And this one’s for Tangkahan Lagan and Pangkalan Brandan

It’s scary to think that one of the places you think you might return to someday - the one that resides strongly in your memories - is now gone.

A neighbouring family once lived, like us, in Tangkahan Lagan/Pangkalan Brandan in North Sumatra.  When we were there, the area was a thriving one, supported by the oil industry.  But my neighbours, who just visited TL/PB again, said that there was nothing there now anymore.  Pertamina has packed up their things and left.  The housing complexes are now guarded by marines, and my neighbours had to ask for permission to enter the area.  ”My children were born here!”

So they let them in, only to find a saddening, devastated, lonely place. Where there used to be thousand of people living now are ruins of buildings that 15 years ago were still in a very good condition — many of them were new when we were there.  It’s practically a dead town.

My neighbours reported that only the hospital is still intact, because it is being occupied by the marines.  Even my junior high school — that I still consider one of the best school I’ve ever been too — is not there anymore.  Funny, all these years, I’ve been dreaming several times of going to a white building that I think is my former school in Tangkahan Lagan.  In my dreams I feel lost, and I try to find other people there.  I see glimpses of people passing me by, or going into doors or corridors, but I’ve never really met them.

It’s only a dream, but even in reality,

I still remember the white walls,

the large windows,

the sports fields,

the great football fields where we could run and play and laugh,

the plantations that we walked every Fridays,

the great hall,

the comfortable library where we could always go and sit cross-legged with a good book (and where I read Tirani and Benteng, that forever set me on my path),

the librarian,

the courtyard,

the gardens,

the trees,

the small pools and the fountain,

the small canteen,

the art classes…

They’re all past.  Gone.  Vanished.

I can’t find any more words to say at the moment.  Let’s just put it that this whole thing makes me want to recite Ozymandias, or wish that I had penned Live Forever.