Lightning on the Horizon

A Short Story from Hatta Island, Indonesia

There was a bow-shaped moon hanging in the sky over the beach. Although the stars started shining straight above us without a cloud, lightning was flashing on the horizon a long way off from us. It was so far away that we couldn’t hear the thunder. Instead, we could hear the strong wind blowing on the beach where we were drinking Bintang, the classic Indonesian beer.

The Scottish guy, Jim, pulled his chair to get closer to us. “You know what,” He was almost whispering. “It was only fifteen years ago when people killed each other on this island, fighting for their belief; Christians and Muslims.”

Fifteen years ago — it was not very long ago. Did the people on this island who are taking care of us today, also take part in the massacre?

“In other words, anybody over thirty years old on this island could have killed people. They cut off the other’s head, cruelly slaughtered fellows on the same island.”

A light flashed again in the distance. Jim’s face palely glittered by the reflection of the lightning.

“We took a big passenger ship to get to this area from Jakarta, didn’t we?” “Yes, we did. That was when we met you.”

Despite the warm temperature on the tropical island, I felt my fingers were cold, holding a can of Bintang beer which just came from the fridge.

“Fifteen years ago, if you had taken the wrong boat, it meant you would have died. There were ships for Christians and ships for Muslims. If you had gotten on the wrong ship by mistaken, you would have been thrown into the sea.”

Last time when my boyfriend and I travelled to Indonesia was about twenty years ago. Since then the world surrounding Muslims has changed a lot.

It was difficult to imagine that the island had such a savage history, now that it is so calm and peaceful. However, people can easily turn into cruel animals when there is only a tiny trigger.

People were killed, only because they believed something different from others. Their sorrow and anger might still be floating around us, though they don’t make noise — even a whisper — , just like lightning silently shines in the far sky.

Again, the lightning sparkled above the seawater in the distance. Luckily, the storm didn’t land on our beautiful Hatta island that night.

This story is based on one of my Japanese posts below, was translated and revised for English readers:

HANA is a Japanese born writer who writes stories and poems in both English and Japanese. If you are an English reader, you can follow her English publications, ‘Etude of Creativity (poetry, haiku, fiction)’ and ‘Japanese Writer (blogs & essays)’ or on Twitter.

All stories written by HANA are here (a list in English).