"Your shiny coconut head!" Mum snapped instantly, smacking the RT Head's arm with an empty melamine plate. "Really, Mr. Mul, stop talking nonsense so early in the morning. If you want to complain about a clogged drainage ditch, go yell at the banana tree next to the village head's house. Don't pick a fight with my son—his brain’s been wired a bit sideways since the day he was born!"

Mr. Mul snorted in annoyance, straightened the small towel around his neck, and gave Bagas a long, highly suspicious head-to-toe look. "Watch yourself, Bu Haji. If you keep this kid around, sooner or later he's going to ruin the entire neighborhood with his wildly inaccurate diagnoses. I'm going to go collect dues from people who actually live in reality!"

Without wasting another second, Mr. Mul spun around and marched off the porch of Barokah Jaya Convenience Store, his gait bearing a striking resemblance to an irritated drill sergeant.

Bagas stood frozen near the doorframe, his eyes glued to the transparent numbers floating above the receding neighborhood chief, ticking down with merciless precision:000:06:37:20

"Hey! Stop gaping like you just got hit by a pair of flip-flops! Get inside! You're embarrassing me in front of people with half-decent common sense!" Mum barked, grabbing the collar of Bagas's shirt and yanking him roughly back into the shop.

The interior of Barokah Jaya immediately greeted the senses with a deeply familiar blend of aromas: bulk cooking oil stored in blue plastic jugs, the distinct scent of various instant coffee powder packets, and towering stacks of chicken-curry-flavored instant noodle boxes piled high in the corner. Resting on a wooden cash register table worn down by decades of use was a thick-lined notebook wrapped in faded brown plastic—a silent witness to the financial ups and downs of everyone in Suka Maju Village.

"Mum..." Bagas called out in a weak voice, leaning against a half-empty jar of shrimp crackers. "Just now... did you really not see anything above Mr. Mul's head?"

Mum let out a sharp scoff as she swept the dusty concrete floor. "What was I supposed to see? A wide forehead, sure! Now stop gossiping about old folks. Come here and help stack the chicken eggs in the rack before some stray neighborhood cat steps on them and breaks the whole batch."

"It's not that, Mum... Earlier, I saw..." Bagas swallowed hard, hesitating over whether to mention the miraculous numbers. If he brought it up, Mum would undoubtedly haul him straight off to a local shaman or drag him to the nearest psychiatrist.

"Saw what? A ghost in broad daylight?" Mum cut in fiercely, planting her hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes at him. "Seriously, clean out that muddy imagination of yours! In a minute, this shop is going to be swarmed by militant grandmothers from the eternal-discount cult. Go get your head in the game!"

Before Bagas could take a deep breath to steady his nerves, the familiar jingle of coins and the slap of rubber sandals against asphalt drifted in from outside.

"Excuse me... Assalamu'alaikum! Oh, Bu Haji! Your shop smells amazing this morning, smells just like sudden good fortune!" greeted a stout, middle-aged woman wearing a striking sunflower-patterned daster dress.

It was Mrs. Darmi, one of their most senior regular customers and the permanent record-holder at the top of Barokah Jaya's bad-debt ledger.

Mum instantly shifted her facial expression within a fraction of a second, slapping on the kind of warm, welcoming smile usually reserved for life insurance salesmen hunting for fresh prey.

"Wa'alaikumussalam, Mbak Darmi! Well, speak of the angel—just last night I was gossiping... I mean, mentioning you in my prayers so you'd stay healthy and live a long life!"

"Oh, Bu Haji always knows how to make my morning," Mrs. Darmi replied with a light chuckle, stepping gracefully into the shop like a traditional market socialite. Her eyes immediately drifted toward the jars of local snacks. "Please, Bu Haji, I need to pick up quite a bit today. My son Budi wants snacks for his school lunch, plus a quarter-liter of bulk cooking oil, a kilo of granulated sugar, and a pack of filter cigarettes for my husband at home."

Bagas, standing off in the corner, immediately tensed up. He knew Mrs. Darmi’s transactional pattern all too well. One hundred thousand rupiah worth of goods, but the cash actually leaving her wallet would be ten thousand at most, with the rest guaranteed a permanent home in the sacred ledger.

Mum nodded gracefully while readying a black plastic bag. "You got it, Mbak Darmi! Only top-quality goods for a model customer like yourself."

"Alhamdulillah... right at the end of the month when the wallet is looking a bit thin. Thank goodness for Barokah Jaya, always understanding the plight of proletarian mothers," Mrs. Darmi beamed, patting the pocket of her dress. "Oh, and Bu Haji, just like usual... put it on the tab, will you? As soon as my husband gets paid next week, I'll pay it off in full, no remainder!"

