Days after finding the pesantren registration form, our house turned into a silent minefield. Every silence felt like an accusation, every glance from Father a judgment. The unspoken demand to be the 'perfect Muhammad Rasyid' was so suffocating it made breathing hard. In a quiet act of rebellion known only to me, I began doing what I'd feared most before: deliberately distancing myself from the surau. Sometimes I'd claim group assignments, other times I'd come home late on purpose. I didn't know what I was trying to prove, only that I had to escape the pretense.
Amid my desperate search for breathing room, the 'next storm' I'd anxiously awaited finally arrived. Not from Father, not from Mother, but from a source I never expected. The storm hit on a Wednesday afternoon, through the screen of my friend Eko's phone.
"Yid, is this you?" he asked, shoving his phone toward me as we walked home.
There, on the 'Karang Jati Community Info' Facebook group, someone had posted a blurry video of my adhan competition performance. The title: "Keep practicing, kid!" Below it, dozens of comments: "Poor thing, so nervous," "His voice was good, shame about the off-key ending," and the most painful, from an anonymous account: "Named Muhammad but messing up the adhan?" My heart felt squeezed. My failure was now a public spectacle, archived digitally.
Amid this tension, worsened by viral shame, came Friday—a day meant to bring peace but, for me, felt like a trial.
**A Shadow in the Front Row**
Stepping into Surau Al-Hikmah, I saw Farid, my classmate, already seated in the front row. He was chatting warmly with Ustaz Hadi and some elders, occasionally laughing politely. Farid was the poster child of our alley: class topper, marawis team captain, and ever-present at surau events. He greeted me with a brief nod and a friendly smile, but that smile only made me feel smaller. He was the "Muhammad Rasyid" I was supposed to be, and I was his flawed shadow.
I took a spot in the middle row. The usually calming scent—old carpet mixed with camphor—now felt stifling. As the khatib, Ustaz Bachtiar, ascended the pulpit, his heavy, authoritative voice filled the room through the slightly buzzing speakers.
"My brothers," he began, "follow the straight path, the one laid out for you. Do not doubt, for doubt is the whisper of Satan that will lead you astray…"
My mind drifted. The straight path without doubt. I thought of yesterday afternoon at the workshop. Father was fixing an old water pump. One bolt was completely stuck. He didn't give up. Patiently, he sprayed anti-rust fluid, tapped it gently with a hammer, tried different angles. There was process, doubt, trial. When the bolt finally turned, Father glanced at me with a faint, genuine smile. "You have to be patient, Yid. Not everything can be forced straight," he said. That moment, for some reason, felt more divine than this sermon.
I stared at the small, frosted window beside the pulpit, its cloudy glass reflecting the overcast sky outside. Gray, heavy. That sky felt more honest than the black-and-white heaven-and-hell thundering from the speakers.
The khatib's voice sounded like hollow echoes in my ears. I wanted to feel peace, but all I felt was a deepening emptiness.
That emptiness grew during prayer. My movements felt like stiff calisthenics. My lips muttered memorized verses, but my heart was mute.
I glanced sideways at the shoulders of the congregation, lined up tightly. Only one question echoed in my hollow mind: *Am I the only one? Or is everyone here wearing the same mask, hiding their emptiness behind perfect motions?*
I felt like a fraud in God's house.
**Ustaz Hasan's Background**
After prayer, as the congregation exchanged handshakes, a hand patted my shoulder. It was Ustaz Hasan, my old recitation teacher. His smile was as kind as ever, but his face was more serious.
"Muhammad Rasyid," he called, his tone now personal, not like when he was teaching. "Can I speak to you for a moment, as an elder?"
He led me away from the crowd, to the shade of a mango tree in the surau's courtyard. "Muhammad Rasyid," he repeated. "Can I speak to you as an elder?"
I could only nod.
"I was close friends with your late grandfather," he began. "He entrusted me with helping look after you. That's why my heart's troubled seeing you drift from the surau lately."
He sighed deeply, his gaze distant, as if seeing bitter memories. "My worry isn't baseless, son. Seeing you… reminds me of my own son."
I froze, not expecting this turn.
"He was like you. Bright, curious. But his heart chose music over recitation. Now…" his voice caught for a moment, "…now we rarely meet. I feel I failed as a father."
**A Reprimand on the Surau Porch**
His eyes, weary moments ago, now fixed on me sharply, full of pleading. "Because of your grandfather's trust and my own fears, I beg you, Rasyid. You have great potential. Don't take the same path. Don't let you and your father end up like us."
Praise and prayers had turned into reports and reprimands. My chest tightened. I could only lower my head, muttering an apology in a faint voice.
**A Walking Disgrace**
I trudged home. As I neared the house, I heard Father's voice, raised in rare anger.
"I won't hear any more gossip about Rasyid being disobedient!" he shouted. "What will the neighbors say? Our family's good name could be ruined, Bu! Even Ustaz Hasan had to reprimand him directly!"
My blood turned to ice.
"But he's our son, Yah!" Mother countered, trying to calm him. "He's confused, searching!"
"Searching for what? We've taught him religious knowledge! He was given a noble name! Now he's become gossip? A disgrace?!"
I backed away from the door, unable to enter. I walked aimlessly to the end of the alley. I was the problem. I was the walking disgrace.
I stopped under a flickering streetlamp, leaning against a cold, damp wall. Where could I run? This alley was the edge of my world. For a moment, all I felt was emptiness. But then, that emptiness slowly turned to heat. Anger. Not at Mother, who was crying, but at Father, Ustaz Hasan, everyone who felt entitled to judge me. The exhaustion of being a victim suddenly ignited into a dark, burning energy. Running wouldn't solve anything.
With my breath still racing, I turned back. I walked home not as a defeated child but as someone who would do something. I entered my room, which felt like a prison, my breath heavy with anger and shame. My eyes fell on the stack of books on my desk: Fiqh, Islamic History, Moral Theology. The faces of Bu Santi, Ustaz Hasan, and Father seemed to emerge from their covers, staring at me with disappointment. With a rough motion I'd never done before, I swept all the books off the desk, letting them crash to the floor.
I grabbed an old cardboard box used for storing toys and, with held breath, stuffed all the religious textbooks inside, one by one. I didn't tear them. I just wanted them gone from my sight. I taped the box shut and shoved it into the darkest, dustiest corner under my bed.
There, in the darkness, I didn't feel relief. Just emptiness. I pushed open my room's window, letting Balikpapan's humid night air flood in.
**A Conversation with the Wind**
In the distance, I heard the majestic Maghrib adhan from the mosque's minaret. A grand, orderly call. But as the echo of "Allahu Akbar" resounded, another sound answered from closer by.
Not the distant hum of a ship's engine, but the heavy rumble from the workshop at the alley's end. A diesel engine being started and revved repeatedly, its deep, irregular roar seemed to respond to the sky's call in its own language. The clink of a hammer striking metal became its rhythmic reply.
I stared at the darkening sky and whispered to the wind, a question I didn't dare voice to anyone. "If You're truly in the orderly call of the adhan," I murmured, "are You also in the chaotic roar of that engine?"
Silence. Then, from below, came the distinct sound of Father's GL motorcycle starting. A single, heavy, steady rev. A wordless answer I couldn't yet understand.
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