K&K (Taste Features)
7. Whereabouts?
#Two months before
The fingertips of a nineteen-year-old girl began to move. His eyeballs twitched, trying to find the gap of light from the limited darkness behind his two petals.
He smelled the scent of seaweed. And the waves.
He hears foreign voices that are not the language of his origin. Is this heaven? or is he in an underwater palace like in the legend of Nyi Roro Kidul? Or is it in the shadow of the god Neptune, because he is in an alien waters? His inner voice tried to guess things, before actually opening his eyes.
Kirana couldn't help but be curious to immediately find out the real situation. He opened slowly in a thin line. The sunlight barged in through the window from the corner of the room inside the small hut. The ceiling was without ceilings, and the dull walls whose blue paint began to fade with time.
There was a dark black boy. More precisely dark brown and a little redness due to frequent burning in the hot sun. His eyes were roundly glowing cheerfully, staring at his face. He screamed in excitement as Kirana regained consciousness from fainting for two days.
“Mum, look! He realized,” the boy shouted out the room excitedly with his legs limped off using a stick.
Kirana still does not understand the foreign language. He was just as clueless as the simple room he was in. Two women and a boy came to him.
One of them was a woman in her 40s, her body fat lush and short, wearing a cloth wrapped around her head. One more woman is still fifteen years old, but her face and body are like adults for the size of Indonesian teenage girls.
Exactly the same with his mother, he was thin and there was a sweet mole in his nose. Their skin color is the same, dark brown a little reddish. Almost the same as the typical Indonesian skin color, sapodilla mature. Although it is darker. Wearing a thin sleeveless shirt and a long skirt that widens.
“Are you okay? My dear, finally you open your eyes too,” exclaimed the fat lady while making a cross mark on her forehead and both arms, then immediately gave Kirana a glass of water.
Kirana's body trembled, she was terrified. He was confused not playing. His eyes were unfocused. He sat down and clasped both knees. His head feels dizzy.
The fat lady tried to calm down by holding onto Kirana's shoulder. However, Kirana parried her hand violently. He was very scared when the woman and two others tried to get close.
“Machita. Please, go to doctor Smith. It's terrible,” command fat woman on the girl called Machita.
***
Machita ran to Smith's doctor's house not far from his home. Heading to the small cottage fifty meters from his house. Simple wooden houses with neatly lined brick walls on the beach.
This spring, there were not many visitors. Usually the peak density of the beach during the summer. Bule-bule sunbathing fun filled the beach with bikinis or waves that are increasingly sold by surfers.
Doctor Smith was doing research at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick and working part-time there, the thirty-year-old American bought a small cottage near the coast of Maroubra, New South Wales and also helping practice at Maroubra Medical Centre.
“Beautiful girl, do not play on the beach for three days, yes?” doctor Smith gave her pinky finger.
The six-year-old patient smiled and tied his little finger to the handsome doctor's pinky while nodding.
“okey, doctor.”
Doctor Smith stroked the little patient's blonde hair, “If you break a promise, I will never teach you to surf,” he threatened a little, so that the child patient's jellyfish fever does not recur.
“Yes doctor's. I promise,” and in an instant the little patient sassyly kissed Doctor Smith's cheek.
“Rebecca. How dare you! ” the mother looks angry and embarrassed.
But Rebecca jumped out of bed and stood by the door smiling with satisfaction despite both cheeks flushing.
“ I’m sorry,”
“No problem,” Doctor Smith smiled as he drove them out the door.
Doctor Smith actually did not open a practice in his cottage. Because he does not have permission to open a practice at home. However, because residents around Maroubra beach far from clinics or hospitals, they often ask for help from Smith's doctor.
“Doctor Smith!!” shouts Machita. The doctor in glasses looked. Machita ngosan approached him. Doctor Smith was astonished to see Machita flood in sweat.
***
Kirana begins to realize they are not from her country. Their language and their physicality are distinctly different. Then, are they a tourist in Indonesia or is he in their country? Kirana shivered in fear. He tried to get up to leave immediately.
