Gutterflower.

There are people here who live at crossroads: street children, women and men who live at the junctions. When the lights turn red they hawk their wares - whatever they can sell - from songs, toys, water and warm bodies. When the cars desert the streets they walk back to their houses made of zinc roofs and thin sheets of wood. From far away they look like matchboxes stacked one on top of the other, hidden behind the bushes just off the highway.

They are mostly women. Their skin had turned to leather. The sun had dried the youth out of them. The hollows of their thigh and calves let you know how many meals they eat a day. Slung across their hips are babies like accessories of labour. They joke. They laugh. The women learn to put on their saddest eyes. The men learn to put on their most alluring faces with eyebrows drawn at sharp angles and lips painted like blood. The too-old and the too-young make these concrete pavements their home. I wonder what happens in between.

Floating above in my safe airconditioned bus, I noticed two little kids. They were probably four years old at most: a girl and a boy. They huddled together underneath the traffic light. They laid their heads unto its concrete base like a pillow, snuggling under flimsy blankets and slept. From the light in their eyes, they were happy. Maybe this is all they know – a life amongst a carnival of vivid car lights.

I hear there is someone who cares: non-profits who take them and give them shelter somewhere far away. I hear that they often come back to the life of hawking. There is a mafia ring which presides over this particular Cempaka Mas junction called the Kapak Merah, or Red Axe, made of pickpockets and thugs. I hear things. It’s probably true.

I have my presumptions and they are made from lofty places, just like the conclusions you will make after reading this. It is too easy to look down upon them and place the blame squarely on culture. I won’t accept that explanation.

Our conceptions of the world are so intrinsic to our conditions, limited by the places and ranks that we have been born and socialized into. I’m beginning to doubt the definition of charity, goodness and everything nice when its very idea dictates a certain degree of compulsion. What on earth do people mean when they talk about making the world a better place? We’re always assuming there’s universality about what constitutes A Better Tomorrow. It really is just a load of bullshit.

Our dear president says that Indonesia Bisa! which is roughly translated as: Indonesia, we can do it! It is utterly meaningless. Bisa apa? Bisa maju, bisa bunuh diri, bisa di exploitasi lagi. We’ve always been able to do anything. The more important questions are still unanswered like what should we do? What are you willing to sacrifice for the God of Progress? The bank accounts of the richest strata? The security of the middle class? The lives of the poor?

All I see is an abyss. All I hear is noise.