Letters to the Future: Messages from Today’s Youth

Kinara stared at the letter with deep thought and consideration.

She carefully folded the paper, ensuring a perfect fold for the not-so-perfect letter. She then melted the seal wax on top, sealing it with a stamp. An old-fashioned way. However, she felt the need to do so because of how urgent the information was to the people who were going to read it, 25 years later.

25 years later is presumably a long period of time for someone to be reading a letter, but isn’t that what time capsules are? She thought to herself.

She placed the card on top of the other stuff she placed in the rectangular box made out of metal. She chose the box the shop owners had said was the best quality, able to withstand the testament of time and all its sorts of conditions. Cold, wet, warm, dry, termites. Best of the best. Kinara felt she had chosen the box of the finest quality she could afford reasonably.

Along with the letter, comes along a few other things. Some might say unrelated things, others who get it wouldn’t.

Would someone really get it, though? She doubted herself again, but inevitably brushed it off.

Seeds of wildflower, an antique pocket watch, a polaroid, and a cracked asthma inhaler. The polaroid showed an angle of someone’s legs in knee-deep dirty water. The picture was an obvious depiction of the condition Jakarta was often in recently. Continuous floods and news of increasing water levels. A city destined to sink.

Sink. The word made her heart sink.

No more Jakarta. No more home.

She pushed aside the thought and continued arranging the items, bedding them carefully to make sure it looks naturally presentable. She felt no need to sugarcoat them with colorful wrappings and confetti. Once she was done, she closed the box and exhaled. She smiled a bit, staring at the customized carved words on the bottom-left edge of the box that read:

"UNTUK MASA DEPAN —2050."

She felt ready, but she also felt helpless. She just really hoped someone would see the box she had so wholeheartedly prepared. Only time will tell.

She decided to bury the box behind the library of her school in East Jakarta, secretly on a Sunday. She buried it near the tree that used to bloom flowers every March, before the floods changed the seasons.

The letter inside had read:

To the beloved reader,

Thank you for unveiling this box. I sure hope you have found it in the best condition possible. I would honestly say I didn’t expect anyone to find it, considering the fact no one really does time capsules anymore these days.

……

These days it sounds really weird. Considering the time written and hopefully, funnily the time this letter would be read is different. But, that’s the purpose of the time capsule anyway.

Allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Kinara and I am 14 years old. I live in Jakarta.

Jakarta before.

Before all the chaos, before you had to read it only in history books, and certainly before everyone had started to say it was going to sink. It didn’t sink (yet).

Everyone is still here, still trying. But I won’t sugarcoat the increasingly hard situations we have to face as time passes.

The floods push forward further and further every year. We don’t need to wait for the rainy season — often the drains in the city would be flooded with water and our streets become temporary rivers. I personally don’t find it all that bad. Mostly, because of my optimistic little brother. Whenever the flood fills our house, he usually uses the foam mattress like a pool floaty. He saw it like a game.

But it wasn’t a game in the reality of things.

The school I go to often gets caught in the flood. Therefore, we often have cancelled classes because of the knee-deep waters. Or in other rare cases, the air would be somehow too thick to breathe which never occurred to me that air could be “too thick” to breathe in.

A lot of people complained about these unfortunate series of events through social media platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram. I couldn’t. I’m proud to say I wasn’t part of that community that said more than done.

I did a lot with my friends. We participated in a lot of cleanups, beach cleanups to be precise. Planted a lot of trees around the area. In our kampung and others. We set up a lot of banners, both printed and drawn by us and the locals. Even marching around with the banners that say:
“KITA MASIH ADA HARAPAN” — WE STILL HAVE HOPE.

We used our voice. Voiced our opinions even when the adults gave up, on social media, on the streets. Anywhere and in any way to hopefully get some action from all the people living in Jakarta, whether it’d be the government or just locals. We tried.

The seeds I have given you came from my family’s garden. Those are wildflower seeds that do not require ideal environmental conditions to grow. That’s another thing, I hope you are still able to grow things in the soil. I truly hope the conditions have come out better than before. I hope that the air is cleaner even if we can’t stop the sea levels from rising.

There are so many hopes from me, hopes from people around Jakarta that we would still be able to live in our beloved city. Nonetheless, I wish you all the health and prosperity in green and not to find this letter in a museum. I would say the idea of it is amusing.

Alas, hope for green and you finding this letter well.

Love,

Kinara

Jakarta, 2025

Kinara stood up as she had finished burying the metal box, wiping her hand on her jeans. She then looked at the tree that bloomed every March once. Its now just branches, no bloom, but the roots are firm on the ground. She believed the tree had meant something.

Somewhere nearby, a motorbike splashed through standing water. Someone else was shouting about the bad traffic, all sorts of different life activities.

Life must go on. She thought.

Kinara walked away from the tree after one last look and a long exhale. Life in Jakarta had no stopping so it continued — chaos, noise and courage. All of this, while a letter was waiting patiently for the future.