THE Rejang River does not forget.
The Grey Famine is remembered along its muddy banks as a time when the water ran low and hope ran even lower. It was an era when the sky turned the colour of cold ash and the earth baked into hard crust. The rice jars were empty, and the immigrant dream of the Foochow pioneers seemed to drown in the mud they had worked so hard to clear.
The heat was a physical weight, and the only thing that grew was the desperation in a man’s eyes.
Ah Boon was only twelve, but he carried the hunger of a patriarch. His ribs showed like ladder rungs beneath his sun-darkened skin. One morning, he stood by the belian wood jetties, clutching a bamboo spear. Beside him, the settlement’s men waited in grim silence, searching for any silver fin in the silt, but the river remained stingy. The only sound was the frantic drone of jungle cicadas and the rhythmic knock of a lone sampan against the mud.
A low, pulsing sound began to echo off the water. From the haze of the horizon, a streak of impossible white cut through the grey as a flight of swans descended upon the Rejang. These were birds no one in the village had ever seen before. They were travellers from lands beyond the winter winds, creatures of ice and light that had no business in our humid delta, settling onto the dark water like fallen clouds.
In the logic of a starving village, this was not a miracle; it was a harvest. Ah Boon felt his father’s hand tighten on his shoulder, a grip of steel born from a month of empty bellies. The boy stepped into the thick mud, water swirling around his ankles, and raised his bamboo spear. The tip trembled as he aimed at the nearest bird.
“Strike, boy,” a gaunt elder hissed from the bank, his voice cracking with thirst. “Throw it now. My daughters are starving.”
The swan was close enough that Ah Boon could see the elegant curve of its neck and the bright obsidian spark of its eye. It did not look away, nor did it fly. It simply floated there, a vision of purity in a world that had become very ugly.
The village held its breath. A single bird could have fed a family for days, and the entire flock could have sustained the settlement until the rains returned. The gaunt elder took a step into the water and lifted his heavy net, ready to take the kill if the boy failed.
But as Ah Boon looked into that dark and steady eye, something shifted. The knot of hunger and fear in his chest loosened, replaced by a strange understanding that some truths were heavier than empty bellies. He saw the birds not as meat, but as fellow wanderers who were just as far from home as his own grandfather had been when he first stepped off the boat at the river’s edge. Ah Boon lowered his spear. He looked back, bracing for a rebuke, but instead saw his father’s hand fall away. His father’s eyes met the elder’s gaze, a flicker of doubt passing between them before he deliberately drove his own spear into the mud, abandoning it.
One by one, the other men followed suit. They chose to be guardians rather than predators, offering a mercy that defied the screaming hunger in their bellies.
The old people say the river remembers such kindness. The swans did not flee; instead, they moved with a strange, deliberate grace, paddling toward a hidden, overgrown bend. There, they began diving repeatedly into the deep silt, circling a shadowy pool where the water ran cool.
Curiosity overcoming hunger, Ah Boon and the men waded toward the bend. Beneath the sweeping roots of coastal trees, they found what the birds were disturbing: the water teemed with fish seeking refuge from the heat. Along the steep banks shielded by the canopy, wild paku pakis grew lush. The villagers had walked past this spot a hundred times, blinded by despair.
That evening, the scent of roasting fish filled the settlement for the first time in months. The famine broke shortly after, but the soul of the city was permanently altered.
When I walk along the river today, I see the giant swan statues standing as sentinels over the water. The Rejang still flows, carrying the memory of that evening when Ah Boon sat by the fire with a quiet stomach, watching a single pristine white feather float gently down the dark currents, the river carrying their quiet mercy. – DayakDaily
Sibu-born Wong Koh Seng, also known as Ken Wong, balances his corporate career as a PETRONAS Manager with a highly impactful digital hobby. As a passionate Senior Google Maps Reviewer, he leverages his sharp local insights to amass over 177 million views on his contributions.
Koh Seng is one of the two consolation winners (Adult category) for DayakDaily’s 2026 Writing Competition with the theme “Sarawak Folklore”.
