Jono left under his wife’s watchful gaze. Erni kept staring at his still sturdy back until he disappeared around the bend in front of their house. Then, with anxious eyes, she went back inside.
The narrow yard was still filled with chairs and benches. The night before, the house had hosted a gathering—a thanksgiving ritual for safety and sustenance at sea.
For a week now, the sea had yielded nothing. The fish seemed to have vanished, and the waters had turned unfriendly. It was unusual for the sea to behave that way during these months. Anomalies seemed to be happening more frequently, and Jono had no understanding of what was causing them.
The elders said the sea had grown angry because humans had committed too many sins. Immorality was everywhere, and people no longer felt ashamed of harming others. Forests were being stripped bare, trash was thrown carelessly, and eventually that waste found its way into the sea and damaged it.
For a fisherman like Jono, going a week without a catch was like being killed slowly. There was no income for his family. Everything became more complicated. Many other fishermen in the village felt the same way. So, to prevent the situation from dragging on, the villagers held a meeting.
Hamdi, the village elder, suggested holding another thanksgiving ritual. Its purpose was to drive away bad luck from the sea. According to him, the ritual would help ward off disaster, like their current predicament, and prevent fortune from drifting farther away.
“Toni, before you leave, please tidy up the chairs and tables in front of the house,” Erni’s voice broke the silence inside.
Toni, the eldest son of Erni and Jono, was still busy organizing his backpack. He glanced briefly at his mother, then returned to packing the remaining clothes he needed.
“But Mom, I don’t have time to return those chairs to the neighborhood head’s house. Can Tedi help return them?”
“Tedi won’t be home until this afternoon. What time are you leaving?”
“Soon, Mom. Maybe after I finish with the chairs.”
“Is it really necessary for you to go now? You just got home. Can’t your work be postponed?”
“It’s difficult, Mom. It seems like an important order from my boss. I won’t be gone long—maybe by next week everything will be settled.”
“Your father just went back out to sea. Who will be at home if he’s not here? Tedi, as you know, only plays around. He’s never home.”
“I’ll tell Tedi to come home every night. If he doesn’t, just cut his weekly allowance.”
Erni sighed and continued frying squid. After finishing, she invited Toni to eat. During the meal, she asked again, “What are you going to handle this time?”
“I’m going to move the rain,” Toni replied while chewing.
“Move the rain? Can rain be moved?”
“It can now, Mom. With advanced technology. We can even create rain. Now we can move rain from densely populated areas to places where no one lives, so it won’t cause floods and trouble.”
“That sounds like a rain shaman. They can hold back rain and move it too.”
“With shamans it’s a gamble. Now we use airplanes to make rain.”
Erni sighed again, looking at her eldest son. He was indeed very intelligent. People in the village even said he had become an engineer. But he cared too much about others, sometimes forgetting himself.
Even now, in his thirties, he still refused to marry. As Erni remembered, only once had Toni brought a girl home. That relationship ended, it seemed, after the girl saw the modest condition of their house.
Every night Erni prayed that Toni would find a suitable life partner. He was too kind to live alone in this world. Who would take care of him when his parents were gone?
That prayer never left her lips, even after Toni departed again to finish his work in the city.
The city felt quiet—not because of a holiday, but because the continuous rain had caused panic. In the newspaper Toni read on the way, many urban areas were flooded. Floodwaters had even entered the State Palace and submerged the city center. Business and economic activity had come to a halt. Those living along riverbanks suffered the worst losses. Many were reported dead.
Fortunately, the taxi carrying Toni managed to reach the office entrance. The crowded parking lot allowed him to slip away unnoticed by the attendant. After taking an empty elevator, he arrived at his office door.
Voices echoed from the meeting room next to his office—the daily morning meeting had begun. Before entering, Toni decided to stop by his desk first. His inbox must have been full. He wanted to check and reply before joining. But before he could sit down, a sharp voice called from across the room.
“Toni, get to the meeting room immediately. The boss is waiting,” shouted Neni, whose piercing voice was infamous. People in the office avoided her; her voice was loud and grating. Only because she was the CEO’s secretary did people endure her.
Toni hurried to the meeting room. It would cause trouble later if he lingered at his desk. He decided he would check messages on his phone during the meeting instead.
Inside, many were already seated around a large round table. The boss sat at one end, studying a stack of papers. Toni quickly took an empty seat.
“Emergency situation. Get ready to fly again,” whispered Leki beside him.
Toni barely reacted, busy opening messages on his phone. He didn’t want to fly this time. He had plans to meet old college friends for rafting—reliving the thrill of wild rapids.
Suddenly, papers slammed against the table.
“Given the current situation, we must conduct artificial rain again. But this time not for drought areas. The rain will be directed to uninhabited regions,” the boss declared.
The room fell silent.
“Rainfall in major cities is too heavy. With our knowledge, we must identify the factors triggering rain and accelerate it before the clouds reach the cities,” he continued.
Sinta, a rain-engineering scientist, pointed out that they lacked infrared equipment for night cloud detection. The boss instructed them to maximize salt seeding during the day and use lasers to break up clouds offshore.
Dendi, a climate expert, warned that rain clouds around major cities were already too abundant.
“Do everything we can. We act for the public good,” the boss concluded.
Then he assigned Toni to lead the first salt-seeding operation.
“But sir, I’ve applied for leave this weekend,” Toni protested.
The boss gave no reply.
Frustrated, Toni slammed the table after the boss left. “Cancel your weekend plans. Prepare to make rain,” he told his team.
Five days later, the rain-making aircraft had flown three missions. On the third, Toni joined. They would fly over the northern Java Sea, where massive clouds had gathered, threatening to dump heavy rain over the nearby city.
Sacks of dried salt filled the aircraft cabin. Once spread into the clouds, the salt would accelerate the merging of water droplets, causing them to fall as rain.
Within fifteen minutes, they were airborne. Black clouds loomed ahead. The plane shook violently inside the storm.
“How long can we stay in this cloud?” Toni asked.
“Ten minutes maximum. Beyond that, the risk is too high,” replied the pilot.
They released the salt in bursts, exiting and reentering the cloud repeatedly until their supply ran out.
Two hours later, low on fuel, they returned to base. Toni sat weakly behind the pilot, grateful to have survived once more.
Upon landing, a soldier hurried toward him with a fax. The soldier’s face signaled bad news.
The letter was from Toni’s younger sibling. Their father had been missing at sea for days. The heavy, relentless rain over the ocean was unlike anything typical for the fishing season. (Sulung Prasetyo)