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“Fire, Light, and Air”
Sixteen year-old Hektor, abandoned by his father, beaten by his stepfather and neglected by his mother, didn’t know what love and affection was until he met the boys who became his best friends, and they formed a punk band together. One day they clashed with a group of thugs who used Islam to gain money and influence in their neighborhood. The group vowed to hunt Hektor down and send him straight to hell. It’s a story about how some people consider anything [said to be] religious as good and holy, how some people are accustomed to think uncritically about religious leaders, and how all that has torn lives apart…
First published in the anthology The Near and the Far volume 2 (Scribe, 2019).
“The Love Story of My Father and Me”
A teenage girl wants to grow up strong and independent, but her mother tells her to be silent and obedient and her father takes advantage of women who lead freer lifestyles. This one’s for all the girls who’ve had to find their own way, alone.
…At the departure gate he slipped me an envelope of cash. I had never heard Dad say ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m sorry’ in my eighteen years of life, so the cash felt like love and apologies and acceptance. I was too proud and vengeful to hug him goodbye, but I held the envelope close between my fingers like a beloved’s hand all through the flight…
First published in BooksActually’s Gold Standard (Math Paper Press, 2016).
“Someplace between Respect and Desire”
When a young Jakartan woman had a crush on a British man in Jakarta, she had to navigate the dating scene, fraught with inequalities, and come to terms with her own insecurities.
“May I call you Za?”
“People usually shorten my name to Liz.”
“Liz is so common. Za is special.”
“Alright, you can call me Za. It’s not like your name is so special.” Here I’m going to call him Adam—the first man’s name for my first love.
First published in Ducts: Summer Fiction, 2016.
A group of friends go to great lengths to hide their hedonistic lifestyle from their parents and girlfriends. An honest look into a hidden Jakarta youth culture.
THE WINDOW HASN’T been opened for days and the curtains haven’t been parted. The smell of clove and weed cigarettes dances in the air to the trance music that pumps the room. The thirty men and five women slouch on the floor or on the long sofa dappled with cigarette burns. Some bounce their heads, some chase the swirling light pattern inside the translucent coffee table. The view outside the window shows the dark buildings and blinking pale lights of northern Jakarta.
First published in Trash, an anthology of Southeast Asian urban fiction, part of the trio Heat Flash Trash (Fixi Novo, 2016).
“Five friends find themselves in intimate relationships that defy society’s norms. Can they support each other through the unending challenges?
They reached the campus’s main gate and walked under a banner proclaiming, “Welcome to the Campus of the People’s Struggle.” Julita remembered Rizky had told her that the banner used to say, “Welcome to the Campus of the New Order’s Struggle,” but three years ago, in ’98, students had torn down the old banner and replaced it with the new one.
First published in Exchanges Journal (2015).
A group of so-called troublemaker kids in an Islamic school in Jakarta stood up against an abusive teacher.
It killed me that kids were calling him a sissy, just because he wore eyeliner and combed his hair with gel, and because he was thirty-seven before he finally got married. When I was in the eighth grade, he began mentioning that he’d met ‘a little sister’. After he’d handed out his wedding invitations, I thought kids would stop calling him a sissy. This year, however, instead of inspiring us to seize the day, Pak Dewo became fond of hitting us. First with an open hand, then with a book, and, a week after Revo had approached me, he’d used a shoe to hit Zaki, a boy he’d caught skipping Friday prayer.
Revo felt bad for the boy, so the following Monday he started a Movement of Silence. Whoever dared to pay attention to Pak Dewo, let alone answer his questions, would be dealing with Kardus.
First published in the Griffith Review: New Asia Now (2015). Long-listed for Fish young-adult novel prize (2016).
“From Now on Everything will be Different”
Two young Indonesians reunited after the revolution that brought down the country’s long-time dictator. He was looking for the courage to follow his dreams, she was looking for revenge.
It was several weeks after the corrupt president had stepped down, and the first time Rizky had heard from Julita since they had graduated from high school four years earlier in 1994. Her photographs of the massive demonstrations and surrounding events punctuated the article: a protester ripping his shirt and baring his tattoo-covered chest before lines of riot police, a writer handing out photocopies of his banned book, five women covering their faces with the sign ‘Do Not Rape, Native Indonesian Muslim’, a student throwing paper airplanes from the top of the parliament building.
