#*lokasi

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A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch

The hall was warm and deeply carpeted and after the vapors outside it smelt sweet, a smell of polished wood and new textile. Breathing was suddenly a luxury

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Letter from Gaza by Ghassan Kanafani, from Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Story (translated by Hilary Kilpatrick)

My friend ... Never shall I forget Nadia's leg, amputated from the top of the thigh. No! Nor shall I forget the grief which had molded her face and merged into its traits forever. I went out of the hospital in Gaza that day, my hand clutched in silent derision on the two pounds I had brought with me to give Nadia. The blazing sun filled the streets with the color of blood. And Gaza was brand new, Mustafa! You and I never saw it like this. The stone piled up at the beginning of the Shajiya quarter where we lived had a meaning, and they seem to have been put there for no other reason but to explain it. This Gaza in which we had lived and with whose good people we had spent seven years of defeat was something new. It seemed to me just a beginning. I don't know why I thought it was just a beginning. I imagined that the main street that I walked along on the way back home was only the beginning of a long, long road leading to Safad. Everything in this Gaza throbbed with sadness, which was not confined to weeping. It was a challenge; more than that, it was something like the reclamation of the amputated leg!

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Lebih Senyap Dari Bisikan, karya Andina Dwifatma

Akibat riset yang kukerjakan, pikiranku diberondong dengan bencana sampah, bahaya krisis air, ancaman kepunahan umat manusia karena nuklir, dan hal-hal seram lain yang membuatku yakin dunia akan segera berakhir. Seorang ilmuwan meneliti kandungan air dalam sistem pembuangan limbah di London, dan menemukan konsentrasi amphetamine, methamphetamine, kokain, dan ekstasi yang sangat tinggi di Sungai Thames. Air seni dan tahi begitu jujur. Saluran pembuangan bagiku bagaikan buku harian yang menceritakan bagaimana manusia modern gemar mengunyah obat-obatan seperti kacang asin. Dunia menuju kehancuran dan manusia semakin sulit berbahagia.

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Jubah Laut karya Nayrouz Qarmout (diterjemahkan oleh Sasti Gotama), dari kumpulan cerpen The Sea Cloak.

Garis Pantai Gaza tidaklah bersih. Segalanya terserak tak beraturan. Bentangan pasir dikotori sampah. Tenda-tenda yang membercaki pantai tak ubahnya tumpukan jerami, adalah tempat jiwa-jiwa pemimpi berlindung, berbincang dengan khayalan terintim mereka. Begitulah keadaan Gaza sekarang: gadis yang belum mempelajari seni keanggunan. Seorang gadis yang belum menciptakan wewangiannya sendiri, dan masih—mau tak mau—tercemari wewangian di sekitarnya.

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Tower of Babylon by Ted Chiang, from Stories of Your Life and Others

Hillalum thought of the story told to him in childhood, the tale following that of the Deluge. It told of how men had once again populated all the corners of the earth, inhabiting more lands than they ever had before. How men had sailed to the edges of the world, and seen the ocean falling away into the mist to join the black waters of the Abyss far below. How men had thus realized the extent of the earth, and felt it to be small, and desired to see what lay beyond its borders, all the rest of Yahweh's Creation. How they looked skyward, and wondered about Yahweh's dwelling place, above the reservoirs that contained the waters of heaven. And how, many centuries ago, there began the construction of the tower, a pillar to heaven, a stair that men might ascend to see the works of Yahweh, and that Yahweh might descend to see the works of men. It had always seemed inspiring to Hillalum, a tale of thousands of men toiling ceaselessly, but with joy, for they worked to know Yahweh better. He had been excited when the Babylonians came to Elam looking for miners. Yet now that he stood at the base of the tower, his senses rebelled, insisting that nothing should stand so high. He didn't feel as if he were on the earth when he looked up along the tower. Should he climb such a thing?

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Tower of Babylon by Ted Chiang, from Stories of Your Life and Others

Were the tower to be laid down across the plain of Shinar, it would be two days' journey to walk from one end to the other. While the tower stands, it takes a full month and a half to climb from its base to its summit, if a man walks unburdened. But few men claim the tower with empty hands; the pace of most men is slowed by the cart of bricks that they pull behind them. Four months pass between the day a brick is loaded onto a cart, and the day it is taken off to form a part of the tower.

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The Fall by Albert Camus (translated by Justin O’Brien)

Holland is a dream, monsieur, a dream of gold and smoke—more gilded by night. And night and day that dream is peopled with the Lohengrins like these, dreamily riding their black bicycles with high handle-bars, funeral swans constantly drifting throughout the whole land, around the seas, along the canals. Their heads in their copper-colored clouds, they dream; they cycle in circles; they pray, somnabulists in the fog’s giolded incense; they have ceased to be here. 

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Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Soon the city fades before your eyes ... All the rest of the city is invisible. Millions of eyes look up at windows, bridges, capers, and they might be scanning a blank page. Many are the cities like Phyllis, which elude the gaze of all, except the man who catches them by surprise.