Silent Bullet
Louise Annabel Theodorix
8-9A
I chuckled softly, while clutching the
potato in my hand. My father watched me
toss more potatoes gently into the air
before throwing them into the sack.
“Our village is very backwards,” he said
to me in his heavily accented Bataknese.
We still rely on manual labor, yet the
family of the Cemani Village can still
produce 250,000 potatoes annually.
Honestly, it was not really nice to live in
such place. people of the Cemani were
once thinking of leaving it behind and
finding a better place to stay. However,
not all of these village dwellers could
afford to move due to financial problems.
During dinner that night, my father passed me
my bowl of potatoes. I graciously received it,
but pointed out that we were living in poverty,
we didn’t have what rich people had. After
having a very dense dinner with my father,
someone knocked our door harshly. I opened
the door and welcomed a man in black suit into
our house. Father was trembled with fear. he
handed me to the man and said,
“She’s all yours, sir.”
I shaken up for a second, not understanding
the situation I was holding into. My father
wasn’t able to look into my eyes. The man in
black then handcuffed me and took me away.
As he dragged me out of the house, I stared
at my father as I was broken down in tears.
“Sorry dear, your father has a debt to pay.
And you are a worthy exchange.” said the man
in black.
I didn’t answer back. I was spinning in the
silence of sorrow. I rubbed my weary eyes
and pinched my cheeks hard to get rid of the
pain inside. The trees on the edge of the
streets swayed in the draught, almost as if
they were waving me goodbye. Observing the
man’s vehicle, I saw many suitcases stacked
below the seats and many fancy suits folded
in half. Seems like this man was a wealthy
man, that was what I thought.
After a long journey, we finally arrived in a
big mansion. I already smelled the rich odor of
roses when I entered the mansion. The
architecture inside this building was extremely
pleasing to my eyes. Chandeliers above my
head, thousands of candles like fireflies,
statues of masked angels were all in one big
hall. Simply the most beautiful thing I had ever
seen in my entire life.
“You’re now working here, young lady.” said the
man.
Yes, I was officially a house maid, sweeping the
floors and cleaning the chimney will be my job
from now on. I was heading to my dorm when I
saw someone was walking towards me, a lady of
eternal elegance and grace, a lady in red with big
doe eyes and strawberry blonde hair. When I
looked at her, it felt like time had stopped. Her
beauty was surreal!
“Pardon me young one, are you the new house
maid?” the lady asked.
My body was completely frozen, I wasn’t able to
pull myself together somehow. The lady then
smiled at me and took me to my dorm.
“My name is Lady Beverly. I’m the house
mistress.” she said.
“Sri Ayu, M’lady.”
“I suppose you may start working tomorrow.”
The first day of becoming a house maid was
totally a blast of sweat for me. Ancient paintings
with gold frames were all over the walls. Maybe
there were around eighty six paintings in total. I
was told to wipe every one of them and leave no
dirty spots. It was quite an exhausting job and yet
it never was supposed to be mine.
“Forgive me, I shouldn’t be handing you my
responsibility. How terribly awful I am.” said
Adinda Sari, my partner.
Sometimes you looked at your friend and she
would seem to you to be a little out of drawing,
or you wouldn’t like her tone of color. Same like
me here, Adinda Sari had a side that I sometimes
still could not fully understand. She’s mostly
incompetent, mad, dangerous, and a little bit of a
genius. However, there was something odd about
her that I still couldn’t describe.
“Lady Beverly called you to her room, I’ll catch
up with you later.” said Adinda.
I went to lady Beverly’s room and saw her sitting
on a burgundy fur couch sipping some camomile
tea. It seems like lady Beverly was waiting for
someone.
“You called me, Lady Beverly?”
“Sure I did, I need you to polish those shoes.”
instructed her.
The minute I saw those shoes, I couldn't begin to
explain how fairytale-like it was.
“Pardon me, Lady Beverly, are these glass
slippers?”
“They’re diamonds, honey,” answered Lady Beverly.
Lady Beverly then took a vermillion silk dress out
of her wardrobe and asked me to put it on her. I
must admit, she looked unrealistically beautiful, just
like a porcelain doll. She then revealed that she had
to attend a formal celebration among the
government sides with her husband, Mr Khan. Yes,
Mr Khan was a politician, specifically in a part of
country finance. The transportation then finally
arrived. Both Mr Khan and Lady Beverly attended
the celebration together.
