In the courtroom of high school corridors, Andrey learns that not all kindness is genuine. When a friend’s compassion turns into a weapon of toxic piety, he finds himself retreating into the sanctuary of silence. A poignant exploration of masked betrayal, the pain of religious judgment, and the quiet courage it takes to choose solitude over a soul-crushing acceptance.

Pekan Mutiara had borne silent witness to the early teenage years of a boy named Andrey. His daily routine was a loop stitched tightly between the house and the school. Waking at dawn, the march to school, the return at noon, food, and then the inevitable siesta. In the evenings, however, the leash was loosened; he filled the time with endeavours of his own choosing—gardening, playing music, painting, or writing. It felt productive. Real.

Crowds drained him; the noise, the scrutiny—it was suffocating. And it was in this small, quiet town that his journey of self-discovery began, not with a shout, but with a whisper.

In the first and second years, the fog hadn't lifted. He didn’t quite understand what was happening to him. But when he turned fifteen, he began to realise that school wasn’t just a place of learning; it was a courtroom.

“You’re moving. Don’t forget to write me a letter,” Ziana urged him during their break, her voice tight with a feigned concern.

“We have a phone. We can chat. It’s easier.”
“Calls are expensive.”
“Use the public call box, then.”
“This village only has two phone booths, Andrey. If they break, you have to trek into town. How can I possibly go that far?”
“Town is far? Even if I walked, I’d get there.”
“It is far when your father draws the boundary.”

“Hmm… It’s fine. Call if there’s a chance. It’s not like we want to chat for long. You’re not my girlfriend,” Andrey replied, his tone teasing. He looked at Ziana’s face; there was no flicker of reaction. Maybe she hadn't understood the joke, or maybe she just didn't find it funny.

“Alright… But I like writing letters,” Ziana smiled, adjusting her hijab, her smile trailing towards a Form 5 boy walking past them. Andrey knew Ziana had a soft spot for that senior.

“Suit yourself. But don’t spend your life waiting for the postman.”
“I pray that the door to your heart will open to accept the realities of life. I hope this new place can change you.”
Ziana repeated the same prayer like a mantra. Andrey’s ears were tired of hearing it.

“I am comfortable with myself. Why do I need to change? What is there to change?”
“Look at yourself… The way you dress has already deviated from religious teachings.”

Andrey admitted that his knowledge of religion was still shallow, a puddle compared to her ocean. Because of that, he chose silence. He didn’t want to deny it, nor did he agree with it entirely. Big things like this required time to see, to contemplate, to turn over in the mind.

Ziana might have been more knowledgeable about the texts. The girl was raised in a devout and ‘pious’ family, where laws were drummed in before meanings were understood. She spoke of God with the confidence of a soldier who has never seen war, perhaps because she had never been allowed to doubt. That confidence didn’t come from seeking; it came from inheritance.

Andrey, however, was raised in a home that didn’t raise dogma as its flag. The principle he knew was: understand before judging, see before evaluating. And because of that, he remained silent when Ziana spoke. Whether he agreed or not, he didn’t argue. Not out of fear, but out of awareness; they didn’t start from the same place.

Ziana had appeared in Andrey's life like a candle illuminating a dark room; the only friend at Sekolah Menengah Seri Mutiara who didn’t consider Andrey as an object of ridicule. When other classmates mocked and marginalised him, Ziana came with a sweet smile, chanting friendly words, offering support.

But like a candle, the wax eventually melts, the warmth turns to heat, and finally, the light is extinguished.
The memory was still fresh in Andrey's mind when Ziana slipped a plate of fried noodles into the class because she knew he had forgotten to bring lunch.

“I fried it myself this morning,” she said proudly. “If it’s spicy, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to measure chillies yet.”

They had laughed together, sitting quietly at the back of the class, eating with their hands, like two small children who didn’t know the world was already holding the scissors to cut them apart.

That laughter remained, but only as an echo.

“Do you think it’s right to wear this? You look terrible, you know? Don’t you feel sinful?” Ziana asked one evening while they sat at a roadside stall.
Her sharp tone couldn’t be masked by the manufactured softness of her voice. Andrey shrugged, poking at the rojak in front of him.

“I’m comfortable like this.”
“God does not accept women who resemble men or men who resemble women. The Prophet will not acknowledge such people. Aren’t you afraid you’ll be burned in the afterlife?” Ziana added, munching on a banana fritter with practised piety.

That question wasn’t asked for the first time; his ears were already numb to it.

“God knows what He is doing,” Andrey answered briefly but firmly, trying to dam the conversation before it flooded.

The debate never finished. Almost every day, Ziana would dredge up the same topic. Sometimes with praise mixed with sarcasm: “Aren’t you ashamed people look at you strangely? If you wore a baju kurung, you’d definitely look prettier.”

Usually, she used religion as a hammer: “Believe me, Allah is just. If you wear a hijab, cover your aurat, and be a proper woman, Allah will give you anything in Paradise. There you can get whatever you want, whatever you couldn’t get in this world.”

