“Why do you want to go to a school so far from home?”

 

“Why? I don’t know…”

 

That was what I would have said when I was younger.

 

But now? I have a reason.

 

The reason was to explore.

 

We were born to reach toward the unknown, raised to hold no fear of what has not yet arrived, raised to be brave enough to stretch our hands toward that very thing and feel what it is to be free…

 

This is a story of Me.

 

Their smiles…wide…. Genuine…. unburdened……

 

The sun climbed to its zenith, spilling molten gold through the windows, and the halls swam with the restless energy of wandering childlike spirits—their footsteps drumming like stars about to burst from their orbits.

 

In a room overflowing with that shared electricity sat a boy in the corner. Silent. Observant.

 

A tightly coiled spring, trembling at the edge of release with the slightest touch.

 

Suddenly— “Everyone! Gather up. There is an important announcement.” A teacher clapped her hands, shattering the hum of the room like a stone through glass.

 

“Must be another one of those useless announcements…” The boy sighed, rose from his chair, and drifted toward the neighbouring classroom where the gathering was held.

 

The others surged forward, scrambling for seats like tide against shore. The boy was left with the front row. He sat down, though every bone in him resisted. His fingers tapped a restless rhythm against the table. His head dipped, drowsiness seeping through his limbs like honey through cracks—

 

“Good morning, everyone!”

 

The students roared back: “Morning! Morning! Morning!” The sound crashed through the room, jolting him awake. His head snapped upward, whiplash sharp, and he rubbed his eyes as the fog of sleep cleared.

 

Then his vision focused on what was presented before him.

His eyes widened.

 

It was a promotion for a school—but it was not the buildings that caught him. It was the activity. The way the people there worked together, cleaning, building, laughing. And most importantly—their smiles. Wide. Genuine. Unburdened.

 

That was what captured him. The way their faces shone while doing the simplest things. It felt like a calling. Helping others, making them smile—it had always been his unspoken dream, and now it stood before him, tangible as breath.

His heart set on that very school.

 

Days passed. The boy waited, though patience had never been his companion. He packed his clothes, convinced his family to let him go abroad to a province so far from home it might as well have been another world.

His mother, however, wore a knowing smile when he told her the name of the school.

“An old friend of mine,” she said softly, “is sending her daughter there as well. The same age as you. Perhaps you will meet her.”

The boy had only shrugged. He knew of the friend—a name whispered in his mother’s stories, a face in faded photographs. But the daughter? A stranger. A ghost of a possibility. He did not dwell on her.

 

He told his friends where he was going, and their questions followed him like shadows:

 

“Why did you choose that school?”

 

“Why do you want to go so far?”

 

“What is your intention?”

 

The questions echoed in his head, over and over, until they became the rhythm of his heartbeat.

 

Finally, the day arrived…

 

The boy stepped into the car, turning to wave at his family. His smile held something fierce—determination, passion, an immense hunger to explore the shape of the world beyond his doorstep. Days bled into weeks as he waited for his flight. In the meantime, he and his mother wandered through shops, gathering essentials for his boarding life. Fourteen days. Long, but not long enough.

 

And then—the day of the flight.

The boy and his mother soared through the clouds, the island shrinking beneath them like a forgotten dream. The flight was smooth. He drifted between sleep and the quiet pleasure of eating. His mother sat beside him, silent, her hand occasionally brushing his as if to assure herself he was still there.

Hours passed. They landed in Jogja.

 

The two mothers fell into easy conversation……

 

The airport was a river of strangers—bodies flowing, voices clashing, luggage wheels groaning against the polished floor. The boy followed his mother through the currents, his eyes heavy with fatigue.

 

“There she is,” his mother whispered.

The boy looked up.

A woman stood a few paces away, her face breaking into the same radiant recognition. Beside her, half-hidden behind her mother’s shoulder, stood a girl his age.