After I swept the floor, I didn’t realize that it was
midnight. I smelled like a market fish ready to be
thrown away with utterly messy wet hair. I was
walking towards my dorm, seeing Adinda was fully
unconscious, consumed by her fantasy dreams. It
was there where I heard someone ring the doorbell
outside.
I opened the main door and it turned out to be a
police officer instead of the mansion owners. The
police then pointed out that Mr Khan and Lady
Beverly were brutally killed by strangers and were
found lying dead in the celebration hallway.
“I tried to miss, I really tried. Yet unfortunately, I
ran out of luck to save them.” said the police
officer.
I was rendered speechless by his confessions, I
couldn’t even manage to move a single part of my
body. My heart was shaking in fear, because now I
couldn’t figure out what to do.
“Your explanation is something that I can’t tolerate
much, officer. Afterall, I’m just a house maid who
holds no power nor does anyone in this house have
it.”
“My goodness miss, perhaps there are any other
family members living here?”
“Unfortunately no, sir.”
As the condition was getting more intense, the
police officer decided to visit the mansion for
another day or two for some investigation. Yet
they couldn't find a single clue. After a while, a
newspaper man passed by and dropped a pile of
fresh daily news. Turned out that the murder of
Mr Khan and Lady Beverly was everwhere on the
top line news. Well it wasn't shocking news anymore
to me. It was more like a repeated injury getting
extra attention all day nonstop. However what was
shocking to me was that Adinda was cherishing
over something for no reason.
““My friend, what’s in your head?” asked me.
“I thought you'd never ask! I think I’m desperately in
love.” replied Adinda.
“Who’s the lucky man?”
“I can’t possibly describe him. All I can tell you is that
his initials started with the letter “J” on his leather
coat. He even gave me a bouquet of thorned roses!”
said Adinda excitedly.
“Well then, I shall go catch some sleep for another
day tomorrow. See ya.” Then I left.
The next day, the newspaper man dropped some news
again. It said that Indonesia decided to join the
International Monetary Fund program.
TRINNNGGG!!!!
The telephone rang and shocked me when I was still
reading the newspaper. I picked up the call and it was
surprisingly from the government’s office. They said
that Mr Khan’s property would be removed soon
from his office because there would be a new
replacement. I went to the office with Adinda and we
both helped lift up Mr Khan’s property little by little.
Adinda was exhausted after all the lifting jobs, so she
decided to buy us both some jam and bread across the
street. After Adinda left, I proceeded to continue lifting up
some more old documents from Mr Khan’s office.When I
was walking in the hallway entrance collecting more items
to pick up, the edge of my kebaya was unexpectedly stuck
between the door handles. I merely untangled it, however it
didn’t come off. At that moment, I accidentally overheard
the conversation between the IMF organization members,
specifically an old man and a young secretary.
“Sir, this is not wise. They might die.”
“Well, first times are always a mystery.” answered the old
man.
“How are we going to handle future threats? The value of
a single person’s life is more than money can buy, sir.”
“My child, I myself have no alternate choice. Mr. Jayze will
do anything to get his plan working, no matter what comes
in his way. It’s either them who die, or us.” explained the old
man.
“This country will suffer due to economical problems that
we caused in the first place, sir. I know we’re not one of
them, but I still have a sense of humanity. This nation’s
beauty has been stolen too many times already, sir.” said the
secretary.
“Whatever comes next, child, doesn’t concern us, we will
soon leave this country and let the rest handle the situation.
Don’t you dare feel pity for them!” the old man stated.
I blinked twice and still couldn’t believe what I’ve just heard.
Now, all I could generalize is that the IMF organization was
not meant to be a savior, but a filthy traitor. I immediately
ran as fast as I could to report everything to the higher
authorities, while all of the sudden,
DORRRRR!
A bullet passed through my lungs. I somehow felt numb all
over my body and started to fall apart. Strangely, it didn't
hurt at all, guess it was too fast for my body to react.
Slowly my eyesight was getting weaker, the last thing I saw
was Adinda standing right in front of me.