The quiet night held more than it could ever explain. And behind a half-open window, Fani slept—with a face far from peaceful.
In her dream, a car horn echoed faintly, followed by hurried footsteps and a scream from someone she could no longer remember.
The sky was cloudy, just like that day.The day everything changed.
Little Fani was running.In her hand, a piece of torn bread; in her eyes, the playground across the street.
She didn't know why, but her heart felt so light back then—like the red balloon she once let go into the sky.
And then… everything blurred.
Screeching brakes. Blinding light.Her body felt light, then heavy, then nothing at all.As if the world had stopped, and there was only silence.
***
When Fani opened her eyes, the world was no longer the same.
The white ceiling of the hospital stared back at her without expression.The smell of antiseptic crept into her senses—like an unwelcome memory.
She tried moving her legs—a reflex that once came naturally.But nothing happened.
No feeling. No response.As if her body had been cut off from herself.
"Where am I?" she whispered, her voice too soft, as if afraid to be heard.
No one answered.Only the steady beeping of the heart monitor remained—rhythmic, flat, cold.
Then the door opened. Her mother walked in, eyes swollen, lips trembling—but there was no embrace.
No questions. No comforting words.Just a gaze quickly turned toward the window.
From that day on, Fani knew something had changed.Not only in her legs—but in everything around her.
In the way people looked at her, spoke to her, even touched her.
Everything became... thin.As if she had become someone only half-seen.
And for the first time in her still-small life, she felt lost.
***
The first night at home, after leaving the hospital, was quieter than the sterile hospital room.
Fani sat in a small wheelchair, a bunny-patterned blanket on her lap.In the corner of the room, her old stuffed animals stared blankly from the shelf—as if unsure what to say.No one had explained to her what had really happened.She only knew: she couldn't walk.
The doctor spoke to her mother. Her mother spoke to her siblings.But no one truly spoke to her.
"Can I go outside to play later?" she asked softly during dinner.
Her mother paused. The spoon hung in the air.Then, with a forced warmth in her voice, she replied, "Another time, dear…"
And from that moment on, "another time" became a promise that was never kept.
Day by day, Fani began to understand—The deepest wound wasn't in her body.But in the way people loved her.
They loved her with distance, with caution, with a pity she never asked for.
Smiles once full now thinned like paper.Hugs turned awkward.And the simple questions she once heard daily, never came again.
***
The home she once knew slowly became unfamiliar.
Her mother still cooked as usual.Her sister still laughed quietly at her favorite soap operas.
But no one called her name from the kitchen anymore.No one invited her to play or sit together in the living room.
As if, ever since those wheels appeared beneath her, Fani no longer belonged in their story.
She kept trying to smile.She thought—maybe it just takes time.Maybe they just weren't used to it yet.
But time passed. And each day became a blank page.
They talked to each other, but not to her.They greeted her when needed, but not out of longing.
And the most painful part:They didn't get angry.They didn't scold.They didn't hate her.
They just… weren't truly there.
Fani often watched her mother from behind the door.The woman was busy in the kitchen, wiping sweat from her brow while stirring the pot.
But every time their eyes met, her mother only gave a faint smile—a smile like someone trying to be polite to a stranger at a bus stop.
Then she would turn away, back to the kitchen.Without a word.
Fani wanted to cry, but even her tears seemed unsure.
***
Night became her most loyal companion.Under the dim light of her desk lamp, Fani began building her own world.
A world where the wheelchair wasn't a curse, but a small boat sailing through unreachable places.
She began to write.At first, just a sentence or two—often broken, unfinished.
But slowly, words became bridges.
Between her and her pain.Between her and the spaces in the house she couldn't reach.
Sometimes she wrote about her mother—not the real one, but a fictional figure warm and full of hugs.Sometimes about the sea—one she'd never seen, but imagined as a place where she could float, weightless and free.
She wrote about loneliness.Not with the word "lonely," but with the clink of a glass in the kitchen that no longer called her to dinner.With footsteps that walked away whenever she came near.
Her written world was quiet, but not mute.Still, but not frightening.
And among the lines she sowed, Fani slowly began to stand.Not with her legs—but with a heart that refused to die.
***
Fani didn't know when she fell in love with words.
Maybe it started with a picture book gifted by a kind kindergarten teacher.Or maybe when she realized letters could take her to other worlds—where her body could run, leap, even dance.
The outside world often felt too small.Her home never truly warm.At school, she was like a forgotten shadow.
But in books, she could be anyone.A princess who could heal the world.A bird flying past the horizon.Or just a little girl who was heard without speaking.
In her dim little room, among hand-me-down books from her sisters, Fani began to write.
With shaky handwriting, she scribbled everything pressing against her chest.Sadness, longing, and questions never asked at the dinner table.
"What did I do wrong?"That was the first sentence she wrote.She still remembered it clearly.
After that, the words flowed like rain that couldn't be stopped.Sometimes heavy. Sometimes a drizzle no one heard.But always present.
***
Fani had long known silence.
Ever since her feet could no longer touch the ground, since her steps no longer echoed, her world began to shrink.
She learned to read faces from a lower angle—from the wheelchair, from the floor, from places no one paid attention to.
Her mother rarely scolded her. But rarely hugged her too.That was the hardest part.
Silence at the dinner table hurt more than yelling.Empty stares pierced deeper than words.
On her sister's eleventh birthday, Fani sat in a corner—near the fan that buzzed like a sleepy bee.No one asked her to blow the candles.No one invited her to make a wish.She just watched the cake from afar, hugging her worn-out teddy bear.
And that night, like so many others, she wrote.
In an old kindergarten notebook.Scribbles she never showed anyone.
About a doll that wanted to speak but had no voice.A child who could fly but didn't know how to return home.An ocean so vast—yet with no boat.
At school, she wasn't popular.But there was one teacher—Miss Rini, her Bahasa Indonesia teacher—who once found a piece of her poem between assignments.
"Your heart is beautiful," she said softly."But you often hide it too deep."
Fani didn't answer then.But when she got home, she cried alone in her room.
Not from sadness.But because, for the first time, an adult saw her not as a disabled child—But as someone with depth.With a voice.
And maybe that's when she began to write not to complain—But to live.
***
Time moved slowly in Fani's world.But in her mind, time often ran.
She discovered other worlds in pages.Old books from neighbors.Magazines brought home by her siblings.Worn-out novels from the school library.
In them, she could be anyone—a boy solving mysteries, a girl walking through fields of lavender, or a bird soaring beyond oceans.
She couldn't run—but her thoughts surpassed every wall.She couldn't stand—but her heart stood tall among rubble and pain.
Fani loved words not just for their beauty—But because she could hide inside them.
She could rewrite her life through sentences.Create different endings.Build rooms where she was invited to sit—not pushed aside.
And in the midst of all that, she began to understand— That to be isolated didn't mean to disappear.That to be wounded didn't mean to break.That she was still whole—Even when she felt lost.
***
And in that dream, little Fani still stood by the roadside.
Her body motionless.Her eyes gazing at something far—far beyond anyone's reach.
The car never stopped.Her mother's embrace never came.And the world went on as if nothing had changed.
But in the silence that wrapped her long night's sleep,something hadn't been completely lost.
A realization quietly blooming between wounds and stillness.
That even if she could no longer stand like before…
She was still here.Still alive.Still listening.