All Indonesia's Motor Vehicles Crash
In simultaneous head-on collision
The woman next to me on the Jakarta-Bogor express train wanted to practice her English. Sleepily, I agreed to view all the photographs of her kids stored on her phone. “Maybe you have sons, too, soon, yes?” she urged.
“Too soon, yes,” I agreed.
“Then you can be busy, too, like your husband.”
I myself felt close to fainting at that particular moment, what with the heat & the gongs & the prospect of gibbets, & found I didn’t really mind the idea of fainting if it meant I could sleep soundly for a few hours. But I could still smile & did so, & this encouraged her. I also had a tiny Indonesian-English dictionary, which I helpfully produced & immediately regretted.
She browsed it briefly, then held it to her chest as if she meant to recite from it. Her voice waxed philosophical:
“Trains. Planes. And…” she stirred the air with a hand.
“Automobiles?” I prompted, the back of my skull stuttering against the windowpane. A woman in a plastic-pearled jilbab across from us had her son’s head on her lap & was methodically picking lice from his scalp, then laying them carefully on the thigh of her otherwise immaculate white slacks.
“Yes,” said my companion, stabbing her finger toward my chest as if pressing a gameshow button. “Autowheels. Boat-ships, also. All of these things? They fall here.”
“Fall?” I said. “Oh. Yes.”
There has been a very long, on-going litany of disasters lately, natural & otherwise. AdamAir, Indonesia’s Jet Blue, lost a full plane into the ocean over New Years. They had what they call a “hard landing” last week, & have since cancelled many flights. A Garuda plane just crashed outside Yogjakarta this week. Then there’s the mud volcano, which every mud-volcano expert—except the ones contracted by the Indonesian government—say was caused by drilling too deeply, & for the love of God leave it ALONE until it subsides. (They are not leaving it alone but attempting to stop it by throwing a gigantic set of concrete balls on a metal string into it & then hauling it out again, but wouldn’t you know it: the ben wa ball approach is not working? $844 million in damages so far). Then there’s the earthquake in Sumatra, this week & last. The tsunami fears. The flood. Lice.
“Our trains—” My companion elevated our threat level with a raised brow— “they crash, kill all the people on the train. You, me, too. Vip! Dead.”
“Ah,” I said, when it became clear she required an answer. I knew I should be practicing some Indonesian words here, too, but I was approaching a dolphin state, sleeping with half of my brain at a time, & this seemed good. “It’s true. The train could derail. We could die at any moment.”
“Yes. Here, yes. Train crash. Vip.”
“Vip!”
“Too-much-water. Earthshakes. Autowheels that traffic. It is a problem with here. Why is this problem with our—“ a consultation with the dictionary, “—vehicles? People here, they do not like this! People here do not like that all vehicles: plane, boat-ships, train, autowheels, that they crash. Why is this problem here? People here do not like this, you understand?”
The woman next to me on the Jakarta-Bogor express train wanted to practice her English. Sleepily, I agreed to view all the photographs of her kids stored on her phone. “Maybe you have sons, too, soon, yes?” she urged.
“Too soon, yes,” I agreed.
“Then you can be busy, too, like your husband.”
I myself felt close to fainting at that particular moment, what with the heat & the gongs & the prospect of gibbets, & found I didn’t really mind the idea of fainting if it meant I could sleep soundly for a few hours. But I could still smile & did so, & this encouraged her. I also had a tiny Indonesian-English dictionary, which I helpfully produced & immediately regretted.
She browsed it briefly, then held it to her chest as if she meant to recite from it. Her voice waxed philosophical:
“Trains. Planes. And…” she stirred the air with a hand.
“Automobiles?” I prompted, the back of my skull stuttering against the windowpane. A woman in a plastic-pearled jilbab across from us had her son’s head on her lap & was methodically picking lice from his scalp, then laying them carefully on the thigh of her otherwise immaculate white slacks.
“Yes,” said my companion, stabbing her finger toward my chest as if pressing a gameshow button. “Autowheels. Boat-ships, also. All of these things? They fall here.”
“Fall?” I said. “Oh. Yes.”
There has been a very long, on-going litany of disasters lately, natural & otherwise. AdamAir, Indonesia’s Jet Blue, lost a full plane into the ocean over New Years. They had what they call a “hard landing” last week, & have since cancelled many flights. A Garuda plane just crashed outside Yogjakarta this week. Then there’s the mud volcano, which every mud-volcano expert—except the ones contracted by the Indonesian government—say was caused by drilling too deeply, & for the love of God leave it ALONE until it subsides. (They are not leaving it alone but attempting to stop it by throwing a gigantic set of concrete balls on a metal string into it & then hauling it out again, but wouldn’t you know it: the ben wa ball approach is not working? $844 million in damages so far). Then there’s the earthquake in Sumatra, this week & last. The tsunami fears. The flood. Lice.
“Our trains—” My companion elevated our threat level with a raised brow— “they crash, kill all the people on the train. You, me, too. Vip! Dead.”
“Ah,” I said, when it became clear she required an answer. I knew I should be practicing some Indonesian words here, too, but I was approaching a dolphin state, sleeping with half of my brain at a time, & this seemed good. “It’s true. The train could derail. We could die at any moment.”
“Yes. Here, yes. Train crash. Vip.”
“Vip!”
“Too-much-water. Earthshakes. Autowheels that traffic. It is a problem with here. Why is this problem with our—“ a consultation with the dictionary, “—vehicles? People here, they do not like this! People here do not like that all vehicles: plane, boat-ships, train, autowheels, that they crash. Why is this problem here? People here do not like this, you understand?”
posted by Anne E. Campisi at 1:18 AM
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