20
IN HER DREAMS, Melati ran down the corridor towards her apartment. A mob of people followed her, shouting and throwing things and calling her a traitor. However fast she ran, she never made any progress. The floor under her feet moved like a treadmill. A door opened ahead and a ghost floated out, a wraith-like figure carrying two knives. He didn’t look like Pak but in the dream she knew it was Pak. He yelled at her, Why did you let her go?
Melati woke up more tired than she’d been going to sleep.
After a few bites of stale biscuits, the type miners took when they went out—God, how long had they been in her pantry?—she found that Desi and Jao had ignored her orders and were waiting outside, to the curiosity of some of her little cousins who peeped around the corner of a door, giggling
