Indonesia—Hantu Air [Indian Ocean tsunami, 2004]
There was no one Indonesia could blame but himself!
Didn't he remember when he was small and the Hantu Air and the likes of it scared him to death, so much that he made all these ceremonies to appease them with chants and offerings? He was willing to offer them his best catches, so that it left him alone.
Well? When did he stop doing those? When did he get himself so confident of himself? Did he think that he could handle the Hantu Air in a mano a mano fight?
Or did he stop believing in anything he couldn't touch or see?
Sure. Who believed in spirits in the 21st century? Only the managers of tourist traps and charm sellers talk about the Hantu and tell all these indifferent people to beware. Indonesia, like Malaysia, like Thailand, like everyone, grew up and became practical with the centuries. Science developed and gave proof that monsters do not exist. There was no reason to keep on wasting time and resources appealing to creatures which only lived in his imagination. They were only good for telling children to go to bed...
But the Hantu Air still existed! It existed and didn't take it well that it was forgotten!
Where were the offerings, the sacrifices, the prayers? It was expecting them and Indonesia didn't deliver. The Hantu Air waited for him to give it what was its and Indonesia never minded, so immersed in mobiles phones, computers, shopping, international markets!
So why was he surprised that the Hantu Air was offended and attacked? Did he forget that the sea belonged to it? That it took what it wanted whenever it wanted?
Sumatra first trembled, tearing some precarious houses down. This was a very strong one but it couldn't be said that Indonesia wasn't prepared for these kind of eventualities: these sort of things happened quite often, more than he desired...But then he heard the distant echo of screams, right when he was starting to believe it would be another Sunday after all, with just a few hours of cleaning the mess up...A tremor, which he mistook for an aftershock, or his own ears ringing...And he saw the palm trees falling, on the way towards the market he was in, that morning when he left his house to buy a late Christmas present for a friend..., seconds before the gigantic wave swept it all, him, the tourists, the locals, and everyone and everything around; and he saw nothing and breathed nothing except dirty water!
Indonesia sure had forgotten that there were things in the world which couldn't be controlled with algorithms, and calculations and machines, but he wouldn't forget! The Hantu Air would make sure neither him nor everyone forgot what their place was in the order of the cosmos!