Window

Picture taken from https://www.proremodeler.com/

There is a window in my room, high up on the wall. For years, I haven't been able to see through it because it's too high for my small body. Tonight, though, I find that I can finally peek a little bit if I stand on my tiptoes.

The blinds are a little bit hard to open. I try my hardest with my thin fingers, and get to catch a glimpse of what's outside from the little opening I manage to create.

It is a wonderful sight. The sun is shining over a meadow with a river running through it; a single tree stands near the riverbank. I can see a forest from here, with tall trees that somehow seem more welcoming than intimidating. I long to be out there.

"No," is my mother's reply to my request to go outside. She motions me to sit beside her on the dinner table. "You are safe here."

"But it doesn't seem dangerous outside," I say.

"No buts," she warns me, "I know best."

So I believe her. I spend years after years staying in my room, learning everything I can about the world from books I find around the house, wondering about what danger lurks beyond the safety of my house. I sometimes catch myself staring at the window, but I suppress the thought and read more books.

I don't hate this house. It's dim, so it's not too bright; it's cold, so I don't get hot; it's empty. It's all I've ever known. I don't hate this house. I just don't like it, either.

My curiosity strikes again when I find that I've grown taller now, and can see through the blinds more clearly. The meadow is still there, with the single tree, and the river, and the forest.

But look! There's a deer! There's a deer drinking from the river and there are apples on the tree. My heart beats with excitement. I wonder what is waiting for me in the forest?

"I said no!"

I take a step back, my eyes wide from the shock of my mom's reaction. It's not enough to stop me, though. "But why? I don't see anything that could hurt me, and I'm just going to be out for a few minutes. Just to see what it's like!"

"It's bad for you," she says, "and that's the end of it."

That night, I spend hours looking out the window again. The sun is out, and the deer has gone home. A few apples fall to the ground. I still don't sense anything dangerous.

A few knocks on the window startle me. I look around me, but the room's empty. No way! Could it be... are the knocks from the other side of this wall?

I quickly open the blinds fully. Outside, a woman with short hair and familiar eyes is standing right in front of the window. She smiles when she sees me. "Hey kiddo," she says, as if she's known me for years. It's the first time I've ever seen her!

Yet for some reason, I feel like I've known her for years, too.

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Don't worry about it," she says, distracted as her hands search for something in her bag. "Got it, now stand back," she commands. I look at what she has produced: a rock?

"What are you trying to do...?"

"Just be quiet and stand back," she sounds impatient, so I do as she says. CRACK! She throws the rock at the window glass.

I almost shout, "ARE YOU CRAZY?" at her when I realize that the sound wasn't as loud as I thought it would be - nobody would have heard it from outside my room.

The woman grins, and gently pushes the crack in the window. The glass gives in and shatters, falling to the ground, and then vanishes like dust.

There is now a gaping hole in high up on the wall of my room.

She extends her hand to me and says, "Come. I'm going to show you what it's like."

"But-" I hesitate, "but Mom says it's dangerous."

The woman shrugs. "It's not. Do you want to stay, or do you want to come with me?"

I take her hand. When I get through, I feel warmth on my face. It's daytime! And it's the scene I've always admired from inside the room: the meadow, the tree, the river, the forest, even the apples and the deer. But now I can experience it by myself: the wind swaying my hair, the grass tickling my feet.

"It's wonderful!" I run towards the tree, hugging it and then hugging the deer, playing with the water. "The outside world is so wonderful!"

"It is," the woman smiles. We spend a few hours just being outside, me soaking it all up. It's everything I expect it to be and more - I feel more at home than at my actual home.

She takes me back to the window, and I climb right through it. When my feet land, it's dark again - the night has come back, and the glass on the window appears unbroken. I look for her.

She's still there, smiling at me. "Listen," she says in a whisper, "It's going to be all right. One day, you're going to walk out of the door and enjoy the world, all by yourself."

"How do you know?" I ask her.

"Because I'm you from your future," she says, smirking, "And I turned out all right, didn't I?"

