Woman with a Dent Faced

What is it like to live as someone you don't want to be? Ask her this question. If she can speak, then
rest assured she will launch into her answer. It is said that she was born unasked for. A victim of a
woman's failed pregnancy. The result of an illicit relationship cursed by the people and God.

The woman currently called "her mother" is not a real mother. She was just a compassionate host
who took turns breastfeeding the hungry mouths of two babies; dented-faced babies who were
thrown away at the edge of the village.

It's an ordinary day; bright daylight and the dented-faced woman is walking around the village on her
own when the little after-school children begin to follow her and welcome her back.

So, the dented-faced woman picks up a stone and with her filthy hands throws it at the children. A
belligerent, pig-headed boy was hit. It cut his forehead. Fresh blood oozed from it, turning his white
uniform red. He went home to complain to his mother, while the other children became afraid and
dispersed one by one.

Reluctantly, the dented-faced woman's family finally decided to confine her to a small, inhumane
room near the burial ground. The dented-faced woman has lived in it ever since. Months turned into
years, without knowing whether it was night or day.

What is it like to live in loneliness? Ask her this question. Then, rest assured if she can speak, she will
launch into her answer. No one really knows what he's doing in there although sometimes you can
hear his voice screaming for rebellion. This only adds to the horror of the burial ground.

People thought it was the voice of the graveyard's resident kuntilanak. No one ever really got close.
The dented-faced woman had forgotten the language without ever really mastering it.
If she could be freed from her stocks one day, people would ask her how she survived, for she had
become alone.

On a night that is usually dark and dense, the dented-faced woman can now see a line of light
through the hole. With her head up, she could see the moon. It had been so many years since she
had seen the moon that she had forgotten that what she was seeing was the moon.

For the first time in his years of confinement, he felt that he had friends. She began to make
acquaintances. In a language that only he understood, he conversed with the moon. He waited for
his new friend to visit and talk to him every night.

However, with each passing day, the moon's face became narrower and more concave. It became
smaller and smaller until it was just a crescent. The moon's face also became more and more pale.

With each passing day, the moon's crescent became round again, although her face was still pale.
When the moon is fully round, the dented-faced woman is very happy because this means that she
has succeeded in entertaining her good friend. But one day the moon returned to sickle and as
before, the dented-faced woman never tired of entertaining her with her own language until the
moon was fully round. It continued like that.

Until one night, the day after the moon was fully crescent, the moon did not come to visit her. She
was very sad and thought the moon did not want to see her. That night it rained heavily. The dented-
faced woman thought that the moon was crying. So she cried too, her friend's deep sorrow, and once
again, in a language only she could understand, she tried to coax the moon and comfort her.

She never got tired of it. But the sky kept raining, the moon kept crying. Water droplets came
through the crack in the roof of the confinement room, which had become leaky. It fell on the
dented-faced woman's head and made her wet.
Exhausted, the dented-faced woman fell asleep. She shivered violently without anyone knowing her
condition. The next morning she was awakened by a ray of light coming through a crack in the roof.
The small beam fell into a pool of stagnant water. He felt his body feverish. But as soon as he woke
up all he remembered was the moon.

Daylight was approaching, which meant that the moon had returned home after a night of hiding
behind the clouds while crying. He regretted not being able to see the moon's face last night.

He approached the puddle. The puddle was not clear. It was brown because it was mixed with dust. A
shadow was there. He smiled and found the moon's face there. Then he fell asleep without feeling
the need to wake up again because he was with his best friend nearby.