 

Her eyes were wide, uncertain, scanning the crowd as if searching for an anchor. When her gaze found him, she froze.

The two mothers rushed toward each other, arms outstretched, laughter spilling from their lips like water from a cracked vessel.

 

They embraced—two old friends, separated by years and distance, now reunited in the liminal space of an airport terminal.

And the boy and the girl stood apart, watching.

He had never met her before. Not truly. Perhaps they had crossed paths as infants, carried in their mothers’ arms, but those memories were not his to claim.

 

She was a stranger. A face he had never seen, a voice he had never heard.

And yet—as she stepped forward, hesitantly, to stand beside her mother—he felt something stir. A recognition that had nothing to do with memory.

 

She glanced at him. He glanced back. Neither spoke.

But something passed between them—a quiet, electric thread. Two arrows, loosed from different bows, now finding themselves aimed at the same distant target.

 

“Ah,” his mother said, wiping a tear from her eye, “so this is your daughter. She has grown so much.”

“And this is your son,” the other mother replied, her voice warm with wonder. “I would not have recognized him.”

 

The two mothers fell into easy conversation, their words weaving together the years they had missed. But the boy and the girl remained silent, orbiting each other like planets discovering a shared gravity.

 

They travelled together to Malioboro.

On the train, the mothers sat side by side, their heads bent close, trading stories and laughter. The boy and the girl sat across from them, separated by the narrow aisle, their eyes occasionally meeting and then darting away.

 

He watched the landscape rush past—rice paddies, distant mountains, villages folding into one another. She did the same, her forehead pressed to the glass.

 

Three days and two nights they spent in Malioboro. The mothers dragged them through markets, through temples, through the humid, history-soaked streets.

 

The ride to the school was long…..

 

Then, once more, they boarded the train—this time, finally, toward Purwokerto.

 

The four of them sat together now. The mothers, still whispering and laughing. The boy and the girl, side by side, watching the world unspool like a ribbon. Their shoulders almost touched. Their silences had grown comfortable.

 

“Tell me again,” his mother said softly, “why this school?”

He turned to her, and the answer came without hesitation. “Because I want to see who I become when no one is watching.”

His mother smiled, though her eyes glistened.

 

And the two mothers exchanged a glance—a long, knowing look that held all the grief and pride of letting their children go.

At the Purwokerto station, a staff member stood waiting with a sign.

 

The boy, his mother, the girl, and her mother—all four of them gathered in the same circle, exchanging the shy, hopeful smiles of travellers who had found each other along the way.

 

The ride to the school was long, winding through roads lined with trees and small stalls. The mothers sat together now, their hands intertwined. Their children sat opposite them, watching the horizon grow closer.

 

Finally, they were home…..

 

Finally, they arrived.

They were greeted with smiles—the same smiles the boy had seen in the promotional pictures. Warm. Genuine. The kind that made you feel you had come home, even though home was an island away.

The boy stepped out of the car. His feet touched the unfamiliar earth, and he breathed in the air—thick with green, heavy with possibility.

 

The boy’s mother stood in front of the boy, smoothing down his collar with trembling hands. “Take care of yourself,” she whispered.

“I will, Ma,” he said. And for the first time, he meant it with his whole heart.

 

Together, the four of them stood at the threshold.

Two mothers, whose friendship had weathered years and oceans.

Two children, who had been strangers until an airport in Jogja brought them together.

 

The boy, who had once been silent and restless.

The girl, who had once been quiet and waiting.

And their mothers, who carried their own silent grief and their own fierce pride.

 

They did not walk through the gates together. But they stood side by side—two families, bound by old friendship and new possibility, arriving at the same shore.

 

Finally, they were home.

Not the home they had left behind.

But the home they had been searching for all along.

 

End.

 

Written by Aegydius Lieling A.

Class: X (10th Grade)

Location: Kumala Café,

Commemorating the birth of Saint Eugene de Mazenod [1 August 2026]