Weather

Photograph by Sitthan Kutty on Pexels

I stretch my arms high, relieving them from the pressure of sitting in front of the computer for hours straight. I look at the clock: it's near 9 p.m. No wonder it's so dark outside. I get up, stretch a little more, and look out the window. There is nobody on the streets, safe for the couple walking together with bags in their hands. Ah, a little Alfamart run. I smile, sigh, and close the blinds. Time to prepare to sleep, I guess.

I wake up the next morning to the sounds of thunder and heavy rain--my eyes wide, my heart pounding. It's 3 a.m.! Can't a girl get a decent sleep for once in her life? I try to go back to slumberland to no avail, so I make the decision to turn on the lights in my room and read a little. I catch a glimpse of my phone - no new notifications.

Later in the afternoon, the sky has done a full 180 like that Dua Lipa song: no more rain, only sun. I lower the blinds of the window in front of my computer a bit, finding the light a little blinding to my poor, poor eyes. I take a little break from my work to check on my phone. It's 12 p.m., almost time for you to take your break as well.

I jump a little when the familiar sound of Darth Vader's ominous theme song blasts off my phone - my favorite sound. I answer your call with an excited "Hello?" and can practically hear you smile from the other side. You tell me you miss me, I tell you the same thing and ask you what you're eating for lunch, and then you tell me that you'll just grab whatever's available because it's raining cats and dogs on your side of the island and you can't be bothered to go out and buy some. I tell you it's actually the opposite weather over here. You chuckle and say, "It must be nice."

I shrug. "Honestly? I'd take a storm over the sunshine any day if that meant I could be with you."

I don't know how you don't just hang up the phone right then and there - instead, you laugh that hearty laugh of yours that I've been wanting to hear since yesterday. "Patience, my dear," you say like someone from the 1950s, "we'll share the weather when the time is right."

Green-Eyed Curse

On the eve of his sixteenth birthday
Lost will be his sense and wit
Pray and pray and pray he may
None will save him from the gritting teeth
Of uncertainty
Blinding cloud of doubt and consternation
Envelops his skeleton and skin
Gone is all the granted adoration
Replaced with concern and harsh rejection
Walk and walk and walk he may
Farther from the warmth of the castle
Deeper into the woods of loath and decay

Pride

December 1991: Look at her! My baby girl is born. She will be everything I ever hope for her to be.

December 1997: Look at her! My baby girl is now enrolling in the best primary school. It doesn't matter that she is a year younger than all her classmates - she is my child, so she will be smarter than everybody else's.

December 2004: Look at her! My baby girl is the highest rank in her class. It doesn't matter that she didn't get to do club activities or hang out much with her friends - she is my child, so she will be happy with her grades.

December 2009: Look at her! My baby girl is accepted into one of the best universities in town. It doesn't matter that she won't be studying a subject she's interested in - she is my child, so she will be learning the one I chose.

December 2013: Look at her! My baby girl has graduated magna cum laude. It doesn't matter that she spends a lot of time in her room and barely eats or talks to anybody - she is my child, so she must be looking for a job I will be proud of.

December 2014: Look at her! My baby girl is now working for my friend's company. It doesn't matter that she wanted to work in a different field - she is my child, so I know what is best for her.

December 2017: My baby girl is now lying in the ground. I don't understand why she chose to leave me - all I did was love her and tell her how to live her life so she could make me happy.

Untitled

I wrote this story during Couchsurfing Writers' Club Bandung meeting on Thursday, October 26th, 2017. The host, Abi, chose quarter-life crisis as the theme. Here is what I managed to jot down in 30 or so minutes:

When I open my eyes this morning, I find myself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

Hm?

I blink and I blink, but I still don't recognize the white plafond.

I get up, and scan the entire room: it's not mine.

It's not the room I grew up in with yellow walls and pictures of my favorite cartoon characters decorating it, keeping me company on nights of thunderstorms or afternoons after school.

This room has white walls instead, and a single clock in the middle of one. Under that clock is a mirror. I walk towards it.

I look in the mirror, and the woman inside stares back at me.

Who are you? I ask her.

She doesn't answer.

"Kaaak!" I hear my mom calling me. Finally! Something I recognize!

I get out of the room, finding my legs lightly jogging downstairs, excited at the thought of being with someone I actually know. Someone who actually knows me.

