Faith's Scream

     Faith always thought that the universe was absurd as universe was an ocean of questions. In her childhood, her father always taught her how to pray that there was a force, a very powerful force possessed our beloved universe. The only one, the Authoritarian. The Creator of the being, the human and all, and the Ruler of the universe. The Supreme Being that had existed a long- a very long time ago even before the first human being was created, of course.

     Faith’s father said that we had to worship the Great Creator at least five times a day and did many others. He added that these rituals were a way to express of thanks to Him. Him? Honestly, Faith even did not know the appropriate way to call the Creator as she had not met Him, or Her? When she asked her father about that notion, he answered that the Supreme was not a He or a She, we just called Him (?) with many of His beautiful names, the Most Merciful, the most Compassionate, the Monarch, the Tranquility, the Almighty, the Faithful, and so forth. (Faith remembered, at that time, she had to remember the names, and she just ended in the 33rd name of them).

     Faith grew, now, she was a teenager. She entered the dormitory and got along with her many new female friends who wearing the same hijab as her. The dormitory was a very big place, but not a very different place at all. Here, a question about the Supreme would never be allowed. Hmm, why it had to be allowed, really? as she, and many others of her friends, had never thought that there was doubt about the Supreme. He was absolute. No one should question about His existence, her teachers had said once, hmm, maybe more. Therefore, she never questioned about Him anymore so that she rarely questioned her father anymore.

     One day, Faith went to a new school. The school was a city in her neighborhood. If she always walked to her dormitory during elementary school, now she had to go to her new school by a bicycle or sometimes her father would take her up with his motorcycle. Faith would be in her father back for some minutes before she could see the building of her new school. If you asked Faith about the school, there was nothing to be told really. The school was small, far smaller than her dormitory, she could say. But, despite its small size, she found many different things she must not have found in her old school. Then she remembered that she had started to ask her father again. About other names.

     When Faith entered college, she met more different friends. Some of them had the same of name about the Creator just like her. Some others had different names, but some of the names had already been familiar when she was in my middle and high school. Time by time, the names had extra addition, her God, her friend’s God, another friend’s God, and so on...... the names that actually all of us-don’t-know-who-or-what grew longer and longer.

     Another day, Faith met many new friends. They called themselves as agnostics or even atheists. Since then, she would have never asked anything anymore to her father as she thought her father would answer the same and she knew she would not have never satisfied.

      Faith is thinking whether she will become more mature, she thinks she knows everything but the world is still absurd till now. She has a question she have kept in mind for very long time. Can human intelligence overcome the intelligence limitations? Or can human intelligence recognize the limitations of intelligence itself, she always asks herself, not certain. 

Name: Hikma Rizkita Putri

This story's idea is actually in my mind for long time. It is interesting that I can write a simple story for such an abstract mind.

Inside Her Little Mind

Her name is Eleanor Drury and she knew this world like a back of her hand. She couldn’t remember where she came from or how she ended up here. All she knows is that she loves this place. As she was walking under the shade, she looked up at the whimsical blue skies. This world is bizarre, indeed. The blue skies were spinning like dozens of whirling water, the stars looked just like a round white things drawn by a three years old kid, and the moon couldn’t even be recognized. And the thing that Elle, or how her friends called her, loves the most is the fact that the night is eternal; there’s no day light, ever. But this world full of things that shine in the dark. Thus, no sun is needed to light the night. The blue sky was beautiful anyway.

“You’re spacing out again.”

Elle turned around and saw her best friend, Mylo. And like any other things in this world, Mylo is also peculiar. His skin was as yellow as butter cream, his eyes were only a pair of two black dots, he has no nose and his mouth was only a thin black line that showed a hollow space every time he talks. His black hair was a bunch of tangled yarn and he was wearing clothes that looked like somebody’s painting.

Elle smiled and they started to walk side by side under the flicker-leaves trees. The earth below her shoes feels so warm and tender like always.

“Elle, do you want to play?”

“Where?”

“Quincy land?”

A wide smile appeared on Elle’s lips and in no time the two kids were running toward a purple meadow. As they got closer, they could see the quincies swimming about the air. And if you are wondering what quincies are, just imagine whales drawn by kids; colorful, incomplete limbs, simple round black eyes, and cute smiles. They were so fluffy and adorable.

“Come on!” Mylo yelled and jumped toward a quincy’s tail. His little fingers wrapped around a little horn that grew at the tail. And as the quincy swam toward the forest, Mylo and Elle were already sitting comfortable on the quincy’s back.

“I’ve never ride a quincy’s back before.” Elle screamed between the winds that roared around her.

“So do I!” Mylo yelled back.

“Where do you think we’re going?”

“I don’t know!”

Mylo and Elle were enjoying their time at the back of the quincy. The poked at the white fluffy clouds and laughed at the ticklish sensation it made every time the clouds started to swirl. They watched the skies moving like a surface of a dark lake, creating soft curls and waves. Once in a while they saw a pack of Cildes, white birds with rabbit ears and cat tails, flew across the horizon. Sometimes, the quincy that they rode flew passed a nebula clouds where little elves lives and create candy-rain. It was such a pleasant journey for Elle. As the quincy flew slower, she could feel the wind caressing her face. She tied up her wavy blonde hair and wiped the invisible stardust from her dark blue skirt. 

But soon, the happy journey seemed to come to an end. Elle and Mylo saw a black gloomy tower loomed before them. The tower looked like an intertwined tentacles of a giant octopus. The bottom was nowhere to be seen for it was covered by dozen of dark tress.

“What is that….” Elle murmured. Somehow, she could feel chill running down her spine. The tower shining with red reflection that came from nowhere. It looked like as if the inside of the building was full of burning fire.



Anisa Sarayu

A student of English Department in University of Indonesia. Love martial arts and stories. Her mind is a box full of stories but oblivious of the canvas to pour out everything. Inside Her Little Mind is one of her short stories for Prose Class which was inspired from Van Gogh infamous painting Starry Night. The story might sounded like it just jumped out of a child’s book but maybe her mind was just a playground after all.