Dada 175

I felt ready to start again; the great gash of anger had cleaned me of hope, hope of the unraveled rope and appeal of any sentence handed down.I was ready now, staring at the sky with its stars and patterns and brilliant light.I felt my heart open to the great silence. To feel myself as part of its huge indifferent flow; its washing of history and time like lightening amongst the trees of the village where the Dada was my brother, my blood,my line. I understood that I had once been happy.That I was happy still. All that was needed now was for the crowds to show.Festooned crowds in flowered shirts that would come to the prison walls on the day of my death and call for my anhilation and cheer to the echo at its coming and none more so than the Kalimantan’s. And there would be crowds. They shoot the guilty on the opposite side of the island. The police have to clear the roads, the way thousands turn up all bright in their Saturday best to raise an almighty cheer when the rifles go off and the smell of wood smoke rises in the air over Indonesia. No army is slow to murder. Chance plays no part there. When I’m dropped through the trap I’ll take the whoosh and my spirits in strange commotion pressing upward will dance in my head like ice. I’ll embrace the great blaze of light. When news of my death shall reach them all I can hope for is that they will raise the same cheers for me. I know someone who will certainly do so. Rama Abdullah the pirate, great grandson of the white Rajah; the child of his father to the man ; my Dada. I shall need no hood. I want them to see my eyes bulge and my neck snap and to accompany my fall into universal darkness with song. I hope the news will spread like wild fire and dancing to all the districts, diocese and Kampongs of this scented, unholy archipeligo.