"Have you just woken up? You're going to be late to work!"

I stop dead. I look at her, and I see my mom. But something is different about her. Something that I can't quite point out...

"Yes," I hear a voice from inside my head. "I'm gonna get ready for work now."

And I see her. The woman from the mirror walks right past me from behind, gives my mother a hug, and goes to take a shower.

I look down at my hands. They're there, but it feels almost as if I can look through them.

"Mom?" I call her out, but she doesn't respond. Her eyes are still glued at the little device she is holding.

"Mom, I'm right here." Still no response. She is still watching a video of someone dressed in all white, spewing out contradictory words that she's listening to so intently.

I don't know how much time has passed with me just trying to figure out what's happening. The next thing I know is the woman from earlier emerges from another room, dressed in professional clothes with her face made up.

She kisses my mom on her cheek, and brings her sling bag out. I chase her. "Wait! Who are you? Why do you live in my house?"

She turns around and looks at me. "Stop living in the past. Wake up."

"What do you mean?"

"Wake up," she just says. "Wake up."

And then I open my eyes.

The white plafond I stare at is quiet as usual. I get up, scanning the room with white walls and the clock and the mirror.

I go towards the mirror, and stare at the reflection.

"Good, you've woken up," she says. "You can't be late for your first day of work."

Sweet Torture

Image taken from driscolls.com

It all started with the Korean drama I watched last night. There was nothing special about that episode, except for when the heroine was shown eating a strawberry shortcake. That scene wasn't even an important part of the story, but the way the cake looked, how soft and fluffy, made me want it in front of me right that second.

The way the main character sliced it with her fork, the way it crumbled, the way the cream kind of overflowed a little bit... and the way she brought it into her mouth, how she first bit into it, when she tasted the sweetness... It was almost as if I was the one eating it.

Almost! As the wise and almighty Ariana Grande once said, "Almost is never enough." So I turned off the TV, walked into my room, laid on my bed, and told myself that I would buy it the next day.

Which is today, and so far I have eight hours of work to go through and absolutely zero strawberry shortcake in my hands. It's fine, it's fine. My colleagues and I usually order Go-Food to our office for lunch, so I wonder if I can get a strawberry shortcake this time. I scroll and I scroll, spending each minute of my break time dedicated to searching for the one thing that will satiate my craving right now.

"Git!" I hear someone call my name from behind me. I turn around and find my boss standing near my desk. "I need your help translating this part, can you do it now?"

"But I haven't had lunch," I say.

To which he answers, "Oh, it's okay. I've already bought lunch for everyone in the translators' room. Nasi goreng!"

Ugh, great. I smile, and proceed to follow him to the other room. It's okay. I'll get my strawberry shortcake after work is done.

Five hours later, I find myself in front of the cake shop near my office. I walk in giddily, feeling like I'll finally get what I've always wanted for the whole day. There is only one person queueing in front of the cashier. Nice, I don't have to wait too long!

The cashier receives the cash and gives a white box to the customer. "Here's your strawberry shortcake. Thank you for your patronage, please come again!" After the customer in front of me leaves, she looks at me and smiles. "Good evening, Miss. How can I help you?"

"I'd like one strawberry shortcake, please," I say, pretending to be calm and not let my excitement show. This is it! I'll finally get my cake!!!

"I'm so sorry Miss, that was the last strawberry shortcake we had," says the dream-crushing cashier. "May I offer you something else? A cheesecake, maybe?"

'No, you may not!' is what I'm thinking, but instead I just shake my head and get out of the shop. It's fine. It's probably not my day.

I mean, I know it's just a random craving for a cake, but somehow it's getting me so down. I need someone to cheer me up. So I take my phone and dial my best friend's number. As soon as I hear her say hello, I ask her, "Are you home? I need an immediate mood booster."

"Oh, you call at the right time! Yeah, come here, I'm home. My brother just came back from work."

"So?" I see no relevance in her brother being home with her ability to cheer me up. But her next words prove me wrong. Dead wrong.

"Yeah, he just randomly brought home some strawberry shortcake."

I hang up and order a Gojek ride straight away. Strawberry shortcake, here I come!

