But one day, in a tiny fabric shop tucked between food stalls, I saw a bundle of old batik scraps. The colors, deep blue and earthy brown, told stories I couldn’t yet understand. There were patterns I had seen before—Parang, Kawung, and Megamendung—but I had never paid much attention to them. That day, though, they felt different. Like they were calling me, whispering something about the past and the hands that had dyed and stamped them with wax all those years ago.
I bought them without knowing what I was going to do. The shop owner, an elderly woman with silver hair pinned neatly, looked at me curiously as I fumbled through my wallet. Maybe she saw something in me that I hadn’t yet realized, because she smiled knowingly and…
