That morning, Jakarta was a sea of sound that never fell silent, a wild symphony played by an invisible orchestra. Car horns roared like savage beasts trapped in iron cages, motorcycles sped past with a roar that sliced through the air like a strong wind carrying dust from the streets, and street vendors shouted in hopeful tones, offering their wares like spells to summon prosperity. The sounds piled over one another and slipped into one another, creating waves that never receded, as if the city were a living creature breathing with rough, tireless breaths. The smell of exhaust fumes mingled with the aroma of coffee from little stalls, the scent of wet earth left by last night's rain, and, every now and then, the fragrance of flowers carried over from the direction of the park.
Amid that roaring tide, Arini stood at the edge of Suropati Park, her small body dwarfed by the towering old trees. Her father's old camera hung around her neck, its slightly cloudy lens capturing the world in a way the naked eye never could. She looked up toward the banyan branches swaying gently, like giant hands whispering about the past.
A sooty-headed bulbul was perched there. Its yellow feathers blazed like a small ember amid the green leaves. Its chirping pierced the city's noise. Arini gave a faint smile and pressed the shutter button.
Click.
For a moment, the world stopped inside that frame. To everyone else, the bird might have been nothing more than a tiny speck that would soon vanish into the crowd. To Arini, it was a song of hope—a light slipping through the cracks of the darkness that had once enveloped her life.
Suropati Park was a little island in the middle of Jakarta's concrete ocean. Great trees formed a green canopy, filtering the sunlight into golden specks. The pond at the center of the park reflected the sky. The morning air carried the scent of wet earth and wildflowers hidden among the grass.
Arini drew a long breath. Here, she felt close to her father—the man who had been gone for two years and left traces of his love in every corner of her heart.
Her father had been a nature wanderer. He listened to the language of the wind, recognized birdsong, and always took Arini through parks when she was little.
“Look, Nini,” he had said one afternoon, pointing to sparrows busy building a nest. “They're small, but they have great spirit. They survive in the middle of this city's urban bustle. You have to be like that too, my child.”
Those words had never truly gone away. Whenever the world felt too big, her father's voice returned like a prayer recited in silence.
After her father died of a heart attack, Arini's world turned gray. She lost her direction until she found that old camera inside the closet. The camera was covered in scratches, but when Arini looked through its lens, she felt as if she were seeing the world through her father's eyes.
She began to take photographs of wildflowers, evening skies, and the birds that had become her friends. Every shot was a silent conversation. Every image was a small way to resist separation.
But that morning was different. The wind felt heavier. The air carried an unusual tremor, like a whisper that had not yet found a mouth. Arini gripped the camera tighter, but the feeling that she was being watched still would not go away.
She walked toward the pond. The sooty-headed bulbul pecked at a small fruit on a branch. Sparrows clustered at the water's edge. A turtle dove drank calmly. Arini photographed them all, then sat on an old wooden bench and checked the results.
The photos were sharp. The colors were vivid. Yet something was still missing—a soul that had not been captured, a secret that had not been spoken.
That was when another burst of chirping sounded.
The sound was soft but piercing, like a call from somewhere far away. Arini looked up. On a higher branch, a bird was staring at her.
Its upper body was dark blue, almost black beneath the shadow of the leaves. Its forehead and shoulders held a brighter blue sheen. Its throat and chest were orange, while its belly was clean white. That bird should have been living in the forest, not in a city park surrounded by busy roads.
Arini raised her camera. Click. Click. Click.
The bird did not fly away. Instead, it tilted its head, then hopped onto a lower branch. It was no more than two meters away. Its gaze made Arini feel as though it could see straight into the parts of her she found hardest to hide.
The bird chirped again. Its melody was both beautiful and strange, carrying memories, loss, and hope in a single breath.
“That bird is called Sikatan Cacing Jawa.”
Arini jerked and almost dropped her camera. A man stood several steps behind her. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, with curly, disheveled hair and thick glasses perched on his nose. His worn plaid shirt and faded jeans made him look like someone who spent more time in the field than in a lecture hall. His backpack appeared heavy.
“Sorry if I startled you,” he said. “I'm Rama.”
“Sikatan Cacing Jawa?” Arini looked at the bird. “I've never seen one before.”