How My Life Ends

Couchsurfing Writers Club
FB & Co, Bandung
August 24, 2017
Theme: Oxymoron

I don't know what time it is. Midnight? Past midnight? Maybe even just a little over 8 p.m.? Never mind that. It doesn't matter. What matters is what is standing before me.

Who is standing before me.

I didn't expect to find something - someone - quite like her tonight. I mean, it's a graveyard - I don't generally expect to see anything other than lonely soil filled with dead memories when I come here once a week just to be alone.

Tonight, though, proves to be different.

I was just about to sit under my tree - a big cypress located conveniently in the center of the whole cemetery - when I caught a glimpse of her.

I was scared, at first, but I tried not to show it. "Act naturally," I said to myself, "don't be afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of." Either I convinced myself with that, or I faked bravery to prove to no one in particular that I am no coward, I tried to focus on what I thought I saw.

And there she was. Standing, right where I see her now.

I don't know what it is - but something about her is painfully beautiful. Is it her hair? No, she barely has any more hair. Her smile? She isn't even smiling. But this is what I know: her beauty will be the death of me... And I'm okay with that.

I say nothing. She says nothing. Can she say anything with her ripped lips? I don't know. What I do know is that this silence is deafening. I need to do something... Anything. I need to know her name.

So I ask her, "What's your name?"

But she doesn't answer. Maybe she can't answer. She just stands there staring at me with her left eye - the place where her right eye should be is left with a gaping hole. Huh. I didn't notice that before.

The night gets deeper and I can't take it anymore. I know what she wants. I know what she wants, and she can take it. I know how stupid that is, but I don't care. It's my only choice to be with her, even for a second.

So I walk, one step after another, towards her. She opens her arms invitingly. I submit, giving her a warm embrace, soaking in the fact that we're alone together in the universe for this moment, and for this moment only.

It's perfect. It's everything I never knew I needed.

She then opens her mouth, and proceeds to eat my brains. Yeah, okay. I accept the fact that I'm gonna die being devoured by the walking dead.

The Fake Englishman

Couchsurfing Writers Club
Kopi Popi, Bandung
August 3, 2017
Theme: Einstein's Riddle

It's a nice evening. The man in the red house sits on a chair on his front porch, enjoying the view that the sunset offers him tonight.

The whispers of the wind chill him, so he introduces the warmth of his Pall Mall to his lips. His birds chirp a song of disapproval that he doesn't listen to. "Don't smoke," they say, "free us!" In vain is their effort, for the man doesn't even move his head to acknowledge what is being said from inside the cage.

It's just another night for him.

A shadow approaches from the right. His neighbor, the Dane. "Hey, Daniel," she walks toward him.

He smiles at her. "Good evening, Abby. What have you got there?"

She gives him the small blue bag she's been carrying. "A little something from my trip to your homeland," she says. "I know it's your favorite thing."

They nod as she says good bye. As soon as she disappears from his sight, he opens the gift he has just been given. The familiar smell annoys his nose. He sees what's inside.

It's tea.

He closes the bag immediately and glances at a glass full of milk sitting on the table just beside his chair.

He sighs, full with relief. No one has found out that he doesn't like tea yet. He isn't ready to be called The Fake Englishman yet again.

I Was Supposed to Die, Not Rule A Kingdom and Start A War! (30 Hari Menulis #15)

Picture taken from The Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor

What would you do, if you were told you only had three more months to live?

It sounds like a cliche from a movie or a book, doesn't it? That's what I thought, too. In the movie, the character would probably be devastated. They would probably start regretting what they'd done in their lives, and think about what they'd want to do before their life ended.

Me? I shrugged.

I mean, the seventeen years I've been on this Earth can't be counted as 'living', anyway. I have a strange heart condition that nobody in the world can figure out. Something's wrong, but what? Doctors don't know. Not the doctors in Bandung, or Singapore, or Cleveland. They started experimenting on me when I was four, but after three years, it took the toll on my mom. That's when she decided to let go of me.

