Part 1: The Cart That Was Never Crowded
Gunung Anyar Night Market always buzzed with life after Maghrib prayers. Vendors called out to shoppers, their voices blending into a chaotic chorus. Colorful lights dangled above the stalls, painting the night in hues of red, blue, and gold. The air was thick with the scent of fried snacks, roasted corn, and chicken satay. But in the darkest corner of the market, nearly invisible, stood an old pushcart. Its paint was peeling, its wheels wobbled, and the signboard was barely hanging on: “AUTHENTIC BEEF MEATBALLS – Mang Ijal.”
Mang Ijal sat on a faded plastic stool. In one hand he held a half-smoked clove cigarette, dampened at the tip by the light drizzle that had started earlier that afternoon. His face was gaunt, skin a dull brown, his eyes vacant. Not a single customer. For over an hour he had just sat there, occasionally rising to stir the steaming broth in a large pot on his portable gas stove.
Every day was like this.
One night, a small child wandered over, drawn by the aroma of the broth. But the child’s mother quickly pulled him back. “Don’t eat there, sweetie. You’ll get a stomachache,” she whispered.
Mang Ijal heard it. He pretended not to.
But his heart recorded it, and his mind began to collect names—one by one.
His cart was never busy. No one lingered longer than a few minutes. There was no laughter. No conversation.
Meanwhile, about twenty meters away stood a new cart, one that had only been there for two months yet was always crowded: “Pak Heru’s Meatballs – Delicious! Savory! Halal!” written in bright blue LED lights. Heru, a former civil servant, had recently taken early retirement and tried his luck selling meatballs. And, unfortunately for Mang Ijal, he had become the market's rising star.
Heru’s cart was decorated with little festive lights. He even played soft dangdut music on a mini speaker. Young people often hung out there, laughing as they slurped soup. Housewives stopped by after prayer group meetings. Even local food vloggers dropped in, recording every bite with exaggerated excitement: “Wahhh… this meatball is amazing, guys!”
Mang Ijal watched all of it through the smoke of his cigarette. Every laugh from the next cart felt like a tiny nail being driven slowly into his chest. He looked down, suppressing the heat rising in his throat. No one knew that the broth he stirred every day came from a recipe passed down by his late mother—once so beloved it drew long queues in the village where he grew up.
But here?
In this city?
That treasured recipe was now considered outdated. No one cared about tradition when your cart looked like a chicken coop. People these days trusted LED lights and TikTok music more than generations of heritage.
That night, under a cloudy sky, only one customer stopped by. An old man—a loyal customer from last year—who always ordered a half portion and drank water from his own bottle.
“Still quiet, Jal?” the man asked as he sipped the broth.
Mang Ijal nodded. “Same as always…”
“Look at that, though—Pak Heru’s place is packed. That guy’s a genius at marketing.”
Mang Ijal said nothing.
He smiled faintly.
But his chest tightened.
After the old man left, Mang Ijal slouched deeper into his seat. The night wind pierced through his bones. His hand reached under the cart and touched the meat slicer tucked below. He stared at its edge. Sharp. Cold. Silent.
And in that moment, he realized one thing: the world wasn’t unfair because God forgot—it was unfair because people never made room for others.
A thin smile crept across his lips.
The broth still simmered.
And the night was still young.
Part 2: The Wrong Meat
Three days after the heavy rain, after selling just one bowl of meatball soup, Mang Ijal no longer stared at the emptiness in surrender. He began to count. Not money. But revenge.
Each night, he wrote something in his worn-out little notebook, the one he used for grocery lists: – The prayer group mothers who said his meatballs smelled rancid.
– The TikTok teenagers who secretly filmed his cart, then laughed and wrote, “These meatballs came straight from the Majapahit era.”
– The parking guy who said, “Only the good-looking ones make money, Jal.”
And of course,
– Heru.
That name he circled three times. Pressed so hard, the pen nearly tore the paper.
---
Thursday night, the sky turned dark again. Heru went home early that evening. He’d been coughing since morning. His stall closed earlier than usual, and as always, he greeted Mang Ijal.
“Take care of your health, Jal. Nights like this, easy to catch a cold.”
Then he walked off.
That smile… for some reason, it made Mang Ijal angry.
A smile he never asked for.
A smile that made him feel even smaller.
Rain poured hard. The market began to empty. Some vendors had started to pack up.
But Mang Ijal stayed.
He still sat on his stool. His posture had shifted: back straight, eyes sharp. The meat slicing knife was already tucked inside his jacket. He packed his pot, closed his cart, and pushed it slowly to the far end of the market.
