Driving home after a play date

Like a snake in the night we wind our way through ‘jalan tikus’ (rat roads), weaving in and out of traffic. For long moments we sit. Still. Amid a sea of red eyes. Engine hissing, ready to slide onward. Faces move past my window, distant yet close. I am protected in my air conditioned cocoon with tinted glass. I see them, but they cannot see me. They come from another world, yet walk past my door. Who are they? An old man, face darkened by the sun and swollen from drinking in street smog day after day; a young girl, head covered with a white scarf, holding tight the blue donation box that carries her future; a small boy, playing absentmindedly on the cement barrier that separates four lanes of busy traffic - no parent in sight; a man, or should I say part of a man, no arms or legs, pulled atop a pile of old newspapers on a wooden cart, completely at the mercy of his ‘co-worker’; a young man, carrying his lifeline, a guitar, waiting for the bus and with it a captive audience.

After passing through the dense jungle, the snake reaches its nest. Front gate. Security check. Enter. I wake our son who sleeps beside me.

“We’re home”.

We move from the safety of our car to the comfort of our apartment. The vivid night scenes of Jakarta are already a distant memory.