Prologue: A Cup of Encounter
My name is Alex. That’s how people call me. Flat and indifferent, as though the name carried no burden, no story, no weight of its own. Yet behind that simple syllable lies a life that feels far older than the years I have lived. Four years have passed since I graduated, and somehow the problems I face seem to belong to someone twice my age.
Today marks exactly two years since I met him. A meeting I can’t never expected, never asked for, yet one that quietly shifted the course of my existence.
It was a rainy afternoon in Semarang, the capital of Central Java Indonesia. I sat alone in the corner of a small café, the kind of place where the scent of roasted beans clings to the walls and the hum of conversation fades into background music. Outside, the rain fell softly, as if trying to disguise the tears I could no longer shed. My life felt hollow, like a cup of coffee drained of by smells. Doubt gnawed at me and my faith in God, once steady was nearly swallowed by the shadows of despair.
And then, he came without warning and sound of footsteps. He appeared as though the air itself had carried him in, slipping through the door like a secret breeze. I never knew his name, nor where he came from and why he chose to sit across from me. Yet every word he spoke seemed to pour into the emptiness I had been carrying, filling the cracks I thought would never mend.
We met almost every day for a month. A brief span of time, perhaps? But long enough to leave a mark that refuses to fade. He was nobody, and yet I called him a friend, a stranger who never revealed his identity, but who always appeared when I needed him most.
The most peculiar thing about him was his answer whenever I asked, “Who are you, really?”
He would smile faintly, a smile that carried both warmth, mystery, and reply, “I am the outcast who waits.”
That single phrase lingered in me like a riddle, echoing long after the words were spoken. And from that moment, I began to believe that God has his own way of answering prayers, even the ones I never dared to speak aloud.