At the phrase put it on the tab, Bagas reflexively glanced toward Mrs. Darmi's head.

Right there, hovering above the middle-aged woman's brow, floated a translucent, dim green number. Bagas squinted, carefully reading the digits. His heart stopped beating entirely as he read the remaining time:000:01:15:40

One hour... Fifteen minutes?!

Bagas jolted violently. His grip on the egg crate nearly slipped. He stared at Mrs. Darmi with wide, horrified eyes, paralyzed by disbelief. Mrs. Darmi's remaining lifespan was barely an hour! Yet here she stood, completely healthy, laughing brightly while haggling over the price of sugar!

"Hey, Bagas! Why are your eyes bugging out like that? Are they about to pop out of your head?" Mrs. Darmi grumbled, giving him a weird look. "What kind of spirit possessed your kid this time, Bu Haji? It's creepy being stared at like that—feels like someone coming to collect a debt across ten generations."

Mum didn't snap right away. Instead, she offered a thin, mysterious smile—the kind a commanding general wears right before springing a trap. She slowly closed Mrs. Darmi's bag of groceries and set it back down on the cash register without sliding it a single inch closer to the customer.

"Well, my dear Mbak Darmi... my sweet Mbak Darmi..." Mum began in a soft tone that somehow made the hair on the back of the neck stand up. "Regarding that tab in the ledger... you know, it really is a fascinating family tradition we've got going here."

Mrs. Darmi chuckled lightly, feeling confident. "Hehe, of course, Bu Haji. We're close neighbors, we have to trust each other, right?"

"True, we must trust each other," Mum replied, reaching for the legendary coffee-stained ledger. She slowly flipped it open with cinematic flair, pointing directly at a row of debts written in bright red ink. "The issue is, Mbak Darmi... your balance recorded here on page seventeen has been multiplying since the stone age. It’s reached three hundred and forty thousand rupiah. If we keep writing things down without any installments, this ledger is going to collapse before the year is out."

Mrs. Darmi's expression turned slightly pale. She offered an awkward laugh. "Ah, Bu Haji is just joking... My husband will pay when payday comes around—"

"When is payday, Mbak Darmi? Your husband's job is being a professional racing-pigeon observer down at the village square; half the time he spends the money on bird vitamins anyway!" Mum parried calmly, her words striking right to the bone through high-level reverse psychology that left Mrs. Darmi temporarily speechless. "So here is the new rule at Barokah Jaya: the 'put it on the tab' system is officially suspended to preserve my mental health and this shop's continued survival. If you want to take home this sugar and oil, you need to pay at least a quarter of it in actual cash—no sweet promises."

Mrs. Darmi blinked rapidly, looking utterly bewildered by Mum's tactical strike. "Oh, Bu Haji... I only have two thousand rupiah left in my wallet for the public minibus fare..."

Bagas couldn't bear to listen to the bargaining drama any longer. He checked the numbers floating above Mrs. Darmi's head, which now read:000:01:02:10

Her time was rapidly draining away right in the middle of a chat about cooking oil!

"Mum..." Bagas interrupted in a panicked, trembling voice, grabbing his mother's arm tightly. "Please, Mum... Just give it to her... Give the goods to Mrs. Darmi for free today! Don't make her pay!"

Mum glared daintily at Bagas, giving his ear a light but firm twist. "Hey! Absolutely not! If we give everything away for free, what are we going to eat tonight? Store bricks?!"

"But Mum... I swear, please, just hand it over right now!" Bagas urged frantically, cold sweat beading on his forehead. He watched the numbers drop down into the double-digit minutes.

Mrs. Darmi eyed Bagas with a mixture of suspicion and offense. "What's wrong with you, Gas? Are you hoping I'll go bankrupt soon or something? Fine, if I can't put it on the tab, I'll just take half the sugar!"

"Take it all, Mrs. Darmi! Take everything home for free!" Bagas blurted out hysterically, causing both Mrs. Darmi and Mum to freeze in absolute shock.

Before Mum could unleash her ultimate parental fury on Bagas, Mrs. Darmi huffed in irritation, grabbed her plastic bag, and stomped out of the shop with a scowl, muttering under her breath.

"Such a weird kid! The shop next door is way friendlier anyway!" Mrs. Darmi grumbled, quickening her pace as she left the porch.

Bagas stood rooted to the spot. His eyes traced the back of Mrs. Darmi as she walked away, watching the translucent numbers above her head hit zero before softly fading out and vanishing entirely into thin air.