Once upon a Rainy Day

Creative Writing: Assignment 3A - How to be an Explorer of Your World

We are to compare Malioboro Street in, it turned out, 1920 and in the present. Working in groups, we produce one manuscript that was to serve as the draft for our individual blog posts. Our blog posts are to contain our own personal touch, creativity, and all.

Here, I list first the original manuscript, and my own version is after it.

As always, comments, good or bad, from anyone are invited and welcomed. Enjoy your reading!

A Grayscale Picture of Malioboro

                The past will not be forgotten. The atmosphere was calm and gentle. Every side of the town, you could feel the nature mixing with the town folks. The wind breezed from the tree like the tranquility of this city. That was the time when Malioboro was still an “untouched place”.

                There were no tall buildings by the road; there were only trees and many spaces for pedestrians to walk on. It seemed as if they were not afraid to walk around, because there were not many vehicles back then. It is so different with the “current” condition where just with one wrong step and a car might hit you, and you will end up in hospital or, even worse, graveyard. Or maybe you might get the second choice, not get hit by a car, but have your leisure pastime of walking around ravaged by the hawking of the vendors. You can call yourself lucky if you could get home with your wallet intact in your pocket.

And here's my version . . .

Malioboro: Then and Now

. . . And Much More

“We’re going to Fuk Ling Miau Shrine,” the coarse, aged voice spoke.

“Ho! Go get a pedicab,” Xiaoyu told me, handing me an umbrella. She raised hers covering this old man, who was a quite taller than she was, though as thin.

“No, no. We walk. Sitting all night; too tired wo, legs need stretched,” he protested, placing one careful step after another down the narrow stairway.

“But the rain is picking up, Granduncle,” her gripe was hushed with a grunt.

“Oei,” that’s how Granduncle always called me; he did not seem to remember or even to have known my name. “Buy Kekou-kele!”

“Buy what?”

“Coca-cola, la!” Xiaoyu giggled.

“It’s expensive here, Granduncle.”

Another grunt.

The queue line had got longer by then, though it was yet 9 a.m. The smiling clown stared at the queuing customers, who were hardly smiling. They looked rather confused, but some of the few children were hopping lightly, with smiling faces, like that of the clown. They knew what they’d have: Happy Meal.

The coke spilled out a little when I tripped over the “Caution: Wet Floor”. Not only was it wetter now, but also dirtier. It was a pretty sad sequence: I tripped over, knowing I might spill out the drink, so I tightened my grip on the cup. Unfortunately, the cup was made of Styrofoam, which would give way when clutched. My gripping it let out even more liquid out. What I did trying to keep the drink in did exactly the opposite.

“Oei, you eat this. Too cold for me,” Granduncle passed me his ice cream cone, only half the cream eaten. Eww. Xiaoyu didn’t eat the bottom part of her cone, as she used to.

“Come, give me that,” she took it from Granduncle’s hand, as if she could read my mind.

“Your great-grandfather told me stories of his life here on this road,” with this, and his overpriced Kekou-kele, Granduncle began his story that was, inferring from his deep gaze on to Malioboro Street, priceless.

“He once crying aloud to his parents because been scolded by one horse-carriage driver. Said he he surprise the horse the horse pranced around, almost turn around carriage. The ang-moh (Westerner) passengers got angry and . . .”

His voice recounted an old story longing for resurrection to life, longing for rehearsal but falling onto no ears interested or caring enough. However, just like children find their ways to dreams from bedtime stories told by their parents, I could see the past, grayscale world began to conjure up beyond the glass windows. I leapt out of the window into that world, the old Malioboro, faintly colored with tints of life here and there by each word that Granduncle gave breath to.

A boy, not more than 10 year-old, was running along the street after some of his friends, one morning, overtaking people who were walking sluggishly.

“Keep up!” he shouted to his other friends behind him, slightly blinded by the new sun. By then, buildings had not yet been too tall as if to delay the morning. Even the mountain, Mount Merapi, did not do so. It was to the north of the town. Or was it? The mountain was unseen this morning. But it was there, because the Sultan’s Palace had also to be there, to the south, not vaguely there, although it was only vaguely visible beyond the mists.

The boy could hear his panting getting heavier, despite the surrounding chattering. The sidewalk were crowded mostly by native Javanese and Chinese, while strange Dutch murmuring was heard from the street, behind the tapping of carriage-horse hoofs.

I am here! he thought to himself. He still had some energy left to wonder at what that boaster of a friend had to show off, and happiness out of excitement, not of Happy Meal.

“From now on, I would be a proud citizen on Malioboro Street! I’m not going to walk, like you!”

True enough, the boy thought, the bicycle was gleaming on its every inch. It could be like someone riding rays of light, instead of a bicycle.

“But can you ride it? It's so tall,” the boy woke up from his brief reverie.

“Of course, you shortie! Look at me!” the bulky boaster gracefully rose from a pedal stroke to sit on the seat and strode off to Malioboro Street.

“Can I borrow it later?!” one boy screamed, envious, anxious of being a proud citizen.

A car honked on a cyclist. The cyclist abruptly stopped, staring at the car that soon enough had gone out of my sight. The cyclist was soaked pretty bad. I could not quite tell whether it was from the rain, his sweating, or the splashing of cars on him. Maybe all of the above?

“See, can no do that now, eh?” Granduncle interrupted his story. “Now can do with cars, not bikes.”

