1 The Cool Vilage

The first sentence of the dawn call to prayer echoed, waking some residents in the village at the foot of the hills. The rooster began to crow before the dawn of the peek from behind Mount Slamet. The eastern sky that began to turn orange marked the beginning of human activities on a new day.

Kali Gintung is a village with cool temperatures, the settlements of the population are mostly just simple houses surrounded by rice fields and plantations which further adds to the beauty of the village. To the east of the village there is a stretch of small hills, the local people call it Geralang Hill, while in the south and west there are sugar cane plantations owned by the village government, to the northwest and north there are corn plantations and half of them are fields and rice fields owned by several residents.

Most of the residents of Kali Gintung village work as farmers, some are small traders who usually sell in markets. There is only one market nearby which is located in Kubang Sari village, a village which is located west of Kali Gintung, to get to the village you have to walk 800 meters through a sugar cane plantation with road conditions that have not been coated with asphalt, only boulders are made flat to cover it. The road conditions were muddy during the rainy season, the road repairs were carried out independently by the community.

The closest school is only located in Kubang Sari village, some students from Kali Gintung prefer to go to school in the neighboring village, some residents whose economy is better off choose to send their children to the nearest small town which is about 10 kilometers from the village, of course by vehicle personal. This is because public transportation to the city is quite expensive, especially if it is used every day to commute to school.

Most of the youth who graduated from school chose to migrate to big cities such as Semarang, Bandung or Jakarta. Meanwhile, a small proportion of them choose to work as farmers or just help their parents' work. One of them is a young man named Abdul, he chooses to help his parents to raise ducks, every morning he always leads the ducks to the fields to find wild food.

While waiting for his ducks to be satisfied, Abdul prefers to rest for a while in a small hut in the middle of the rice fields, with a mat available in the hut which is only built of 4 bamboo poles without walls and a thatched roof. This is the most comfortable place to take a nap. . Of course she doesn't worry about her pets as her ducks are very organized and obedient animals, so they won't go anywhere.

***

The sky is increasingly showing its gloom, black clouds roll together rolling over the village of Kali Gintung. It was not long enough for the thunder to greet him with a low thunder as the opening for the drop of water from the sky to wet the earth.

A shepherd of a flock of ducks who was fast asleep was awakened by a drop of water falling on his forehead. The droplets were coming from the thatched roof of a hut which turned out to leave a small gap because it was still not completely closed, causing a light leak.

Abdul the Shepherd opened his eyes, the air, which had been getting cold all this time, was apparently not enough to abort his deep sleep. For some people the coldness actually adds to the enjoyment of sleep, but this time the status of his forehead, which was completely wet with continuous dripping, was not what made him comfortable.

He got up, then took a stick beside him, the real stick he had been carrying which was propped for a moment on the hut post while he was resting. Made of bamboo stalks as high as his body, which are split about one-eighth which are then smoothed, and at the ends are given a tassel of used cloth which is cut into pieces, its function is indeed as a tool to help herd ducks.

Anyway, Abdul, who was already getting ready to leading the ducks home, was now astonished. How could I not, a herd of ducks that previously numbered about fifty, now only six of them are left, even with invisible legs walking on land. It seems that the rice fields are now quite deep in water, so the ducks are drowning their entire legs to swim.

The location of his hut, which is on a higher ground area, does not participate in standing water, even though it can actually wake Abdul to sleep earlier if he is also flooded.

Abdul almost cried knowing this, because if anything bad happened to his flock of ducks, his mother would be sad and his father would be very angry. But now was not the time to cry, he ran through the torrential rainwater to find most of his many missing ducks.

The paddy fields that were also flooded caused irregular running directions and several times slipped and fell when their feet mistakenly predicted the position of the embankments that had been inundated so that their path could no longer be seen. The puddle was getting higher and higher holding his feet to run. Actually, it cannot be said to be running, just walking a little fast by taking wide steps through the puddle that is worthy of being called a flood.

The flood was getting higher and farther Abdul ran, what he found was the water getting heavier, because he ran closer to the source of the flood itself, namely the Pemali River. He almost gave up and stopped his steps while looking at the river which was located 100 meters in front of him with its already very terrible current. A blank look accompanied his confused and anxious mind.

The rain was getting heavier and more heavy on his hair and brown face, the only visible expression on his face now was anxiety. From across the river someone saw him. "Abdul ...!" the person called out to him shouting.

Abdul looked closely at who it was, his eyes were shaded because of the raindrops, plus the high rainfall made visibility very limited, but from the faint clothes he seemed to recognize even with doubt.

"Mr. Cipto, huh?" shouted Abdul reassuringly, while his hand wiped the water on his face in order to further clarify his view that he was Mr. Cipto, his neighbor who was a farmer.

"Yes! I saw your ducks drifting in the river, I was unable to save them because the water was already very heavy!" Said Pak Cipto explaining while using his two palms to position as loudspeakers around his mouth.

Abdul who heard it was silent, he could not do much, the fast and deadly river flow made him give up.

"You better stay away from the river, the water is getting heavier, it's dangerous!" continued Pak Cipto warned.

Abdul realized that, he didn't want to take any more risks, after all the flood around him was now almost knee deep, he had to stop looking for his flock of ducks and let go of what would happen at home.

The test did not end there, when he returned to the hut where he was resting, apparently the remaining six ducks had also disappeared. Most likely it was also swept away by the flood flow that led to the river flow.

He blamed himself even more, so carelessly he didn't secure the rest of the duck first before searching for most of what was missing.

***