This is a shortcut. A shortcut connecting the Kukusan area in Depok City to southern Jakarta. Although it is called Jalan Serengseng Sawah, there isn’t a single rice field left along this road. Nor are there any serengseng plants. However, if you take this road, you can still find a sizable reservoir, Setu Babakan.
In the mornings and evenings, this road is busy with vehicles transporting people to and from work. The road is not very long but has many twists and turns, along with gentle inclines and declines. Houses are tightly packed along the road, interspersed with businesses and a few schools. Occasionally, traffic jams occur when public transport stops or cars are parked haphazardly along the roadside, as the road is only wide enough for small four-wheeled vehicles to pass each other.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, this road was deserted as people were restricted from going outside, and many were advised to work from home. The only frequent traffic was ambulances carrying the bodies of those who succumbed to the deadly virus. A new, expansive cemetery was built at the end of this road to bury the victims of the virus. In no time, the new cemetery was filled with graves, devoid of any floral tributes.
When the pandemic ended, the road became busy again, even more so than before. In the mornings, it was once again filled with various vehicles—motorcycles, private cars, public transport, and pushcarts crowding the road. Amid this hustle and bustle, there was a new sight. Every morning, a wheelchair competed for space on this road.
A middle-aged man, always dressed in a simple t-shirt and shorts, with slightly dark skin and curly hair, pushed a wheelchair from the direction of Jakarta. If you travel on Jalan Serengseng Sawah between seven and nine in the morning, you are sure to see him. He pushed the wheelchair with measured care, as if handling a precious artifact. Naturally so, because the person in the wheelchair was an elderly woman, frail and thin, with wrinkled skin and sparse white hair.
This became a familiar sight on the road after the pandemic. Where they came from or which alley they emerged from was a mystery, but as soon as the sun began to warm the earth from the east, the wheelchair’s wheels started to roll slowly along the asphalt. Not on the left side but the right edge of the road, facing oncoming traffic. It was always like this.
The elderly woman seemed indifferent to the heavy traffic. Sometimes she closed her sunken eyes, and at other times she opened them with a vacant stare. She sat motionless in the wheelchair, letting her thin frame, clothed only in a light shirt and a short skirt, bask in the morning sun. Perhaps it was the warmth she sought for its health benefits.
They never spoke to each other. The middle-aged man pushing the wheelchair also never engaged the woman in conversation. He pushed the wheelchair with solemn dedication, in silence, occasionally stopping to let a car pass. Once the car was gone, he resumed pushing the wheelchair, his gaze always straight ahead. He never looked left or right, nor did he greet those passing by. People around him only glanced in passing. I did the same the first time I saw him.
One day, when my pushcart nearly collided with the wheelchair, we exchanged glances, and I returned his smile. That was the first time I saw the middle-aged man smile. That day, I was running late to sell my dawet ice at Setu Babakan. In my hurry, I pushed my cart quickly. At a downhill bend in the road, just in front of a mosque near the entrance to Setu Babakan, my cart suddenly sped up. I struggled to slow it down. Luckily, the middle-aged man stopped his wheelchair first. I had a split second to maneuver, stopping my cart and avoiding a collision with the wheelchair. At that moment, the middle-aged man smiled at me, and I smiled back. The elderly woman in the wheelchair seemed unaffected by the incident. She remained motionless. But from that day on, every time we passed each other, the middle-aged man and I exchanged smiles. But that was all.
After some time, I stopped seeing him. I wondered what had happened. I secretly missed him, the elderly woman, and the wheelchair. Imagining him, I pictured myself pushing a wheelchair with my mother in it. I felt a pang of envy because I had longed to buy a wheelchair for my mother, bedridden for years due to a stroke. She was the same age as the elderly woman in the wheelchair.
One day, the middle-aged man reappeared. This time, his presence shocked me. He looked the same, as if nothing had happened. He continued to push the wheelchair along the same part of the road. What shocked me was what was on the wheelchair. No longer the elderly woman, but various old items. There was a small box, a fan blade, a rice cooker, some tattered books, a few bottles in a crumpled plastic bag, some worn-out shoes, a pot, an old bucket, and other miscellaneous items. Despite the change in the wheelchair’s contents, the middle-aged man smiled when we passed each other, and that was all. I didn’t dare ask if he was now a junk dealer. Strangely, the items in the wheelchair never changed; it was always the same old things.
This didn’t last long. A few days later, I stopped seeing him again. Sometimes I left earlier and walked slower, hoping his schedule had changed, but I still didn’t see him. Curious, I asked a local at Setu Babakan if they knew the middle-aged man who pushed the wheelchair. To my surprise, someone did and gave me his name and address.
Without hesitation, even though it was midday, I left Setu Babakan, pushing my cart to the middle-aged man’s address. After navigating narrow alleys, I finally found his house. He was sitting on the porch, surrounded by the same old items from the wheelchair, but the wheelchair was nowhere in sight. He noticed me and greeted me with a smile. I poured some dawet ice into a glass and handed it to him.
“Delicious,” he said after sipping my dawet ice. I sat next to him. As he enjoyed the drink, I asked about the elderly woman he used to push in the wheelchair. Holding his glass tightly, eyes distant, he shared his story. He had spent years caring for his mother, who had suffered a stroke. He felt fortunate and happy when a neighbor gave him a used wheelchair. He could finally take his mother out, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun. Those, he said, were his happiest moments.
“But that happiness was short-lived,” he said. The stroke eventually claimed his mother’s life. His eyes welled up. Looking at the scattered old items, I asked if he had started selling junk.
“No,” he said. After a pause, he continued, “I just didn’t want the happiness to end. After my mother passed, I filled the wheelchair with these old items to match her weight and pushed it as if she were still there.”
I felt tears well up as I listened. I imagined myself pushing a wheelchair with my mother in it. “Where is the wheelchair now? Perhaps I could borrow it, or buy it on an installment plan if you’re not using it anymore,” I asked.
He stood up and led me inside his house. “Look,” he said, squatting beside the wheelchair. “That cursed ambulance destroyed everything.”
A few days ago, he said, the wheelchair was hit by a speeding ambulance. It was thrown onto the sidewalk, crashing into a rich man’s gate. The frame was broken, one wheel bent nearly into a figure-eight.
“I had to carry it home,” he said, stroking the wheelchair. I squatted beside him, also caressing the now-junk wheelchair.
Translated from here.