Short Story: The Last Supper by by Lia Tjokro

Lia Tjokro shares a poignant tale featuring love and loss, making a reader go through a roller-coaster of emotions.

It was a night when the stars hid behind the bulbous stormclouds and the nocturnal insects were silent. The eerie shadow and protruding branches of the frangipani trees that lined both sides of the gravel path were like swaying monster arms that tried to grab whoever walked on the path.

Kala did not like the feeling as if some monster arms were trying to grab her, though she had always liked the frangipani trees and their flowers ever since she was a little girl. She had heard some people said that the frangipani, or kamboja in Indonesian, represented the spirit of someone who had passed away, that was why kamboja trees were used a lot to adorn cemetery and kamboja flowers for burial ceremonies. But she had also read that kamboja signified an unbreakable bond of an everlasting love, harmony, and purity.