Mbok Srini was the loneliest woman in her village in Java. She had spent years praying for a daughter, but the gods remained silent. Then, one night under a full moon, Buto Ijo, the green giant who smelled of mud and rotting leaves, appeared. 'I can give you a daughter,' the giant said, his voice like distant thunder. 'A golden cucumber. When she grows up and becomes beautiful, I will come to claim her for my dinner.' Desperate and believing it would never happen, Mbok Srini agreed. The giant grinned, revealing his green teeth, and vanished into the darkness.
The next morning, in her garden, Mbok Srini found a golden cucumber the size of a watermelon. She picked it up with trembling hands, took it home, and gently opened it. Inside, sleeping in a lotus position, was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. Mbok Srini wept with joy and named her Timun Mas, the Golden Cucumber. But beside the golden cucumber was something else: a small twisted twig with two sticks on the sides and a face carved with a look of constant urgency. Mbok Srini didn't know what it was, so she placed it in a corner of the garden.
The twig grew. First, it was as tall as Mbok Srini's knee. Then it reached her shoulder. And then, one morning when Timun Mas was four years old, the entire house shook with a shout: 'TIME TO TRAIN!!!' Tung Tung Sahur, now the size of an adult, was banging on the door with his newly acquired bat. '4AM is the best time! Muscles work better in the dark!' Mbok Srini opened the window. 'What are you doing?' 'Training your daughter to survive! It's my mission!' And so began 13 years of unconventional physical education.
Timun Mas learned to run by dodging morning bonks. She learned to jump with Tung Tung chasing her around the garden. She learned to throw objects with precision because if she didn't, Tung Tung would tap her feet with the bat (gently, but it was annoying). She also learned to use the four magical items given to her by the village elder, Simbah: seeds that turned into a jungle, needles that became porcupines, salt that became a sea, and shrimp paste that turned into a swamp. Tung Tung never explained what they were for. 'You'll know when you need them!'
The day of Timun Mas's seventeenth birthday, a strange storm arrived. The sky turned green. The birds fell silent. And from the edge of the forest came a voice like a thousand logs breaking at once: 'MBOK SRINI! I'VE COME TO CLAIM MY DINNER!' Buto Ijo was even bigger than promised. His green teeth glowed in the stormy darkness, and his red eyes searched for Timun Mas with the hunger of seventeen years of waiting. Mbok Srini hugged her daughter with all her might. 'Run, Golden Cucumber. Run and don't stop.'
Timun Mas dashed into the forest with her golden bag. Buto Ijo, surprisingly agile for his size, followed, leaving footprints the size of bathtubs. 'No rush, little one! Dessert is always worth the wait!' And then, from nowhere and everywhere at once: 'NO ONE EATS MY STUDENTS!!!' Tung Tung Sahur stood between Timun Mas and the giant with his bat held high and the most serious expression his carved face could muster. Buto Ijo blinked. 'A log?' 'A COACH!' corrected Tung Tung.
Buto Ijo picked up Tung Tung with a swipe and tossed him toward a tree. The impact made an impressive sound—not the tree, but the giant's pinky toe hitting a root as he stepped. 'OUCHHHH!' Buto Ijo hopped on one foot, clutching his toe. Tung Tung emerged from the tree with a few extra leaves stuck to him and his bat a bit more dented. 'Good! Timun Mas, phase one!' The young girl threw the first seeds to the ground. In seconds, a dense, tangled forest sprouted between her and the giant.
Buto Ijo pushed through the magical forest as easily as a child through a spider's web, though it left him with several green scratches. Timun Mas threw the needles: thousands of porcupines appeared in the giant's path. 'OUCH again!' Buto Ijo danced over the quills while Timun Mas gained distance. Then she threw the salt: the ground turned into a stormy sea that the giant had to swim through. And when he reached the shore, Timun Mas tossed the shrimp paste: a smelly, sticky swamp swallowed the giant's legs up to his knees.
Buto Ijo, covered in mud, with thorns, wet and furious, reached the edge of the cliff where Timun Mas had run out of magical items. 'This time, no more tricks, little Cucumber.' The giant stretched his green hands toward her. And from the ground, Tung Tung—who had been rolling through the forest all along—arrived, breathless, with his bat held high. 'Final... training... mode!' He took a deep breath. He stood tall. And he swung the bat with a sound that wasn't exactly a bonk. It was something that could only be described as: BWOOOOOONG!
The impact wave from Tung Tung Sahur's bat against the ground next to Buto Ijo created a vibration that the giant felt in every one of his green teeth, in his swamp-covered knees, and deep in his enormous stomach of seventeen years of waiting. Buto Ijo looked at the wooden log. He looked at Timun Mas. He looked at the cliff. And he made a decision. 'I'm going to become a vegetarian,' announced the giant with the voice of someone who has had a profound revelation. And he left across the fields without looking back, promising himself that cucumbers were, objectively, enough.
Timun Mas returned home at dawn. Mbok Srini was waiting at the garden gate, her eyes red from lack of sleep. Mother and daughter hugged for so long that the birds living on the roof learned to ignore them. Tung Tung stood on the threshold, bat on his shoulder, gazing at the horizon where the sun began to paint the Java sky orange and pink. 'Good training,' he finally said. And although no one asked him to, at 4AM the next day, he woke the entire village again with his shouts. Some missions never end.