Xiaoyu was nonchalantly staring at the upset cyclist, as if it were an everyday happening. Well, it was an everyday happening, and a luckier one, too. It could’ve resulted in deaths, right? The traffic was one level too crazy here, on this street, and in this city in general.

When in middle school, I had myself honked on by a certain car. I did pretty much what the cyclist did: suddenly stopping aside and staring at it, as though it would make the driver got out apologizing for the startling inconvenience. I had thought back then that roads were constructed by people on foot, not by cars. How could car drivers be so arrogant as to bark their ways through crowds of pedestrians?

They pay the road tax! You’ve got a point there. A very capitalist one.

That boaster was trying to get up. His bike was on him. Even as early as the late 1920s, honking had become a trend. The car beside him was honking on him so that he would hurry getting out of the way. High-pitched Chinese was heard among the rather slow Javanese from the crowd watching the accident. Some of those natives were in western clothing: short-sleeved shirt tucked into tight trousers or collared shirt tucked into knee-length skirt belted on the waist, to where their braided hair hung about. Some others wore traditional batik clothing, brownishly dark as if it were colored directly from trees that lined up the western side of the street. The noise, however, was kept low the breeze was as audible as the murmuring.

Many were watching for some time before continuing on, as if it were an everyday happening. It was not, I would guess, those days. Even birds perching on the electric lines observed it.

Apparently, that boaster had proudly, and carelessly, rushed his way north against the traffic mostly going south. He told Great-grandfather he had zigzagged through the horse-carriages, cars, and other bicycles, but got unlucky on that one particular car.

“You want to borrow my bicycle or not? I could have done it myself had I not hurt my knees! Go!” his eyes reddening above his spoiled chubby cheeks, the dude was threatening Great-grandfather, then years younger than him.

So, Great-grandfather raced further south, scanning for that ‘ugly dark-green car’, which was how the fat boaster scorned it. There were still not-too-many cars then.

The cars were all ugly! thought this boy Great-grandfather, and slow, too! But not all was dark-green. Most of them were black. I had heard before that black was preferred because it was cheaper to paint and quicker to dry.

The kid was cutting through the street, which also served as the imaginary north-south axis of the city, connecting Parangtritis Beach to the very south, the Sultan’s Palace in the center, and the glooming Mount Merapi. The Palace itself faced the east, impressing the Sultan coming from the west, where Vishnu, the Hindu creator god, reigned. He found the ‘ugly dark-green car’ and got set for his friend’s revenge.

Bang! Bang! The rear window of the car cracked. The driver was startled, and even more so the horse behind the car was. It was prancing about, neighing in all its surprise, almost turning around the carriage. The carriage had been so unstable it were momentarily standing only on one wheel. The lady passenger was howling, while the man had his gentlemanliness slipped away from his ridiculous look due to the ambush.

“Later . . . broken . . . stupid!” the boy could only understand those three Javanese words from the angry carriage driver. He spared no idle moment running away from the mad driver.

“You . . . pay . . .!” another unintelligible Javanese line from the Javanese car driver. But this time, he knew that line was on his heels. He rushed all his body away, including his tears. He began to sob among his panting, out of fear, out of regret, out of sadness of his parents’ only child creating such trouble.

“To here he run. Then it one floor only,” Granduncle continued, pointing out to the stories-high Beringharjo market. We had been out of the fast-food restaurant and walking our way south, to the shrine. I was daydreaming about one boy, who would later be one of my ancestors, running on this pavement. His tears fell to the ground, among his sweats.

It used to be known as Pasar Gedhe, opened just in 1926. Granduncle told us that his grandparents had pawned their jewelry, all made of gold, to buy a spot there. They traded gold. To there his father ran, to his parents.

I was agonized to think that this sunrise-blocking building was not this tall, back then. Had the other buildings been much shorter also? Had there no tall buildings along the street decades ago? How had it looked, the street? If the western side of the street was all buildings and alleys, lined with yet more buildings, now, how had it felt when it was all trees on their grounds?

“You still have my baggage, no?”

It dawned on me it was not in my right hand. Mini heart-attack! I had forgotten it was in my left hand. The mini heart-attack got me remember this.

Well, things were surely different, back then, when Great-grandfather, and all the people, could still dash his way through this sidewalk, relatively safely. Now? We had been having hard times pushing our way through the crowd. It was as if the heat, unappeased by the light rain, were not annoying enough without the street vendors hawking their goods. Most of them were pretty useless. Penis replicas were among them, carved in such details they might disturb you to nightmares. I hated it when I noticed Xiaoyu glanced at one, accidentally, I hoped.

“And your wallet, Granduncle?” Xiaoyu asked.

“Bring none, o!”

At least it wouldn’t get stolen here, on this street. Of course! How could they steal something that did not even exist?! Granduncle was pretty lucky, I fancied, needing not to worry about such pick-pocketing, which had been an everyday happening here.

Older Sister, having done praying, came out of Fuk Ling Miau Shrine, southeast of Malioboro Street. She told me Granduncle was saying prayers more than usual because he wanted to let the gods know that he was in a different city now, ensuring their protection and blessings for him.

“Sis, isn’t it funny to listen to old people talking about their parents? ‘Ve always been imagining aged people will lose their connection with their ancestors at some point and care only for their youngsters.”

“Some things don’t change, you know? Some things stay the same. They last forever.”

“This shrine no change since I first here,” Granduncle joined in. “This, and much more.”

“Granduncle, did Great-grandpa manage to borrow the bicycle?”