The Light between The Shadows

Light Between the Shadows

The stench was overwhelming on a hot Friday afternoon. The landfill had formed mountains of colorful trash. The heat dried up most of what’s on the surface, but damp and slimy liquid puddled up under the canopy of garbage here and there. Flies were buzzing around like it was their ultimate playground. Mosquitoes roamed around their claimed mazes where they nest their eggs, and God knows what other creatures might find these mountains of garbage as their home.

Many young little hands held a makeshift stick digging here and there. They made the stick of a three feet long bamboo or a tree branch with a long-big nail tied to one end or shaped into a hook. They designed the stick to easily pick up plastic bottles, plastic bags, plastic containers, or any other items from the piles of garbage or off the ground. Their young age seemed to dissolve into their sweaty, mucky self. Some of them picked out garbage alongside adults, a lot of them just searched and picked alone with a big bamboo basket on their back or just a big sack sling across their little body.

Ayu sat next to her brother and pulled him closer to her.

It was Friday. The most awaited day for many of them. Their favorite garbage truck should come in soon. The blue truck with a big picture of earth painted on each side. The garbage truck was the one that picked up the trash from Metro Regency Residence, the fancy neighborhood.

She had many good findings from that truck most of the time. Last week she got a big pizza box with some pizza still in it. About a week after that she found the flip-flop that her brother wore right now. More often than not, she found fancy colorful plastic bottles and containers, big and small, toys that still looked new and it baffled her every time as to why they’re in the pile of garbage. One time, she even found an old broken piggy bank with a few coins still stuck in it.

The flip-flop was at least three sizes too big, but it’s still better than going bare feet around the many sharp objects in the landfill. Her favorite finding in the landfill was a hooded towel, a thing she had never known before, and she wore it to keep her warm at night. She also found a big umbrella with a broken handle. That umbrella was now the roof for their cardboard box hut.

She looked at her little brother’s pale lips. Some little red bumps on his legs and more on his arms. She saw the little plastic rope that she used to hold Adi’s flip-flop had come loose.

“Let me fix that. Stop dragging your feet when you walk,” she advised her bother as she fixed the string.

“They are too big, Ayu. My feet always come out of the flip-flop. I must drag them.” Adi pointed to the space left between his heel and the edge of the flip-flop.

“You’ll grow into it, but maybe later I can try to cut them a little, so they won’t be too big for you. Just wear these for now to protect your feet from nails and shattered glass on the ground. Your last wound still hasn’t healed properly.” Ayu wrapped her arm around Adi’s shoulder and gently patted his knee with her other hand.

Ayu ran her fingers through her tangled hair. She could feel sweat beads slowly rolling down her scalp. She realized her tummy was rumbling. She heard her brother’s tummy rumbling through his skinny little body. Ayu held him tighter.

“I’m hungry and thirsty, Ayu,” Adi looked up, waiting for a suitable response.

“It should be here any moment now. It’s Friday, remember?” she kissed her brother’s head.

“What if we won’t find anything good today?” Adi sighed.

“That truck always has something good; those Metro people have load of good garbage. And once we have enough plastics bottles and containers to sell, we can buy some food. Ms. Shelly always gives good money for those,” Ayu explained as she wipes sweat off her temple.

The sky cast a clear view of the bright sunlight of the tropical weather. As far as Ayu’s ten-year-old eyes can see, there was a garbage desert all around them. Skyscrapers adorned the city skyline, resembling candles on a birthday cake Ayu had seen on a jumbotron once. She wonders what a birthday cake tasted like and what it is like inside those buildings. She almost chuckled as she looked down, thinking how silly the thought was.

“What is it, Ayu? What’s so funny?” her brother looked at her with his innocent eyes.

“Nothing, I was just thinking what’s it like inside those tall buildings,” she said sheepishly.

“I think those buildings are way too big for us. We’ll be so small there. I think just a little building is good enough for us because we don’t have anybody else living with us,” said Adi as he fixed his sling sack.