But that night, Mang Ijal didn’t go straight back to his rented room. He turned into a narrow alley behind the market—where Heru lived alone in a small, cramped house. He knew this because they used to share a place—back when Heru decided to move out and “find his own path.”
That path had slowly killed Mang Ijal’s business.
Heru’s house was dark. But the kitchen window was open. Heru was careless. Mang Ijal knew that. He knew Heru better than anyone in the market.
He crept closer. Slipped inside. The rain drowned all sound. The knife in his hand trembled slightly. He stopped behind the kitchen curtain. Watched the silhouette of Heru sitting under a blanket, watching a small TV in the front room.
There was a long pause. Mang Ijal’s heart pounded wildly. But every insult, every sneer, every laugh from customers who ignored him—all swirled together. Like noise inside his head that couldn’t be shut off.
And in that moment, everything went dark. Not because of a blackout—
But because Mang Ijal had already crossed a line he could never return from.
---
No screams.
No struggle.
Mang Ijal knew what he was doing.
And he did it slowly.
Like mixing meatball dough—precise, deliberate, controlled.
Heru’s body—with eyes wide in their final confusion—was dragged into the kitchen. Cooled. Cut. Sorted.
He didn’t take everything. Only the parts he needed.
The soft ones.
The chewy ones.
The… suitable ones.
The rest was wrapped in old rice sacks, then dumped into the river behind the alley. No one saw. The heavy rain washed away footprints and the faint metallic scent that crept from beneath the kitchen door.
---
The next night, Mang Ijal’s cart stood again in its usual corner. But the broth was different.
The aroma was alluring.
Thick. Warm. Pungent.
People began to stop by.
One. Two. Five.
“Wow, this broth’s amazing, sir!”
“These meatballs are different now. So chewy!”
“There’s a taste… I can’t place it. The meat doesn’t taste like usual…”
Mang Ijal smiled. Softly. Said nothing.
Only,
“New recipe.”
And that night, for the first time in six years, his meatballs sold out before the market closed.
---
He sat on his stool, lit a cigarette, and looked up at the sky.
No moon.
But in his chest, the night was bright.
Part 3: The Scent That Reopens Wounds
Two weeks after that rainy night, Mang Ijal’s food stall had changed drastically.
His cart was now clean. He repainted the signboard in big letters: BAKSO LEJENDA—the “J” was crossed out and replaced with red paint to read “LEGENDARY.”
Customers lined up. Young people who used to mock him now patiently waited their turn while vlogging. Mothers from the prayer group returned, bringing food containers. Even the parking attendant who once mocked him now helped organize the line.
And Mang Ijal? He remained quiet. Not much of a talker. But his smile was different—thin, disarming.
But inside his small rented room, the atmosphere was the opposite.
He now slept with the lights on. The knives he once used to cut meat were cleaned every night, arranged like sacred relics. Beneath the bed were two old rice sacks he hadn’t gotten around to throwing out. The stench of blood still lingered, despite being scrubbed with soap three times.
Sometimes at dawn, he woke up from dreams. Heru sat at the edge of the bed, his body whole but his eyes destroyed—bleeding slowly, like broth.
“Still tasty, Jal?” he’d ask in the dream. “Still full?”
---
The next week, something changed.
Heru’s meat was gone. No trace left. The bakso made with regular beef no longer tasted the same. Customers began to ask questions. “This tastes different, right?” “Is the meat not the same as before?” “The one last time was… softer.”
Mang Ijal looked down. Cold sweat. Their tongues had already been poisoned by the flavor. And that flavor only came from one kind of meat.
Human flesh.
---
One night, he wandered the city alleys again. Not out of anger this time. But hunger. Hunger for recognition. Hunger for that taste that made him “legendary.” He needed meat. He needed another body.
He began to observe. Like a hunter. Boarding house kids who came home late. An old scavenger who always slept outside the store. A street musician whose name no one ever asked.
But it was different from Heru. This time… it wasn’t revenge. This time, it was pure necessity.
And that terrified him.
---
Three nights later, the neighborhood was in shock. A scavenger went missing. All that was left were his rags and a worn-out hat.
The news made the local paper. One of Mang Ijal’s regulars, a journalist, came with a worried face.
“Sir, someone near here went missing. So strange. This never used to happen…”
Mang Ijal only ladled broth. His smile stiff. But his hand was trembling.
---
On the fourth day, a child vomited after eating his bakso. His mother screamed. “There’s a rotten smell! What kind of meat is this, sir?!”