“They rarely show up in the city. They usually live in forests and are critically endangered.” Rama glanced at the camera in her hands. “Do you like photographing birds?”
“Yeah.” Arini touched the camera's body. “It belonged to my father.”
Rama did not answer right away. His eyes moved from the camera to Arini's face, as if a simple sentence had just opened a door he had been searching for all this time.
“Is your father still alive?”
The question came too quickly. Arini lifted her face.
“No.”
“I'm sorry.”
“It's been two years.”
Rama nodded slowly. But his expression was more than sympathy. He seemed to be calculating the distance between one event and another.
“Two years,” he murmured. “That means since before the first appearance.”
“The first appearance of what?”
Rama looked around. The park was still surrounded by the sounds of traffic, but suddenly it felt quiet near them. The flycatcher remained perched, as if it were listening too.
“In the past three months, there have been five reports of forest birds appearing in Jakarta,” Rama said. “Menteng, Depok, even the port district. They appear briefly, then vanish. Always near someone who has recently lost a family member.”
A chill crept up the back of Arini's neck. “That's a coincidence.”
“Maybe.” Rama opened his backpack and took out a black notebook. Its cover was covered in scratches. He flipped through several pages. Inside were sketches of birds, coordinates, weather conditions, and dates written in tight lines.
“Coincidences usually don't leave a pattern,” he said.
One page held a drawing of a bird in dark blue, orange, and white. A date was written beneath it.
Arini recognized the date before she could finish reading it.
The date of her father's death.
It was as if her blood stopped flowing.
“Where did you get that date?”
“I didn't write it.” Rama slowly closed the notebook. “This notebook belonged to your father.”
Arini reached for it, but Rama pulled his hand away first.
“If you want to read it, come tomorrow morning. Alone.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You don't have to.” Rama looked straight at her. “Just trust the photo you took.”
Arini's fingers felt cold as she opened the camera gallery. The first photo showed the bird on the high branch. The second caught its tilted head. The third made Arini stop breathing.
Behind the bird, far among the shadows of the leaves, stood the figure of a man. His face was not fully visible. But the shape of his shoulders, his battered hat, and the slight hunch of his body were too familiar to mistake.
Her father.
The figure was staring straight at the camera.
Arini enlarged the image. The shadow across the man's face seemed to move. Not because her hand touched the screen, but because the image itself seemed unwilling to be watched for too long.
The camera screen flickered.
The photo turned black.
“No,” Arini whispered. “That can't be.”
The flycatcher spread its wings and flew behind the trees. Rama took a step back. For the first time, the calm left his face.
“Don't chase it,” he said.
“What happened?”
“It knows you've seen it.”
“Who?”
Rama did not answer.
From the branch where the bird had been perched came a single short chirp. It was not an ordinary chirp. Its tone broke apart, like three syllables forced from a distant throat.
Ni—ni.
Arini could not move. Only her father had ever used that nickname. Even her mother hardly ever said it.
Rama looked toward the trees, then said very softly, “Tomorrow, don't bring that camera.”
“Why?”
He looked at Arini, and for a moment it was clear that the man was frightened too.
“Because that camera wasn't left to you by your father.”
The wind stopped. The banyan leaves hung in silence.
Rama continued, “That camera is what found you.”
Arini looked down at the old object in her hands. Beneath the scratches on its body was a thin line she had never noticed before. The line formed the same wing emblem as the pattern on the stone near the pond.
A chirp sounded from behind the park fence. This time it was farther away. Lower. Like an answer from something unseen.
Rama put the notebook into his backpack.
“Tomorrow morning, come to this bench. Don't tell anyone. And if you hear your father's voice coming from those trees…”
“What?”
“Don't answer.”
Rama turned and left before Arini could stop him.
Arini remained standing beside the pond. On the camera screen, which had lit up again, the third photo reappeared, but her father's figure was gone. Only the flycatcher remained, watching her from between the branches.
In the lower corner of the photo, a dark gap showed between the banyan tree's roots. It looked like a small door deliberately hidden by earth and fallen leaves.
Beneath the image, thin lines appeared that she had never drawn. Slowly, they formed a single sentence:
Don't come alone, Nini.
Arini let the camera fall into her lap. She recognized the handwriting.
Her father's handwriting.
For the first time since the man died, Arini did not hope to hear his voice again.
She was afraid the voice really would answer.