she had to do. That afternoon, alone in her chamber, she was ready to open another one.

The eagerness built up along her each and every blood vessel as she started to unwrap the envelope. Inside of it, on a piece of paper was hand-written two depressing sentences: Follow the game. Destroy it all. Senja stared unbelievably at it like it was a joke. Two sentences. Making no sense. Following the game meant she had to cheat death. And cheating death was not a simple matter, not even the best war strategy could guarantee the player’s safety. And destroying it all meant the pile of important papers she’d been collecting for four years had to be destroyed. She was forced to give it up right before she climbed one more step to glory. Senja sighed heavily. She looked up to the ceiling and the memories of old days flooded her.

It was all started on a rainy day. Not a bad choice though, for going out in the rain to get some warm food. Senja rode her motorcycle out of her house and covering herself in a shabby, old raincoat. One of the perks of living around the campus area was there were so many affordable and delicious foods. She maneuvered the handlebar to turn right, going inside her campus roads. Oh yes, the campus roads were the shortcuts to the food street.

As she drove, her eyes caught a small gesture of a man standing unsteadily on the rooftop of an unfinished building. The man did not bring an umbrella with him and did not even wear industrial safety raincoat. He only stood there, on the edge of the rooftop. Senja stared at him, counting the floor. The rooftop was its 6^th floor. A wave of panic struck her. She stopped her motorcycle abruptly. He was determined to kill himself, jumping out of the building. Before she could manage a loud scream to ask for help, the man jumped and gravity did the rest.

Senja felt that her heart had skipped a beat. She did not even have the chance to cover her eyes as her intuition led her to take a look one more time to the rooftop. And at that moment, she saw what she should not see. Another man, wearing dark trench coat took a peek to the ground where the previous man lying unconsciously right before he escaped the scene.

Senja’s heart skipped another beat. She parked her motorcycle on the roadside and went running to the scene. A bunch of workers who previously sheltered from the heavy rain, now flooding the scene. A middle-aged worker stopped her from entering the scene.

“No, Miss. You get out of here, now. It’s dangerous!” shouted the worker, stretching out his arms to hold her still.

“I saw another man! He was killed! He was forced to jump!” shouted Senja back.

“We did not see another man here, Miss. Now go!” replied the man.

“I swear! Let me explain!”

“Maybe you could just explain to me, Miss,” said a husky voice behind her.

Senja turned around and met a tall, tanned skin man in his 20s wearing a short-sleeved office shirt. He dragged her out of the scene to another building beside it, completely covered from the crowd. She let out a fight, kicking his shinbone. The man counterattacked, hiding his pain from the kicking. After a short while, Senja lost her fight and pinned to the wall. “Calm down, Miss! I am not going to hurt you,”

“Who are you?” gasped Senja.

“I will explain to you right now, but promise me. Hear me out,” replied him. He gradually loosened his grip around her neck.

“Alright. Now get off me,” said Senja.

They both gasped for breath. Slowly, Senja reached under her arms and let out two small knives. The scenes after it came in a flash. They were dueling one more time and Senja won the battle. A knife on her left arm stuck in the man’s right shoulder and another knife on her right rested intimidatingly on the man’s neck, forced him to surrender.

“You’re the man wearing the trench coat. You were up there on the rooftop. You saw him jumping out of the building,” said Senja.

“How do you know?” gasped the man as the wound on his shoulder started to deliver pain all over his body.

“Your hand’s full of wrinkles and the lower part of your pants is drenched like you’ve been out in the rain for a long time. But you only had few drops on your shirt and the upper part of your pants. Where did you throw out your trench coat, Mister?”

The man stunned. She is unbelievable, thought the man. “Look…look at it,” the man coughed as he showed Senja a badge attached to his wallet. “I do not know whether you know about this badge or not, but it shows you that I am a navy. I am conducting a secret mission right now. The man who jumped…he was our last source. He was drugged and ensured that he had to end his own life by the enemy. I came a bit too late. I cannot tell you the detailed mission. It’s secret.”

Senja read the name. “Brian?”

“That’s me. And yours?”

“Senja,” replied her. She released him and pulled out her knives. “I am sorry for the misunderstanding.”

“To be honest, I was ordered to silence anyone witnessing me and that man. But you’re amazing. You silenced me. And I am left with no choice aside from telling you the truth.”

“I am not sure how to react to that. Be careful, warrior. Especially when you’re going undercover. I am sorry I am no nurse and I don’t have any idea how to stop the bleeding. You have to go now. I will keep silent, I promise you that,” said Senja with a smile.

Brian nodded. “Goodbye, Senja.”

“Til we meet again,” replied Senja.

Senja was back to her senses, still staring her bedroom ceiling. After that day, Brian’s superior came to pay her a visit and deliver an invitation to join the navy. Not as a soldier, but as a freelance spy. She just started her college back then and she was promised to join the navy as an officer right after she had graduated. She had finished the previous five secret tasks with flying colors. But now, when she’s all about waiting for her official invitation, this letter came instead.

First, she had to follow the game and cheat death, since the game was always about eliminating her and other civil spies. She had several plans to get away from death. She had graduated – unofficially – and she had nothing to lose. Her mom and dad were had been separated since she was small. She did not have any responsibilities to look after her siblings. They’ve married and had their own small family. They’ve simply settled.