“Our country is a developing country. That’s why they built those buildings. They’re not a place to live, they’re a place to work,” Ayu giggled at her brother’s naivete.

“Is a country mean this world we live in?”

“No Adi, a country is just a little part of the world. There are many other countries.”

“What! Other countries? Where?”

“I don’t know, but I heard they have water everywhere and you can just drink for free, and it doesn’t need to be boiled.” Ayu’s eyes looked afar as if they were to imagine free clean water.

“Wow! I wish I can go there.” Adi let out a big sigh.

“I wish I could get into one of those buildings to see what’s inside,” Ayu told her brother.

“I think you’re going to need to have real shoes first because the building’s owner won’t be happy when you dirty up the floor.”

Ayu chuckled as she realized that her almost six-year-old brother was right.

She got up and used her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. No blue truck yet. The street looked very busy, with vehicles of many colors and sizes. She could hear the loud honking here and there, but still no blue garbage truck.

“Adi, come on, get up, let’s go to the other side. We can search for bottles over there while we wait. We’d still be able to see the truck when it comes,” Ayu helped her little brother up.

She fixed her hard makeshift footwear, so they fit well enough to walk around. They circled around and dug around but barely found anything that they could sell or eat. They saw Asep walking fast toward them with a big cheerful face and a big cardboard box that used to be a TV box.

“Guys! Look what I got!” he excitedly shouted.

“What is it?” Ayu asked him and smiled with hope.

“This is going to be my bed tonight. Look how sturdy this thing is.” Asep couldn’t hide his happiness. “And look! Bread and some banana!”

“We can have banana bread!” Adi was full of excitement. He almost jumped.

“Yeah! There’s a bit of mold on the bread, but we can just peel that part off,” Asep showed the moldy part of the bread.

“Okay, do we have water to drink?” Ayu felt that her thirst was getting worse.

“Well, let’s go ask that corner food stall. Maybe they’ll give us a little drinking water,” Asep suggested.

“You can’t bring the box, Asep. It’ll make them feel uneasy. We’re not supposed to be here in the first place,” Ayu said. “Why don’t you wait here with Adi, and I’ll go ask.”

“Ayu, don’t go, I’m scared,” Adi said, holding on to Ayu’s arm.

“I’ll be quick, Adi, and you’ll be fine with Asep.” Ayu hugged and kissed Adi’s head before she walked away.

“Come on, Adi, let’s sit over there while we wait.” Asep pulled Adi’s arm gently.

Asep observed the tiny red bumps on Adi’s legs and arms. His pale looking face reminded him of his father’s face on the night he passed away. The pale face, the blood coming out of his nose, and those red bumps all over his body were a view that still haunted him in his nightmares to this day. Dengue fever, a terrible disease that was caused by mosquito bites.

Sometimes Asep wondered how a creature so small could kill his father, a man thrice his size. He also wondered if his father would have still been alive today if they didn’t live in the slum by the landfill, where the mosquitoes loved to nest, where posted signs with the words NO and ILLEGAL were everywhere. Those words became his first words to read and spell. His father said they didn’t have any other option for now. He wished one day, Asep could finish his school and get a good job so he could live somewhere nice and safe. Of course, all those wishes were all gone, along with his beloved father.

“Adi, we need to go to the clinic down the road. We need to get you checked up.” Asep felt Adi’s forehead.

“But how? Are we even allowed to go there?” Adi rested his head on Asep’s shoulder. He felt so small and weak. Asep was like a big brother to him, not only because he was about the same age as Ayu, but also because neither of them had any parents nor family anymore. The slum and the landfill were all they knew.

“We’ll figure it out, okay?” Asep patted Adi’s back.

“Asep, would you like to live with me and Ayu in one of those buildings one day?” Adi’s little finger pointed to the tallest building their eyes could see from the landfill.