When he stood up, he fell.
His right leg was wrapped in bandages and so was his head. He did not care about the excruciating pain in the wounds all over his body. It was bruised, scratched, some parts of his skin were open.
Kirana's brain could not translate the language of the foreign woman in front of her. He looks depressed.
Doctor Smith opened the door just as he was about to get out, so he hit him and he fell in front of the man.
“Are you okay?” doctor Smith crouched to see it. Kirana looked at Doctor Smith's face as if asking for help and she wanted to come back soon. Doctor Smith looked stunned to see his face.
“Nona, are you okay?” doctor Smith repeated the question. Kirana shakes.
Doctor Smith held onto Kirana's trembling shoulder, he pushed Kirana to walk.
“I'll check you.”
I don't know why Kirana obeyed Smith's doctor. He feels comfortable, safe and trust with a foreign man who has just met for a few seconds. After examining Kirana's condition, Smith's doctor whispered something to Joyce's madam saying that Kirana was depressed and traumatized. They have to patiently take care of him. Madam Joyce seemed concerned, but she nodded in agreement.
“Trust me and the people in this house. We don't know about your identity until you're healthy again. The Maroon family will take care of you. So, they are your family now.” Doctor Smith patted Kirana on the shoulder.
He gave a packet of medicine to Joyce's madam and instructed her on the rules of drinking. After Smith's doctor left, Machita and Paulo stood before Kirana with big smiles.
“What’s your name? Where are you from?” ask the fifteen-year-old girl. Kirana bent her legs and went back to shaking her head, terrified.
“He needs a break. Don't talk to him much,” madam Joyce interrupts from the kitchen. Machita and Paulo were disappointed.
“No problems. Hi, I’m Paulo. If you need help, don't hesitate.” Paulo held out his right hand, while his left hand held a stick. Kirana.
He even closed his body. Paulo smiled understandingly.
“Can he not speak English?” ask Machita to Paulo.
“Maybe,” replied Paulo while shrugging.
***
Kirana crying sobbing. He did not understand why he was in a foreign place with foreign people and languages. What the hell is going on? Where are the Indonesians, their families and friends? he seems to be an alien in the small house, because it is most different.
At nine in the night, the house looked deserted. Madam Joyce and Machita were at the bar as waitresses. Paulo was sleeping due to exhaustion.
Kirana was limping around looking for the exit. He endured the excruciating pain in his right leg. Looks like a broken bone. But Kirana doesn't care. He has to get out and get out of that house. The skirt he wore was too long to often make him almost fall due to tripping.
When out of the house, it was very dark, there were only dim lights of street lights hanging from one tree to another. Joyce's madam house is a hundred and fifty meters from the shore.
Kirana's feet stepped towards the beach without being commanded by the brain. Bungung feet naked licked by small waves, he realized before him is a sea that stretches wide.
The sea breeze rippled.
Until Kirana's long unkempt hair fluttered. He briefly held back the wind that slapped his body.
For a moment, the shadows as he was bobbing in the middle of the sea and just depending on life on the buoys looked so fast. Kirana's body trembled in fear. His feet could no longer move. He fell, then fainted.
Doctor Smith is going to the bar. He had an appointment to meet an old friend from Canada there. Doctor Smith's step stopped, when he saw people lying on the beach. He frowned curiously. Maybe people are drunk.
Doctor Smith ignored the man and was about to continue his footsteps. But, he stopped. The person will be in danger if left overnight on the beach that lives a while touching the water. It can be swept by the waves. How thought.
Anxiety and humanity requires him to just see the condition of the person. At least bring it under the tree and away from the reach of the tide.
Doctor Smith turned around and approached the man.
His eyes widened as three meters from Kirana's position lay. It turns out the patient from Joyce's madam house. He quickened his pace towards the little girl's body.
“Hey. Can you listen to me? You okay?” doctor Smith patted Kirana on the cheek, trying to wake her up. He checked Kirana's pulse. Due to the weakened condition, Doctor Smith immediately carried Kirana towards her little cottage.
***