Now, about destroying it all. It was practically her fruit of her hard work and she would never let go of it. The order was odd. Suddenly, the truth hit her like a storm. Senja read the orders carefully once again. Two sentences, two orders. One and another. One or another. That’s it!

Senja reached her precious pile of paper hidden in the attic. She had to hide it somewhere else. Not in her house, not in any house. Somewhere which keeps moving, to buy her time to find it later. If she would ever have later.

The postman came the next day, delivering the letter without recipient name and address. His sad look patented on his face as he handed it to Senja. “Here you are,”

“Don’t be so sad while I am so excited about this, Sir,” smiled Senja. “Look. I have a letter for you. Open it and destroy it immediately after you memorized it all. Got it?”

“What is it?” asked the postman.

“My plan B,” replied Senja and she sent the postman home.

Three days later, Senja boarded the ship. Everything was already planned in the letter. She would go surfing with her surfing community friends – which was all fictional – to Pangandaran Beach and she would drown herself due to unanticipated huge wave. Meanwhile, the true Senja would be on a navy ship sailing from Surabaya to Balikpapan. Right after she got off the ship, she would be eliminated. The elimination was a show, of course. She was even equipped with bulletproof vests and a bag of artificial blood. After all this process had been done, she would lose her identity and be reborn as a new girl.

But Senja would not do that. She had a feeling her elimination would not be just a show. It would be a real elimination and she would truly come home as a corpse. Her plan was to not let go of her name and continue being the guardian of her papers.

For the first time, she would disobey her superior’s order. For the first time, she would choose more dangerous roads and a longer war. She was the only one who had the right to decide her fate. Not the gun, not the fake bulletproof vest, not even her superior. She would jump out of the ship tonight. And if the luck was siding with her, she would be safe to lead another life. Otherwise, the other gifted people would finish what she started.

Her tears broke out for the first time in her cabin. The cabin which would no longer have an owner. Senja thought about Brian, her mom and dad, her siblings and all her loved ones. Thinking about death makes it hard not to think about what would she left behind.

It was finally 1 AM. Senja strengthened her back and quietly left the room. She opened the watertight door separating the accommodation deck and weather deck. No one saw her leaving. That night, the full moon broke the march of grey clouds. The weather was nice and the wind was strong. Senja took a deep breath as she stepped forward to climb the bulwark. At that moment, the only thing separating her and the sea was just her will to release her shaky hands from the bulwark.

“I will never surrender,” she said as her last tears dripped from her eyes and joined the massive amount of water beneath her feet. One step later, she felt the cold air stroking her face as she let herself jumping out of the ship and splashing onto the surface of the ocean. She steadied her heart as she went deeper, ensuring herself that this was the only right thing to do, to be dead. At that moment, Senja finally understood, that she always belonged in the sea.

Two years later.

“Can you actually believe it that we are assigned to do this kind of job? To track down a myth?” said Maha, clenching his fist and looking all depressed. He scanned a foolscap paper containing a woman’s biodata. Name: Senja Aria Jayapuspita. Age: 21. Alma mater: Department of Marine Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Surabaya. Status: dead - accident. And so on. “Nothing special about this woman, though. She led extremely ordinary life, you know. Even her death. After all my experiences working in this field, she is the most ordinary person whose information I’ve ever found on our database,”

“We can do it, Himawan. I know we can,” replied Daru.

“Dude, you could be in detention if they hear what you just call me. Call me Maha, dude. Himawan is dead. So is Rudi, your old name,” said Maha nonchalantly. They both worked for National Intelligence Service which meant they had to forget all their memories from past lives: their old name, old self and in some extreme cases, their parents.

“I only want you to be sure, that we can finish this assignment. We can do it together. Because I think I know where to start,” replied Daru, half-determined.

There was a very brief silence before Maha broke it off by sighing question under his breath, “How?”

“How did she die, you said?” asked Daru with increasing interest detected in his voice.

“Accident. Surfing. Gosh, she really loved the ocean,” replied Maha. “The scent of the ocean is so strong on this single paper, dude. Senja, Marine Engineering, Surfing. What is she? A mermaid? Are we really supposed to track down a mythical creature? A mermaid who studied engineering?”

A weak wave of laugh transmitted between them.

“Well, you figured out something important, Maha. She did love the ocean so much she was willing to die in it,” replied Daru as he stared blankly at the window, thinking so hard.

“What the hell… Dude, I need you to stay focus for this mission to be succeeded. Do not let your hidden talent of imagining things and write it down as fiction novel lead us on. We need to start searching based on the facts,” said Maha, patting his comrade’s shoulder.

“You know what, dude, at least there is one percent truth in fiction. And we’re going to grab that little one percent and squeeze it all out. There is still a possibility that Senja is alive somewhere out there, waiting her chance to be found. We have to start immediately,” Daru is now fully determined.

“How do we start then?” asked Maha, his heart start pounding excitedly.

“By asking my uncle,” replied Daru, turned his face to meet his comrade’s eyes.

“Umm. I am sorry, but is…is your uncle a reliable source? He is in an asylum,” asked Maha, puzzled.

“Oh yes, he is. He was a postman,” smirked Daru.