But I'm still here, ten years later. Barely, anyway. I haven't gone to school in a month. It's okay, I don't really want to. When I'm there, I feel like a stranger in the class all over again. I struggle in catching up with the rest of the class because when they were covering trigonometry or some other mathematical gibberish, I was slipping in and out of almost-comas. Why should I know any of that stuff, anyway? Physics, chemistry, math... They all won't matter when I die.

What will? I have no idea.

Calm down, I'm not suicidal. I don't want to die. I just don't have any reason to dread it. I'm not welcoming it, per se, but maybe... maybe it's better if I die.

My parents, they're good people. They just hit the reverse-lottery with me. Sometimes when I think of what they could have done with their lives if they didn't have me, I can see their genuine smiling faces. The ones they show me are restricted--painful. They don't deserve me. I say this as a matter of fact, not from an emotional point of view.

So when I overheard Doctor Marino telling my mom that she would finally be free of me in three months or so (not her exact words, obviously), I just shrugged. Good for her. And finally, I guess. I'm not sure if I believe in an afterlife, but even if there isn't one, I'll be okay. I will no longer be a burden to her, or to my dad, or to classmates who have to struggle to remember my damn name when I'm attending classes once in a blue moon, or to my country, or to the world.

Now, what do you imagine death would be like?

I've fantasized about mine quite a number of times, honestly. Not much you can do when you're constrained to a bed in an empty hospital ward by yourself, night after night. In my mind, I imagine it will come at night, when I'm alone, just like tonight. Hopefully it'll be painless. It'll be better if it happens when I'm asleep, I think. So I'll close my eyes, fall asleep, and then just never wake up. It'll be perfect.

What I never once imagined is that death would come in the form of two guys with bright green eyes and a weird sense of fashion.

After I died, I wake up in the dark. I think I'm outside. It's super chilly, and just realizing that I'm cold sends shivers all over my body. My supposedly dead body. That wakes me up. What in the everloving hell happened to me?

I open my eyes. I am outside, and it is dark. I don't recognize where I am... I mean, I haven't been to many places besides my parents' house, the school, and various hospitals anyway, so I don't suppose I should know areas like this--especially with this many trees surrounding me. Am I in a park? No... A forest?

"You're awake," I hear someone whisper from my side, and footsteps coming from another. I turn my head to my right, and there he is--one of the guys who barged into my hospital room like criminals in action movies. This time, there's no detective daddy or super-powered boyfriend to save me, though. They just killed me and took me here.

Hold on, what?

"What..." I try to ask them the million questions that form in my head, but realize that 1) my throat hurts, and 2) my voice sounds like frogs swallowing Boncabe. "What the...?"

"Okay, sorry. I know you have a lot of questions," says the guy who now I remember tore open my freaking chest and took out my freaking heart and then freaking burst it right before my own two eyes.

Hell yeah, I have a lot of questions!

"But we're here to save you," he continues, apparently not getting the signals my eyes are making to tell me more details on how BREAKING AND ENTERING into my room and KILLING ME and then KIDNAPPING ME count as saving me. And from what? The only danger I have ever been is if my heart stops pumping blood, and that's literally what they let happen.

"I'm Aadi." I suddenly hear the other guy say. I turn to him. He looks humongous, standing over me. Maybe it's because I'm lying on the ground and he's just standing there, looking down on me. Terrific. "And that's my brother, Archan. We were sent here to take you to our kingdom and prepare you for the war."

I mean... Guys, whoever is reading this--does ANYthing this guy says make sense to you? Because to me it doesn't. It really doesn't.

My confusion probably shows on my face, because the other guy--Archan, was it?--starts shaking his head. "Okay, I know it's confusing. It's... We... I don't even know where to begin."

"Try," I croak.

He sighs. "Our princess died, Mara."

He said it as if I'm supposed to understand what's going on with just that sentence. Princess what now? Where are they from, The United Kingdom? What does any of it have to do with me?

"And we're at war," says the older guy. "Well, we will be, very soon. We need her to lead us to victory, but she died, and now it's up to you to save our kingdom and our people in it."

I mean, I'm not crazy, right? It's completely normal that I don't understand anything that they've been spewing out of their crazy mouths, yeah? I shake my head slightly (because damn does it hurt to literally do anything with my body right now), trying to make sense of every single thing that has happened tonight.

