PROLOG – Notes of Bereavement
Bereavement. No words could sufficiently describe this feeling :
of grouping through a dark and fathomless abyss while suffering
and excruciating pain deep within one’s heart. As time goes by,
the searing paing becomes all the more unbearable because those
who have been wrenched away from passed away, instantly.
Throught he eyes of the tsunami survivors we conceive how fathomless indeed is the dark abyss.
It’s the same pitch-dark abyss that has swallowed Fahrumi, 32, making him decide to continue living in a taxi. He rents an old yellow car and has converted it into his abode, where he now lives and by which he is now earning a living. All day long, from dawn, to noon, to evening he drives through the streets and lanes of the city, looking for passengers (who are not always there), or just whiling away his life. It is not that Fahrumi has no tent in the refugee camp where he can always return but, he says, “Living in a tent reminds me constantly of my son and wife. I could lose my mind. To this day I haven’t been able to find their bodies”.
There are times when the longing for his departed loved ones torments him so fiercely, forcing Fahrumi to stop at the site where his house once stood: Gampong Blang Oi, Ulee, Banda Aceh. He can find nothing among the ruins, “Just a pile of tiles”. His house, furniture, tools have all disappeared there is nothing left, but yet the memories of his wife and only son keep haunting him.
Download Prolog – Notes of Bereavement
Wartawan Tempo sejak 1998. Menjelajah berbagai desk, antara lain ekonomi, nasional, kesehatan, sains, gaya hidup, dan investigasi. Sejak Januari 2009 ditugasi menjadi Direktur Eksekutif Institut Tempo, sebuah lembaga yang dicita-citakan menjadi pusat pengembangan jurnalistik di Indonesia. Lulusan Fakultas Biologi, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, tahun 1996. Setelah lulus kuliah, bergabung dengan Majalah Warta Ekonomi (1996) sebagai staf riset dan kemudian menjadi reporter di majalah Panji Masyarakat (1997).