First published in the Asia Literary Review, 2014.
Arson or imagination? Murder or suicide? Death or renewal? “Somehow I know this fire would be here when I wake up, the same way I know you would not.”
Somehow I knew this fire would be here when I wake up, the same way I knew you would not. We are each other’s mirrors, but we break too in the end. Faintly I’ve sensed your retreat, like a distant smell of gas in the wind, now all around me. Ghostly breaths of grey fill up the room like great inverted waterfalls, but I only feel the emptiness you leave behind.
First published in Koran Tempo, 2006.
BAHASA INDONESIA
Eliza pergi berkelana dan bercinta dengan laki-laki tampan dari berbagai penjuru dunia. Hingga ia menyelam ke dasar Palung Mariana dan bertemu dengan orang-orang yang tidak disangka-sangkanya.
Mereka adalah irisan-irisan diriku, atau tokoh-tokoh dalam novel-novelku, atau beberapa orang asing yang kutemui di hostel anak muda di Bangkok. Pilihlah realitasmu sendiri.
Pertama terbit di majalah Femina, 2018.
L. baru tiba di New York sebagai mahasiswa berbeasiswa. Ia ingin sekali merentangkan sayap, terbang keluar dari zona nyaman, dan mencicipi citarasa kehidupan yang sesungguhnya. Namun, apa yang terjadi ketika seorang pria yang jauh lebih tua daripadanya mengajaknya berkencan?
Pertama terbit di Jurnal Perempuan no.96: Cinta dan Feminisme, 2018.
“Puncak“
Banyak orang mempersiapkan diri untuk memasuki bulan Ramadan dengan memperbanyak salat, doa, dan membaca Alquran. Lain dengan Ferdian, Risa, Patar, dkk. Mereka mempersiapkan diri dengan melampiaskan nafsu berpesta, mabuk, dan teler sepuas-puasnya agar tahan puasa hura-hura selama sebulan penuh. Keseruan pesta mereka terusik ketika Lani, pacar Patar yang merupakan “cewek baik-baik” dan memiliki ayah seorang polisi, mendesak ingin bergabung.
Pertama muncul dalam bahasa Inggris di antologi Trash, terbitan Fixi Novo, 2016.
“Lima orang muda mendapati diri mereka dalam hubungan yang dinilai tidak sesuai dengan norma masyarakat. Dapatkah mereka saling mendukung melalui berbagai tantangan yang muncul?
Pertama terbit di Exchanges Journal, Desember 2015.
Sekelompok remaja yang dicap pembuat onar di sebuah sekolah Islam di Jakarta memberontak melawan guru yang memukul teman sekelas mereka.
Sejak Pak Adnan menenggelamkan buku puisiku, tiga minggu setelah Revo memintaku menulis lirik lagu untuk bandnya, aku memutuskan hanya akan mengadukan kekesalan hatiku kepada Revo. Sehari setelahnya, motor Pak Adnan dipreteli—hingga ke suku cadangnya.
Pertama terbit di Koran Tempo, 7 September 2014.
“Cuplikan novel Mulai Saat Ini Segalanya Akan Berubah.
Ia tak habis pikir, bagaimana mungkin orang-orang yang dulu menyensor PR anaknya sendiri karena takut menarik perhatian sekarang menunjukkan dada mereka dengan bangga? Dari mana mereka, setelah tiga dekade bungkam dan patuh, kini mendapat nyali untuk protes? Orang-orang yang begitu biasa tunduk pada takdir, apa yang memberi mereka ilham untuk mengguncang sejarah? Rizky begitu terkesan karena itulah konfirmasi pertama yang diterimanya bahwa seseorang ternyata mampu mengarak perubahan. Ia takkan lupa saat ia mendengar bisikan Tuhan di sela derap langkah ribuan mahasiswa: ‘Kau pun dapat mengubah hidupmu.’
Pertama terbit di Koran Tempo, 23 September 2012.
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Pertama terbit di Koran Tempo, 15 Oktober 2006.
Eliza Vitri Handayani 