"Aisha--Our princess, she has--I mean, her heart is strong. That's where she got all her powers from. Before she died, we managed to save her heart, and we've put it in your body. The one beating inside you, that's hers." The boy kneeling beside me looks sorrowful as he says all this. "I'm very sorry we didn't have the time to explain before taking your heart away, but... There's no time, Mara. It's getting dangerous every second."

"Archan." Aadi says suddenly, his voice alert. I look at his poised posture, and that's when I feel it--danger.

There's danger lurking, and I don't know how I know it, but I can feel it. They can, too, I think. I get up slowly, ignoring the screams of pain from every bone in my body as I do so. I look around. I don't see anything out of ordinary (except for the fact that I'm sitting on the ground in an unknown forest with two strangers at probably two am), but the presence... I can feel the presence.

And suddenly I see it.

"THERE!" I cry, pointing at a pair of red eyes just floating around ten meters in front of us.

I haven't had the time to panic or feel scared before Aadi stands in front of me in a defensive stance, and Archan running toward the danger. I will my eyes to stay open, because what's happening in front of me is unbelievable:

The floating eyes develop some kind of darkness around them,

Archan muttering some stuff and pointing his fingers to the danger,

Green lights come out of his fingers, shooting the shadow,

And as its darkness fades, consumed by the green lights, it cries

A loud shriek

Something I've never heard of before

Something that shouldn't be real

And then it disappears, and the whole forest fall silent once again.

Only this time, Archan and Aadi quickly turn to me, see that I'm okay, and each take my hand and we run. We run and run, I don't know how long we've been running and where, but I can sense the urgency and fear that they don't bother hiding anymore.

As I move my legs, I can't help but think that maybe, maybe, death is better after all!

The Wall and A Young Girl's Dark Gazing Eyes (30 Hari Menulis #14)

The forlorn gaze coming from the dark eyes of the teenaged girl is quite possibly the most familiar thing this wall has known during the last several years, now. It does not know how it feels about that.

The Wall likes the girl, it has decided. She comes often, and every time she does, she doesn't make a fuss, like most other people who frequent here. She just sits or lays there on the bed, does whatever the woman in the white robe tells her to. Very rarely does she speak.

She comes often. Maybe every few months or so--walls do not have the interest in keeping up with humanity's obsession with time. Every time she comes, The Wall can't help but feel joy. Which is strange, because walls aren't supposed to feel anything. But there is something about this girl, it feels, that makes it somehow... alive. Even for just a little bit.

She comes often, which makes The Wall happy, but also sad. The frequency of her stay means she doesn't have long--her time is ending. This is what The Wall has learned over the few decades of his life, since it was built with the hard hands of the tender-hearted men who thought of their family and loved ones only. People come and go. Sometimes they come back, looking more frail each time, and then they stop coming.

It's nearing midnight, and this time, she is staring at The Wall again, as she does every night without fail. Today marks the fifth day she has been here. Anyone can probably guess what is going on in her mind right now, maybe. What the doctor told her mother did not sound very good. Even The Wall understands that.

Unbeknownst to the sighing girl are two young men standing just outside the window to the balcony, their eyes sharp, watching her. The Wall would squint its eyes to see more clearly, if it had eyes. It would alert the girl of the intruders, if it could. But alas, such is the nonlife of a wall, and its fate to just be present and watch terrible things happen.

The girl gasps as they come in, but quickly stopped from uttering a single word by the quick hand of one of the young men. The other one goes to the door, checking that no one is coming.

Her eyes look frightened, wandering left and right, trying to make sense who these people are, and what they could possibly want from a 17-year-old girl with a weak heart and probably three months left to live.

The fellow took his hand off of her mouth, putting one finger in front of his. "Ssh," he whispers, "we're not here to harm you."

"We need to go," says the one by the door impatiently.

"Okay," the one by the bed nods, not to the older boy, but more to himself. "Mara, we are here to save you."

Mara's eyes show something else now--confusion. And also anger? "What the hell? Who are you guys?" She sits straight up.

"We don't have time, just do it!" The Impatient One goes to the left side of the bed.

