The Land of a Ship : Inspirative Story by Asma Nadia
https://kampusmilyarder.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-land-of-ship-inspirative-story-by.html
The Land of a Ship
By : Asma Nadia
Last night I dreamed that I was on the grandest cruise ship that has ever existed. It was made of select metals that were not only strong, but also worth more than their weight in gold.
I quickly saw respected, upper-class passengers, as well as the ship’s staff and personal servants, who became waiters on the ship.
The grand ship did not always have a smooth journey. There were big storms along the way, but none was strong enough to keep it from splitting waters of the ocean.
No one knew who started it, but some people began to pick at the walls, which were made from expensive materials. They picked at them bit by bit. More and more passengers joined in, eager to increase their wealth.
The ship security officers and some passengers knew about these hidden crimes. But it was not easy to find evidence, because they did it in the privacy of their own cabins.
Some small restless groups did not have any power to do anything about it. Even more dangerous was the activity of passengers who lived near the hull. Day and night they never stopped picking at the ship because the precious metals there were the thickest. They did not seem to care about the risk of the hull leaking if it was thin enough and therefore sinking the ship.
This went on for days and days, until the ship started to face a serious threat. But the entertainment provided on the ship, sometimes magic shows, often made all passengers forget about the state of emergency, even to the point of getting used to it. Whenever concerns arose they just hoped that the ship would reach the shores soon.
Was there really no law enforcement on the ship? Apparently there was.
I saw them arrest an old woman and put her in jail for stealing a leftover chocolate bar that belonged to rich folks who weren’t even interested in eating it all. At another time they detained a teenager on the charge of stealing a pair of worn sandals. They detained a waiter for allegedly stealing his master’s plates. A father was even thrown into a room that doubled as a prison cell, just for charging his cell phone in the hallway without permission, and is considered stealing electricity.
All officers on the grand ship seemed to be very busy dealing justice to small people, so that they did not have any time or energy left to take care of large matters. As people continued to undermine the ship, the walls were getting thinner and thinner, and the ship was getting more and more unstable.
The unusual dream journey led me to a conversation, in which a passenger asked an officer about why no one was taking action when these activities threatened the lives of all the ship passengers.
With a mechanical attitude and smile, the officer explained that it is important to enforce the law on the principles of presumption of innocence, or in their simple interpretation, they could not investigate a crime if there was no report.
I sighed, my chest constricted as I imagined the fate of this great ship and its passengers. It was not easy to report the rich people who had tactics in place to protect their greed. Those who reported them could be accused of defamation, according to the law passed down to us from colonialists. But despite my anxiety, these last few days I heard the sound of helicopters more and more frequently, carrying away passengers and crates of their booty.
As the situation became more dire, I looked to the captain’s cabin. I was almost crying in panic and could not imagine the tragic end that loomed over this beautiful ship.
The only hope lay on the captain’s shoulders. In the middle of this vast ocean, he was the only person who had the authority to take emergency measures to save the ship.
Meanwhile, water slowly but surely began to break through the holes in the walls, and the water level rose higher and higher. Panic broke out. The air was filled with shrieks and cries of the people who ran for their lives.
I waited. I kept waiting for the captain to act. But before I could see what the captain would do, I woke up.
It was only a dream, but the tears in my eyes remained. (as published in Republika News Paper, the epaper link is :