Other customers sniffed the food. And at that moment, as if moved by something supernatural—everyone stopped eating. Silence. Complete stillness.
Mang Ijal stood frozen behind his cart.
Then, from within the crowd, a voice was heard. Soft but cold. “Smells like… a human corpse.”
Everyone turned.
A man stood there. Thin. Messy hair. But with piercing eyes. Around his neck hung a press badge—and in his hand… …a small camera.
Click.
One photo.
“Can I ask a few questions, sir? About the ingredients in your bakso…”
---
Mang Ijal didn’t answer.
But that night, he didn’t go home. He left his cart behind. And the next morning, only a message written in red broth was left on the cart’s glass:
“YOU LIKED IT, DIDN’T YOU? IT WAS YOUR TONGUES THAT ASKED FOR IT.”
Part 4 (Finale): The Tongue That Spoke Too Honestly
In the fourth week after he abandoned his cart, Mang Ijal’s name spread everywhere.
Viral news on local media and gossip Instagram accounts turned him into a new kind of legend—not because of his delicious bakso, but because he had most likely fed human meat to other humans.
People were terrified.
Police began to investigate.
But Mang Ijal disappeared.
---
In a small village at the foot of a mountain, a man under a false name lived in a wooden house inherited from his late parents.
He grew chilies and tomatoes in the backyard.
Built his own well.
No nearby neighbors.
Every night, he sat alone.
But he couldn’t sleep.
Heru’s ghost visited him—sometimes sitting in the kitchen, sometimes standing in the doorway with a bloated corpse-like body.
Worse still, he’d hear customer voices outside the window.
“Add more tendon meat, sir…”
“The soft meat, please…”
He began to lose his mind.
Cried alone.
Spoke to his knives.
And the most painful thing:
He missed the fame.
He missed the meat.
Not beef.
But human flesh.
---
Back in the city, the last journalist who interviewed him—Fajar—remained obsessed.
He continued investigating, visited Mang Ijal’s old rented house, searched for witnesses, hunted for clues.
Then he got one.
From someone who’d spotted Mang Ijal at a small town’s traditional market—buying soap, then disappearing into the forest.
Fajar didn’t hesitate.
He went alone, bringing his camera.
And eventually, he found the wooden house.
---
Mang Ijal knew he would be found.
But he didn’t run.
He sat on a bamboo chair, a knife on his lap.
“What are you looking for, kid?” he asked softly as Fajar approached.
“Answers.”
“Answers? Don’t you already know?”
Fajar said nothing.
“They say I’m crazy. But who came to my stall every night? Who praised the flavor and compared it to beef? To goat? To chicken?”
“They didn’t know, sir. They—”
“They knew!” he snapped.
“Their tongues knew! But they stayed silent. Because they were addicted. Just like me.”
Silence.
The forest was still.
Even the wind stopped.
Mang Ijal slowly lifted the knife.
“If you really want to know what human flesh tastes like…”
Fajar took a half-step back.
“…then try mine.”
Suddenly, Mang Ijal slashed his own thigh.
One cut.
Blood spurted.
Fajar screamed—but Mang Ijal remained calm.
He grabbed a pot, tossed in the chunk of flesh, then water, salt, pepper.
“Taste it. Then you’ll understand… why I couldn’t stop.”
Fajar was shaken.
But he didn’t speak.
Mang Ijal stirred the pot gently, then offered him a bowl of red broth.
“Come on. Prove you’re stronger than the rest of them.”
Fajar stared at the bowl.
His hands trembled.
His nose caught the warm scent.
Something… savory. Strange. Hypnotic.
And then—
He smashed the bowl to the ground.
The splash hit Mang Ijal’s wounded leg.
“I didn’t come here to eat.
I came here to end this.”
---
Hours later, the police arrived.
Fajar had tied Mang Ijal up with torn cloth.
In the kitchen, a small piece of meat simmered in a pot.
On the wooden rack—knives stained with dried blood.
Mang Ijal didn’t resist.
He just chuckled as they took him away.
“Don’t forget the seasoning,” he told the officer,
“…to make the news tastier.”
---
He was sentenced to life in prison.
But prison wasn’t the worst punishment.
The worst was the smell.
The smell of human flesh he could no longer have.
He smelled it in dreams, in his breath, in the bland prison food.
He grew thin.
Then bald.
Then silent.
Until one night, he was found dead.
His tongue bitten off.
On the cell wall, written in blood:
“IT WAS THEIR TONGUES THAT ASKED FOR IT. NOT ME.”
[The End]
Writing by: @𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧⃝⃝⨷❌ 23-04-2025....
