Kasandung wohing pralaya,

Kaselak banjir ngemasi

(The dead strewn everywhere

No time to be cleared away)

ALWAYS gloomy, frightening, and apocalyptic. What is often referred to as ‘prophecy’ in various works of Javanese literature is almost always dystopian, an imagined future that silences hope for times to come.

The quote above is an extract from words claimed to have been uttered by Sabdo Palon, a priest in the