A blast. The earth vibrated. My heart threatened to break out of my chest. My pulse drowned everything around me. My eyes fixed on a lady, who was pacing from table to table in small steps, babbling the same phrase over and over again, much like a broken record. “Terror alarm”.
A deafening drone shook the group of people, which had found one another in the courtyard of the library. Panicked glances were cast up into the sky. Helicopters circled just a few feet above our heads, freezing us in our steps. Shots. Loud, fast, endless shots cut through the hot city air. Grave silence followed the noise.
Jakarta seemed to hold its breath. The metropolis of Indonesia had become the target of a terrorist attack. The IS flag blew in the wind after minutes of bloodshed. Within hours, the news of the assassination attempt was to go around the world.
I was stunned. As if in a trance, I gazed into the eyes of my friend. These shimmered furtively. She picked up her cellphone and hopped through various social media to find out what had happened. Seconds later, she showed me pictures of mutilated corpses scattered on the roadside of the Sarinah mall. Blood decorated the walls and granite like a wild piece of deathly art.
Like a marionette controlled by strings I slid my fingers across the screen of my cellphone and wrote to all the people that were close to my heart. I wrote to my mom, with the dull feeling that this could be the last thing she heard from me. With bitter sarcasm I tried to take the wind out of the sails of my inner panic. I downplayed the gravity of the situation, joked.
In the evening, the story of a Sate-seller made the rounds. The hero who defied the assassins and sold his meat skewers in bold silence, as masked men on mopeds drove along the streets and shot down everything that moved. In a later interview, he emphasized the importance of not being intimidated by such people. Not to give them what they thirsted for: panic. Anxiety. Fear. We have to stay strong and go through difficult times together! I admired this embodiment of strength, while my soul seemed to be breaking on this event.
The decision to skip school that day to go to the mall nearly cost me my life. Minutes separated me from the explosion. Later, Starbucks coupon in my hand, I stared at the pictures of the bloodstained rubble of the trendy store on TV. I still felt Death’s cold hand on my shoulder.
In memory of the victims of the attack on January 14th 2016 in Indonesia.
-Rina Tiyu
Rina Tiyu 