free breeze.

…

Driving in the dark.

Little lights protrude, their gensets vibrate thru air and earth. They catch fish, eat them, sell them for petrol. Their satellite phones, available for a few hours a day, run on small car batteries collecting currents from the brightest sun on their solar panel. Ten years ago researchers from a few islands west installed those panels and yes, they still work.

Their area is subconsciously left out by the government and they gained de facto independence because, simply, no one cared. A small patch on the shores of Flores, I doubt they would know it before a week if one day the country ceased to exist. They do have radio, their main source of information; and they do contemplate on why they should not be a part of the neighboring country which radio signal reach them better than any other.

Their rocky narrow white roads are defined with beautiful rows of sunflower to their sides. Left and right. I pull my window down, put my head out like a dog leashed to my inner child again; and let sunflower petals slap my cheek everytime I pass by one. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven, twelve. Their pollens sedate me, making me believe that freedom is possible.

Perhaps.

[In the meanwhile, our jeep jumps up and down while trying to move smoothly forward.]

Then I sang to myself. Free breeze gathers tiny pieces of happiness glued together with honey.