“Those buildings? They are not homes, Adi. People don’t live there, they work there, but it would’ve been nice, though.” Asep chuckled as he patted Adi’s back gently.

Soon, they heard a truck’s sound coming closer and closer. They both got up with big eyes and wide smiles.

“The truck!” They shouted at the same time.

They could hear the engine as it roared closer, but they couldn’t see the truck. From the corner of their eyes, they saw Ayu run toward them with three small plastic bags filled with water in her hand and horror on her face. “RUN! RUN! RUN!”

Adi’s eyes welled up with tears. He knew what that meant. Asep pulled Adi’s arms to help him run, but Adi was too weak. He couldn’t move anywhere.

“Get up on my back, I’m not leaving you!” Asep helped Adi onto his back and left his big TV box behind.

Ayu tried to get to them as fast as her little feet could run without dropping the water because she knew how thirsty they were. But it was almost impossible to run in her makeshift shoes made of flatten plastic bottles tied with some old little belt. It was less than a minute before she tripped and fell. The water formed a small blast as it hit the dirty ground, and so did her heart.

She knew those men in uniform with a big megaphone would take her today, to the same place where they took Irma, Rusman, Tito, Dika, and Cici last month. They’ll take her to an unknown place she knew nothing about. The place where nobody ever came back from. She slowly got up as a man in uniform stood by her and reached out his arms.

“Don’t touch me! Let me go!” Ayu’s heart was full of fear. She didn’t know what to expect.

“Calm down, dear, I will not hurt you,” the man let go of her and gestured with his hand for her to calm down.

She saw Asep with Adi on his back staggering his way toward her, with another man in uniform walking fast behind him.

“Ayu! Ayu!” Adi whimpered in tears. He tried so hard not to let out a loud cry. He didn’t know who the men in the uniform were and what they were going to do to a crying child.

Ayu grabbed her brother off Asep’s back and hugged him tight. Her eyes were full of tears, but something crept inside her, a feeling of a new strength. Something she had never felt before. She could feel her fear gradually melt away.

They walked at a steady pace toward a truck, where some of the other children they knew from the landfill were sitting side by side. Some men in a uniform helped each child climb onto the truck. The truck that was not the garbage truck they’ve been waiting for all day. This was the truck they never wanted to see, the truck they never wanted to be in.

But Ayu was ready. She was ready for whatever might happen in an unknown place with unknown people. Asep sat by her side, and Adi crawled in a fetal position between her legs.

“Excuse me, sir!” Asep raised his hand, and all the children looked at him in disbelief for his braveness to raise his hand.

“Yes!” a man responded to him.

“He’s sick with dengue fever, he needs immediate help,” Asep showed Adi, who was sniffling in Ayu’s embrace.

The man gave Adi a quick glance and commanded some other men to move Adi to another truck.

“I’m coming with him. I’m his sister.” Ayu wouldn’t let go of her brother.

“And I’m his brother.” Asep placed his hands on Adi’s back.

Ayu held Adi as she walked toward an unfamiliar truck with Asep walking beside her. When they sat on the back of the pickup truck, Ayu knew that tomorrow would be a different day. A day where she won’t be roaming around the landfill anymore. She didn’t know whether the day would be better or worse, would she be in a jail cell like many people had told her, would she be in a slaughterhouse like some rumors she heard, would she be in a cemetery for a terrible reason like she imagined, or something else.

Lines of men in uniforms formed a huge, terrifying shadow of uncertainty. She wondered if it was going to devour her and her brother and her entire world. After a moment of nauseating worriment, the shadows were ajar to allow a little shed of light shining through it. It illuminated Adi’s face and somehow sent a little drop of hope into Ayu’s heart. When the light got bigger and a man in uniform put a little blanket over Adi’s shaking body and gave each of them a nice sealed bottled water, Ayu bravely looked at him in his eyes and said, “Thank you.”

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