Anonymous -Jakarta - Chapter 6 - The Angel of Jakarta

Dwelled in the iterations of thoughts, I kept on walking along the Black Waters...

This girl playing around me has only one small card – possible from some bins and she sits down every 1min to scratch on it with a stone and then put her toy box – which had some carrum coins in it. Her most exciting game was to take them all out – 4 green, 1 yellow and 1 white - and put them back by grouping by their colors. And she laughs. Such an awesome, small world. No complaints, no tears- life seems to be too short for all those for her. I leaned on a handrail over the bridge, yes, with black water flowing just beneath – and kept on watching her. She was singing- or may be talking – to herself with a side look to me to make sure she is making me happy and a smile, if I wasn’t smiling.

I was thrown deep into the well of ideas – how to make her happier – I wanted to give her some gift – I knew she will know the value of that whatever I give. Not money – money never solves an issue – it just travels from one hand to other and is only a byproduct of a habit and a thought process. I got the idea, but now the issue is if I try to buy that for her, she might have already left by the time I come back. I don’t really know how these streets work – streets are all different, unlike the towns, which all look the same all around the world. Each street carries its own soul. I left it to nature – I want to gift her, that’s it. The walk was longer than I expected – few streets, pedestrian flyovers and it took a while before I come back. The signs were moderate – staff speaking English in the store to assist me but stores going farther as I reach closer to them – but I knew I have to gift her this painting book. She has the talent.

As the gut feeling, she was gone – the footpath on the bridge was filled by her absence. I kept on walking through the possible ways the angel of street might have flown. No sign. Ok. Let’s do one more circle– sometimes nature tests the desperate. I full round of 15 min walk. Yes! The angel is back, now with a small pot of noodles in her hand with a big spoon, compared to her size. One spoon soup, two strokes on her card. Repeat. I watched for couple minutes and then called her close to me. She came very close – and I opened the bag to give her the coloring book and crayons. I sat with her in a Martian concrete block. We started to color.

With my little angel

Her eyes became even brighter. They opened wide enough and she managed to finish the first page in less than 5 min. That’s when I realized when you feed water to a dry throat, you should give sip by sip. I turned to the first page back and painted with her all the missing spots – and I saw she is a good follower and a quick learner! I had to tell her only once to get a box filled with the color I want. Next page took atleast 15 minutes, with the 10 year? Old filling every detail with new color.

Time to say good bye to my little angel – she was busy coloring and her mom and elder brother was there – so now I can resume my walks. I moved a few tens of meters away along the bridge and took a turn and leaned back again on the handrail, immersed in thoughts and some true happiness from heart. In a few minutes, she ran into me – asking something – which I had absolutely zero clue what it was - but I had already learnt, some things more beautiful when left wordless. She didn’t know I can’t talk– we didn’t need a language before – may be because the humanity shares a universal language. After three times, she lost the patience and laughed and ran back to her mom – who was following her by then. There was golden kitty patrolling with them – she hugged and that body guard suddenly turned in to a pet cat, crawling on the floor for cuddles. I waved at her and they both waved back to me with a bright smile – possibly the brightest I have seen so far.