CUTS
PANG SAGOE'S...

Dor..dor....

Mmmmmmmmm

Dor..dor....

The voice no longer surprised me, a voice that although scared but still I heard. I don't know when this war ends? Questions that only God knows or only those who with selfishness want to make peace for us people who only have simple desires in this abandoned village.

Can plough the fields, grow crops in the fields or pray at dawn congregation to the mosque safely become the dream of every citizen of our village.

Kampung Sagoe is the name of my village, located far from urban. Our villagers will drop off once a week on Thursday to shop because it is a Sunday.

They also bring garden produce that will be sold in the sub-district market. It will happen if the situation is safe, different in case of gun contact. Villagers will choose to stay at home while lying on the ground floor of their homes.

Sagoe village became the village most often there is arms contact between government officials and rebel forces.

Tonight, a house suspected to be the headquarters of the rebels was blown up by government officials. The number of soldiers sent to our village is countless. The base on the hill is not far from my house.

The sound of steel vehicles and tanks belonging to the army decorated the road that night. No one dared to come out, we chose to lay on the ground floor that had been held mat.

The mouths of Abu and Umiku did not cease to pray for their son. Yep...My brother was one of those rebel forces.

No one knows if my brother is a rebel. Because my brother ran away from the boarding school to join the rebels.

The villagers only know that my brother is in the boarding house and not coming home. For the reason Abu put him into the pesantren in the district after graduating from elementary school to avoid the invitation to join the rebellion.

We found out about it when we visited it a year later. Teungku, our call to everyone who works as a naji teacher. One of my friends at the boarding school told us that my brother had left the boarding school and said a word.

Abu and Umi are disappointed, they are sad to hear it but what can be done. It's all been happening. Abu and Umi strongly disapproved of this act of rebellion. It is not their will that is achieved but many lives that are lost. The child becomes an orphan, the wife becomes a widow. Abu reminded him often. But unfortunately, my brother named Teuku Muhammad Ilham was running away from boarding school after a year of living there.

There are no boys in my village in high school. The location of distant schools and the association of the rebels with children who are interested when seeing weapons will certainly make them easily follow the invitation of the rebels. They did not even know what the purpose of the rebellion was.

Don't ask me, my school's only up to 4th grade. The rest I taught myself from the remaining books. Abu and Umi always say if girls do not need high school because it will only take care of husbands and children. And my fate ended as they said. Once I could read and count, I was forbidden to go back to school for safety reasons.

I followed and only learned to teach in the village until I grew up to be a girl. Don't ask me how my brother's face is now because we haven't seen each other in a long time. Our age was not far away, when he entered the boarding school he was thirteen years old and I was ten.

Now I am eighteen years old and he is already a grown man with twenty-one years of age. We haven't seen each other for eight years, is he more handsome? Or is he now mustachioed and bearded? I don't know until the strange noises behind the kitchen break my daydream.

"What's that sound, Abu?" I asked a little scared.

"Mother doesn't know either, maybe the sound of a ferret or a cantalong." Abu answered with a worried look.

"Search every house!" The sound of screaming from the outside was clearly heard by us from inside because our house with walled boards was certainly not soundproof.

Tok.dok...

"Open the door!" The sound of knocking on the door scared us all.

Excuse them to enter all parts of my house, open the wardrobe, under the bed until the kitchen also did not escape the examination of government troops.

"Is there a boy in this house?" Ask someone with a higher rank than the others. I can judge from how the soldiers who ruffled my house reported to him.

Nervously Abu replied, "No, sir."

I who was forced out with Umi continued to look down fearfully did not dare to look at them. "Is this a son or daughter-in-law?" Ask back.

"My biological son, sir."

"Have you checked everything?"

"Ready Dan, all checked." Answer the soldiers I believe are his men.

"If anyone comes for help, report to us immediately!" His last command was on Abu before they came out of my house.

Ash closed the door, then went back into the room with us. That night, we were unable to sleep comfortably until just before dawn strange noises were heard in the back of the kitchen.

The ashes took the machete that was commonly used to mow the grass in the fields. Slowly Abu opened the door and we looked with anxious faces.

"Abuuu." The ringing of the voice of a man hiding in the lush patchouli behind my house.

"Ilham." Say Abu with a choked voice.

"Stop, you don't ever come here again! Abu's son in the boarding school you're not my son." Ash closed the kitchen door and went into his room.

Umi and I could only look at the brother who was holding the wound. I'm sure even though Abu didn't accept it but deep down, Abu must have been very worried about my brother.

Abu must be a dilemma, if Abu is caught bringing my brother in, our family will bear the risk.

Ash came out with a fifteen-kilo sack of rice into the kitchen and wrapped the rice last night and put a bottle of still-warm water from the flask into the sack in which it already existed some of the cloth and clothes that Abu used.

Abu threw the sack into the patchouli and then a moment later I heard strange noises slowly moving away from behind the bush.

After the explosion of the headquarters that people say is the largest in our district, the security forces who used to have difficulty entering our village are now conducting checks on every road passed by the villagers.

I don't know how many hundred people or even thousands of soldiers are in my village right now. Every passerby is always asked about the 'Pang Sagoe' designation for the rebel leader who is so famous and slippery that it is difficult to catch.

No one knew his face, the man nicknamed 'Pang Sagoe' was extremely mysterious.

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