Perhaps Ziana saw her words as a duty as a Muslimah, but to Andrey, it felt like salt rubbed into a wound that never seemed to heal. Ziana spoke with such confidence, as if she held the deed to absolute truth, while Andrey kept those words for reference for the morrow. 

The advice of his parents was always his compass: study and understand something before concluding. That was what he practised. He knew that he didn’t know; it was better to think silently than to speak emptily.

Every time Ziana spoke of God and heaven, Andrey's doubt grew larger. How could a God who is said to be full of love create His servant only to punish it for the vessel it was given? How could God care about the fabric on his skin when he felt like a mistake, often lost within his own body, searching for an identity that didn't feel like a lie?

That question often revolved in his mind, demanding a certainty that never came.

Even though her words were spicy, Andrey tried to endure and respect Ziana. In a world full of cynical views, a sweet smile often tastes bitter.

The truth finally revealed itself. The longer it went on, the clearer it became that the acceptance Ziana displayed was merely a performance; a mirror of society that judged.
When eyes and ears became witnesses, no judgment was needed anymore.

“I’m friends with her because I pity her. You know, she’s weird… who would want to be friends with her? Her religious understanding is all over the place. Her mother, goodness knows if she’s Muslim or not. I heard her mum and dad didn’t even marry properly Islamic style. Her dad is an apostate.”

Ziana's melodious voice sang a discordant song to deaf ears—ears that praised her personality as an exemplary Muslim girl in school. Without her realising, Andrey heard it clearly enough from behind the classroom door.

When everyone else dispersed to their own business, Andrey came face-to-face with Ziana to defend his dignity.

“You don’t know my family. Why do you say that?”

Ziana didn’t dodge; she stood her ground, holier-than-thou.

“I say what is true. Everyone knows, right? What truth are you still hiding?”
“That is a personal matter.”
“I just don’t want you to keep getting lost. Your way of life and your family’s has deviated, strayed far from the path of Islam. I just want you to return to the straight path.”

“Straight path for who?” His voice trembled, controlled, trying to cool the heat in his heart. The advice of Abah and Mak played in his memory. “For you? For your God? Or for all the people who don’t even care about religion?”

Ziana only shook her head, trying to hide a lie by creating someone else's fault.

“You’ve misunderstood. That’s why it’s best you really deepen your religious knowledge. I pray your family doesn’t get lost. Apostate, associating partners with Allah… seek forgiveness, Andrey.”

Those words were the point of no return. Andrey began to distance himself, and Ziana, as usual, chose to be with friends who were ‘normal’.

The bell rang, signalling the end of the break. Like always, letting Ziana's words vanish with the wind was the wisest choice.

Ziana went to her class—a class that gave a status she was proud of, in her own eyes—while Andrey immediately stepped into the art room—a shabby room, where peace seemed to seep through the cracks in the walls and into his heart and soul.

There, Andrey carved his own wall of defence. Feelings and thoughts were colours poured onto the canvas. His paintings were full of metaphors—birds trapped in golden cages, butterflies flying with broken wings, and human faces that were never complete.

He also often expressed himself through poetry and songs that no one ever heard.

With the closure of the friendship with Ziana, the door to knowing himself opened. He no longer tried to seek the acceptance of others, because he increasingly understood that it was a futile effort.
Friends? Only Kak Zu was worthy so far. Ziana? A true friend would accept anyone without trying to change, let alone slander.

No. Ziana was just an experience. The reality was that being alone was better than accompanying someone who only liked to destroy trust.

“I’m not enemies with silence, Kak,” Andrey said to Kak Zu one afternoon as they drank coffee and ate banana fritters at a stall at the end of the village, a few days before he left Pekan Mutiara.

“There is no teacher greater than silence, is there?” he continued the sentence with a question. The answer was within himself.

Andrey saw silence as a teacher that gave space. A teacher who invited searching. Anything. Even something that was never lost. Something never taught by Ziana, the teachers at school, or anyone else.
“I understand… when you’re alone, the mind travels far, doesn’t it?” Kak Zu replied, and Andrey answered with a single simple word—“Free.”

Silence...

Sometimes he didn’t know what it meant. Like the night, perhaps? Like a windless desert, maybe? What was certain was that silence could be terrifying. Extremely terrifying. Because of that, many people ran, looking for a place to shelter from the loneliness, because without it, silence would come, accompanying like a ghost.

“Silence comes from within. I’m not lonely, just alone,” Andrey said, laughing softly. “Even being independent sounds lonely. You see? Same, isn’t it?”

Kak Zu smiled broadly.

“You have to be brave to face it,” she said. She understood that Andrey was activating his philosophical mode.

“And that strength doesn’t come from outside.”
“Sometimes I forget to be silent. But without realising, I’m actually keeping that loneliness alive.”

“Deep…” Kak Zu opened the space to listen.

“Lately, I often ask myself: What determines the meaning of life? The body? Or the soul that dwells within the body?”

Andrey poured those questions into his paintings and poetry. The gloomier, the deeper. Every line, every colour was a symbol of confusion, anger, and hope—a prayer he didn’t realise he uttered…

If You hear, tell me, who am I? Am I a shadow You created, or a reflection of a lost light?