On the right side of the bed, the boy puts his hand on Mara's right shoulder, which is quickly removed by Mara's swift hand, and a "Don't. Touch. Me." warning from her mouth. It scares him a little, The Wall likes to think, but he doesn't show it.

"Mara, seriously. We are not the enemy," he pleads.

"You sure look like one to me," says Mara. For a quick second, she takes in a deep breath, and as she starts to scream, The Impatient One does something with his fingers that sends tiny blue lights to her mouth.

She screams, but there is no sound. She tries and tries, but the end result is the same: silence. She tries not to let it, but fear starts to consume her.

"Damn, Aadi!" The younger one looks panicked. "Why did you do that?"

"We don't have time, Archan."

"You just wasted your power!"

"Brother. Just do it."

The one called Archan stares at his companion, his eyes communicating how much he doesn't want to do what he is told to do, while knowing there is no better way. Finally he gives up, and turns his attention to Mara, whose hands now are on her neck, her face a chaos.

"Mara, lie down," Archan says. "Please."

Mara looks at him, and does as she is told. The Wall is confused by her action--surely these strangers want something out of her, so why is she giving it to them so willingly all of a sudden?

What it doesn't know is that Mara saw something in the boy's eyes--she doesn't know what it is, but there was no intention to harm her. There hasn't been, even since they entered the room. Mara senses something strange. The urgency of this two boys barging in her room at midnight feels bigger than her.

As she lies down, she studies the faces of the strangers. No, she doesn't recognize any of them. But why does she feel like she should?

Archan closes his eyes, and his hands start glowing. The room, that was pitch-black, is now incandescent with the red glow that grows around his hands. He hovers them over Mara's chest, and she starts glowing, too.

Aadi is now holding a wooden box in his hands out of nowhere--neither Mara nor The Wall noticed the box when the boys came in. He opens it, displaying something inside. It... it moves. It looks almost alive, but not really. It glows also, but with a dim yellowish light around it. It feels strange. It feels foreign.

It feels like something that shouldn't be.

Mara looks at the object, trying to figure out what it is. But as the glowing red light on her chest grows brighter and spreading all over her body, bringing warmth with it, she loses her energy to focus on anything. So she closes her eyes, and trusts the two boys to do what they have to do. She doesn't have time to think about what this means, or what is about to happen. She feels almost content.

But what comes out of Archan's mouth takes away all that contentment: "We are going to take your heart out."

As she opens her eyes in protest, Archan's hands rip apart her torso, and there it is--her heart. Her red heart, beating very weakly in his hands, and she is staring at it. She never thought she'd be looking directly at the very organ that has kept her alive all these years, but also the same one that gives her misery.

She starts to open her mouth, but Archan quickly pulls her heart away

and her life with it,

so she dies

and she does what dead bodies do:

lay unmovingly on the bed.

The Wall screams in silent terror, one that no one and nothing will ever hear.

It shuts away its consciousness, numb with the pain of losing the very person it has ever been able to show interest in. It's becoming just another cold, blank wall in the cardiac hospital.

By doing so, it loses its power to see what happens next: Archan taking the object out of the box and into Mara's gaping chest. Aadi taking Mara's heart and putting it in the box, as it slowly stops beating. Archan uttering something with his hands hovering over Mara's corpse once again. Mara's torso slowly closing itself, her blood seeping into her vessels in command.

And for a full minute, the room is once again dark and silent.

And then, something happens.

This time, there's no tiny blue lights or red glows coming out of Archan, or Aadi, or Mara. This time, there's no sound, either.

It's just Mara's eyes opening again, ever so slowly.

Only this time, they're not dark--they're light blue.

Fine (30 Hari Menulis #8)

The prompt for this post

He looks so frail lying on that bed, wrapped in a dusty old cloth we call a blanket.

We all know he doesn't have much time. It's happening. Death is coming, tonight, and we have no way of stopping it. We've tried to delay it - for weeks and months on end, as soon as we finally, finally figured out what was wrong with him. But everything was in vain, of course, because it wasn't enough.

I don't know why we persevered as long and as much as we did. Nothing was ever enough around here. Never has been, never will be.

