After the divorce, mom lives with her boyfriend after living with us alone for five years.
He is a good man. Let's call him Mr Smith, a bald man and a little short body. He isn't good-looking, but I can tell that he is kind and loyal to us.
Indeed, he has money. But we never take any advantage of him. So, we, the kids, just left them alone and minded our own businesses.
I'm working in a furniture company and doing a part-time job as a writer.
Just like my boss's plan, he moved the company to another larger building in some area which was quite far from my childhood house that I still live in. Therefore, I need to find a place nearer to my workplace because I can not take too far and long a home-to-work-and-repeat journey.
I decided to live at my mom's and boyfriend's house.
It's a pretty big, three stories house. The house doesn't have a yard, only a small terrace with a man-chest-tall white fence, and it will be the place where I park my scooter.
Long story short, I finally move in there. I don't bring too many things with me since I just get a tiny room with a single bed and a working table. Just like the house, my room is also painted all white but the paint seems a little old, so it's not so white anymore.
On my first day, I find that the house is actually a mini apartment. In my country, people who have big houses can turn their homes to be mini apartments, where they built rooms and rent each to people and get monthly income from it.
It turns out that my mom and Mr Smith are doing that effortless business. What a great way to make money in your old days, isn't it?
So, I can tell that I live in one of those rented rooms.
However, with so many rooms on every floor, only some are occupied. Mine is located on the second floor, and I have two neighbours. A little family with one child and a single old man.
For the first week, my life was as usual as ever at that house, until when I come home and find some delivery men moving some furniture into the first room of the first floor, near the terrace where I park my scooter.
Not long after, I find that the tenant is a woman who looks on her seven or six pregnant. I don't know her name, so let's call her Nina.
Nina is a single woman. From her appearance, I bet she was around her twenties. She has back-long, straight, silky black hair. Her skin is fair and so much pale. I can see the shade of dark circles around her eyes. She also looks a little skinny and always wears a long cream house dress.
Even though her look is a little gloomy, she always smiles and looks kind. My mom, as the landlord, introduces me to her, so I become friends with her.
***
Today, Nina invites me to her house. It's daytime and I don't go to work. When I come into her room, I find that her room is much larger than mine.
When mine is only a single room to put my bed and everything, her room has three parts of rooms but without a door. The last part is a little empty backyard surrounded by tall walls.
Surprisingly, her house is empty. Yes, there's no furniture in it - just a simple kitchen set without the dishes and utensils.
"When you will give birth, Nina?" I ask when we are sitting on the white-greyish floor.
"It's not long. When I give birth, I will turn into a child." She says.
"What? How is it possible?" I ask.
"Because I'm special."
"Where is the father of the child?" I ask.
"He is gone. He doesn't know I'm pregnant. I don't know where he is and he doesn't know where I am." She answers.
Then, she gives me a cup of hot sweet tea. I take a little sip and excuse myself from her hose.
***
At night, I'm hungry and want to look for fried rice outside the house. There is usually a man circling the housing area with a selling fried rice cart.
When I come back with the takeaway fried rice, I hear strange sounds from Nina's closed room. Then, I take a plastic stool and climb it. I peek inside from a ventilation window above the door.
I see Nina sitting on the floor with her big pregnant belly. She sits cross-legged and her body moving front and back as she laughs. She looks like she is having a funny talk with someone, but she is alone there.
She is crazy, I think. Then, when I climb down the stool, I find my mom and Mr Smith standing at the entrance to the stairs to the second floor.
I approach them because their faces look worried.
"Poor her," Mr Smith says.
"Why? What happened to her?" I ask.
"She is going to give birth." My mom replies.
***
In the morning, someone is knocking at my door. When I open it, it turns out it is the old man next door.
"Nina is giving birth."
I'm rushing downstairs and get into her room. As my neighbour said, she is giving birth.
However, I find her body looks smaller than before. Then, I help her to sit on a large table made of tiles. While my mom, Mr Smith, and the tenants are busy alone near the room's door.
Nina looks in pain and I help her to lie on the table. Then, her body starts to shrink until she is the size of a toddler.
Yes, a toddler with a massively swollen stomach. However, despite her small body, she has loose body skin and a full-of-wrinkles face. She looks like a child who has Progeria syndrome.
She cries like a kid and she can't talk. Then, because no one is helping, I choose to help her give birth.
It turns out that she had been pregnant with triplets all this time. The three babies are identical triplets. They look very much the same that I can't tell their differences at all.
Then, my mom and Mr Smith take the baby to give them diapers. When I come back to the room, Nina has back to her normal appearance. She doesn't look tired, maybe because she looks is all the time.
She thanked me and says that she is so happy. Then, she holds her babies and put them in a row on the table.
***
I'm at the office, and my mom calls me to hurriedly come back. It's a day after Nina gives birth.
It's still daytime but it's pouring outside. I ride my scooter through the rain. And I use the big road which is usually jammed, is not now.
When I stop at the red light before the under-highway, a man crosses the road in front of me while muttering things that I don't understand and keeps his eyes on me.
Then, the green light is on, so I continue my ride.
Once I get to my mom's house. She tells me to get into Nina's house. There, I meet Mr Smith in the backyard of the house. He is standing under a papaya tree with a hoe in his hand.
Then, I see a bucket next to him. And I'm surprised when I find Nina's triples are in it!
"Where is Nina?" I ask.
"She is gone. She boiled her babies and left them in a cooking pot. She left this letter for you." Mr Smith says before giving a paper to me, then starts to dig the ground to bury the triplets.
Then, even before I have time to read the letter, my mom comes and tells me to check another room.
It's a room on the same floor. However, when I get inside, the room looks exactly the same as Nina's room. In there, we find other triplets.
They are dark-skinned. One of them has a little afro hair and the rest are bald. They can crawl already. They crawl around in the room, so my mom takes them on her carry one by one.
Then, I open Nina's letter. She only wrote a little.
"I leave the children. I will find other men,"