The teenager who wrote Elena and the Ant asked me to read this story so that I can give my comments or suggestions.  This is actually an epilogue of a story.  Please take time to read.  It's worth reading.

My eyes open; the smell of eggs frying rises up to my room, making my stomach rumble. The morning sun seeps in through the rafters, its warm light comforting and not searing. The air is cool, carrying with it the scent of the trees outside. I hear birds singing; the laughter of children playing is in harmony with them. It is a good morning, I say to myself, especially since I have no class today.

I hear my mother calling me for breakfast. I beckon to her call, and hasten down the stairs. I see my mother standing by the doorway, talking with one of her friends from around the neighborhood. The two chatter as two women of their kind usually do, their boisterous gossiping merging with the rest of the morning hustle and bustle.

I sit down my chair, and look at the nasi goreng with hungry eyes, taking my spoon and fork into my hands. I get ready to eat the feast before me, until I hear something.

"Inem?"

Inem. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that name. Inem…

"You don't say? Where did they find the body?"

Body? What body? What exactly are they talking about?

"Yes, Inem. You know, the little girl who divorced Markaban. They just found her body inside her mother's house. She slit her wrists with one of their knives! Who would've thought? She could at least have died more decently. Now who’s going to take care of her senile mother? Her father’s dead, and her brothers already married away from here. That girl just didn’t have any sense.”

Died? My head begins to ache; my stomach begins to churn. Suddenly the food before me ceases to be appetizing, and I let go of the spoon and fork.

"I agree. You know that I once had her as a helper? Yes. But I had to let her go after she divorced her husband. It wouldn't look good at all, a woman of my status having a divorcee for a helper, wouldn’t you agree? I wouldn't have such a thing in my house. She shouldn't have divorced Markaban, in my opinion. Poor thing, poor thing…”

My mother's shrill voice fades as I scurry back up to my room. I close the door, and I sit down on the floor.

Inem. I remember, now. Inem was the pretty girl who was always in the house when I was younger; Inem who I always played with a decade ago. Inem, whose kind manner and unassuming nature inspired in me a passion and adoration as kids my age then were wont to have.

Inem who got married at the age of eight, and got divorced at the age of nine. It's been ten years since I've last heard that name inside the house, for my mother forbade me from speaking about her since the last time she came here. Even though we heard her moaning every night for five years, my mother made it a point not to talk about her. That was how it was, and after the seemingly ceaseless moaning ended, it became easier for me to forget her. Well, at least I thought I forgot her.

Dead. She's already dead. Well, it was pretty obvious that she was going to die right from the get-go. I mean, she was always being beaten up by her mother, her father, her brother - or at least that's what I heard from my friends’ mother at school; but I’m sure that none of them would have expected Inem to take her own life. Why did she kill herself? I ask the shadows in my room. No answer is given.

My eyes begin to redden, and I could feel the familiar surge of emotion coming. I try valiantly to stop the tears from flowing, and I succeed, although but barely. Now, a man your age shouldn't cry like a little boy anymore, my mother will say. Act like a man, my father will say. Yes, I should act like a man. Don't think about Inem anymore. She's nothing.

But she was more than nothing. She is more than nothing.

I suddenly get the urge to see for myself if she's really dead. I want to see if it's true, for I know it is folly to trust the rumor-mill too much. I hear my mother calling me again, and I look at myself in the mirror to check whether my eyes are still red. My eyes seem okay, I think. I go out of my room and down the stairs, where my mother sits in her chair waiting for me. I pass her by, and I open the front door.

"Where are you going? Eat your breakfast before you go out."

"Oh. I'm just going out for a walk, Mother, that's all. I'll be right back. You can go and eat without me," I say to my mother, trying to hide the fear and anxiety in my voice. I step out of our house, and I stop when I hear her voice again.

"Just be back before your father awakes. He won't be pleased with you going out and not eating your breakfast. Okay, go now. Hurry up."

I let out a sigh of relief for I thought she was going to ask about Inem. I start walking to Inem’s house. The world outside remains very much unaffected by the death of Inem; the children, girls and boys, remain playing and laughing and the birds are still singing. 

Inem's family lived just beside our house, and the walk didn't last long. I found myself in front of Inem's hut; I gulped. I knock on the wooden door, and the grave face of an old, shriveled woman greets me; her brown skin very much like the skin of chickens and her hair a mixture of cigarette-ash and tired ebony. I suddenly realize that I'm staring at the face of Inem's mother.

"What do you want?" she asks in a cold, impassive tone.

"I c-came to see Inem, ma'am. C-can I please…..see her?" I mumble under my breath.

"See Inem, child? Who would want to see Inem?" The old woman lets out a horrible sound which might have been a chuckle in her youth.

“Go to the back of the hut; she's there waiting,” the woman says as if her daughter is alive. I sure hope so. The old woman chuckles again, her glassy eyes enlivened with a strange and unfathomable ardor.

Not wasting anytime and not wanting to look at Inem’s mother anymore, I walk to the back of the hut.

There is a casket at the back of the hut. There are no people guarding it, which in itself is both surprising and not surprising. I walk slowly to the casket; the ground beneath my feet seems to turn soft, trying to suck me in. A worm creeps out of a crack in the casket, and a terrible stench creeps out of it. I feel like vomiting, even though my stomach is empty. The tree beside the hut seems menacing, its dark branches taunting my every move. The air remains silent; the birds suddenly stop their singing. The sound of children playing becomes but a distant memory, and my hands tremble as they open the casket….

My body shaking, I begin to run as fast as I can to our house, failing to see the visage of Inem’s mother. I enter the house where my mother and my father are both scowling at me. Not minding them, I run up to my room despite the yelling I hear from downstairs. I enter my room, and I close the door, my forehead glistening with sweat.

And I cry.