Mendut

People in the street understand his punishment. They looked upon him as an important royal personage temporarily in distress. Only the children dared mock him, by throwing unripe mangoes at him and circling him, laughing. When he got mad, he tried to catch them, but mostly

it was an unsuccessful effort, so he would drift away in a stony silence. This wretched person was formerly known as Tumenggung Wiroguno, the lord of the royal palace.

It is the seventh year when the cycle always falls on Ruwah, a very holy month the Javanese commemorate the dead by sending them food and incense for their souls and, also, leave at their graves offerings of myrrh, holy basil, and flowers.

He started vacating his living quarters by gathering his few belongings. He had once owned a princely estate. He knew he had to comply. From his scruffy garden with overgrown dry lemongrass, he left for the cemetery, walking barefoot on the dusty road, escorted by his two twin royal servants and a bony dog. Along the way through the winding alleys, his loose dodot cloth swept the earth. He did not miss the thunderous weather in the north coast or the unbelievable blizzards in the mountains.

The scent of the myrrh wafted from the cemetery, confusing him in his suffering. When the moon rose to a bright glow in the sky, he said to himself, "Ahh, I remember." His eyes, red from crying, eventually glowed. As the moon swept its white light along the north Java coast and the ocean’s waters rose into higher waves breaking onto the rocky cliffs, he suffered the pain of remembering.

"It is an order I must obey," he shouted aloud along the way.

People stared at him every day and called him, Kandjeng Tumenggung edan taun (Lord Tumenggung with the yearly mad curse).

"Ndjeng Tumenggung, ndjeng Tumenggung, what did you do?" the first child taunted repeatedly.

"Leave him alone child!" an adult yelled, trying to disrupt the child’s play.

"He was jealous!" another child tormented.

"No, he wasn’t.....he was.....," another child began to interject a point.

"Hush! Go away!" the adult continued, "Find somewhere else to play!" He waved his hand to scurry the children away.

The servants stopped at the cemetery gate and turned back home to leave him in his dreamland in the corner of the cemetery. In front of the tombstone, he would sit cross-legged, meditating fixedly. The pupil of his eye would start whirling. His body would begin shivering, while searching for two doomed souls that lie beneath a dizzyingly, heavy incense in the air.

"It is an order, iblis," he said, calling the evil, iblis. "No, no....." His words drifted away as he began remembering and weeping. He paused to wipe the tears on his cheeks with his brown dodot.

After a moment, he smiled solemnly to say, "I had thought to be powerful!" The words only caused him to weep again. "Ohh,--..two hearts to be broken--..my apology." He bowed very low in a humble manner, crying, and said, "Please accept my apology." Over and over again, he bowed deeply with his two palms clasped together at the point of his nose, giving a sembah.

For a moment, he relaxed, thinking. He looked around to pick up a stone, perhaps the size of a small coconut. Something snapped in his head. Sweat started dripping off his chin, while his eyes bulged. He spread his arm, raising it high above his head, with the stone in his palm. In a split second, he smashed his own genital hard repeatedly. "It’s your fault!" he growled, blaming that part of his body. "Iblis!" he muttered in disgust. He wanted to end his nightmare. He repeatedly hit his body, calling out, "Iblis! Iblis!" Blood started flowing down in front of the tombstone.