We live in a forgotten square in the outskirts of a bustling town, where nothing ever happens. Well - nothing good. Hunger, pain, illnesses, and anger are all we ever know. They're what I've known since I was born.

I thought it was normal - I thought it was how life was supposed to be. Until I was five, anyway, when he deemed me ready to see the "world". He took me to the heart of the city and showed me how different food and time would mean for other people outside of our pathetic little square.

I wailed in anger and frustration, and he let me. And then he told me, "Kid, it's okay. We're okay."

"No, we're not!" Five-year-old me was able to see the truth, finally. "We're like animals to these people!"

He sighed, as if disappointed. In me, for not showing the dignity and pride he'd tried to teach me all those years despite everything we didn't have, or in life, for not being fair? Maybe both. Or maybe in the god he always spoke of, for not giving us the reality these people had.

"We're fine. We always have food on our table, and clothes on our body, and a roof over our heads."

He told me a long speech about being grateful all the way home. A speech I didn't care to listen to. I knew what I wanted, and I knew what he wanted me to do, to feel, was not how I was going to get it.

And five years later, here we are. Him on his death bed, and me in the corner of the room, watching his chest rise and fall, rise and fall with such difficulty I wonder how he's still with me.

He wakes up, in the midst of all the heaving, his eyes looking for me. I come to him and take his hands in mine. He tries to smile. He's trying to make me feel better, but as usual, I only feel worse.

"Listen, Kid," he whispers, his voice as rash as sand and cold as the winter. "I'm sorry for everything."

"No," is all I manage to say.

"I guess we weren't as fine as I wanted us to be. I thought-" he coughs, throwing out what little life he has left in him with each one, "I thought you would be okay because I was okay with what we had. Because- because I had you. And you were the best thing I've ever truly had in my life."

###

The funeral is simple. We put his body in a pit and burn it, along with everything he ever lived for.

My sister cries beside me, her hand clutching at mine. "What will we ever do?" she asks.

I shake my head. "We'll figure it out. It may be tough at first," I kneel and look at her in the eyes, "...but if anyone asks, tell them we're fine."

Because we will be, Kid. As long as I have you, and you have me.

Why I Got Married Even Though I Never Wanted To (30 Hari Menulis #28)

I was never into marriage.

Picture taken from HuffingtonPost.com

Growing up, my friends often fantasized about their dream weddings - beach weddings, garden weddings, white weddings - but I just couldn't bring myself to care about what kind of dress I wanted to wear or which color scheme I wanted for the decoration. I was much more into other stuff, like actually getting good grades in school.

Nearing my 30's, a lot of my friends were engaged, or married, or pregnant. Me? I was still so focused on my career as a writer and human rights activist. I wasn't envious of them, either, because I couldn't imagine dedicating myself to just one person for the rest of my life. My parents grew wary of my singledom, even trying to introduce me to children of their friends whom they thought were eligible men, but I just shook my head and did my own stuff. Marriage was never for me, I guess.

But then he proposed to me, and I couldn't say yes quick enough.

He came out of nowhere - a representative of a client company that wanted me to write an article about their product on my blog. Turned out we'd met on several occasions on banquets or mutual friends' weddings, and during our work together we realized that we just had so, so, so much more in common than anyone else we'd met in our lives. I can still remember his face when I told him that his favorite books were written by me, back when I still used an alias because I wasn't confident enough as a writer to use my real name on my books. He lit up like the sun.

Love happened very suddenly, took me by force and I was drowning in happiness. It made me anxious, to be honest. I wasn't used to feeling so happy because of another person, and certainly never for such a long period of time. When I told him this, he said that he felt the same, but he couldn't imagine going back to how things were now that he knew what life was like with me. That was two weeks before his proposal, three years after we went on our first date.

It's been ten years now, and every morning I wake up smiling at his sleeping face right next to mine. The peacefulness he radiates reminds me that life can actually be this good, no strings attached. Well, it's not always golden all the time - even now we still find some things we disagree about, or stuff we just tolerate about each other - but this feeling of completeness, of being understood, is definitely worth all the bumps on our road.

I still maintain that you don't need to be married to be happy even today, but if you meet the right person - the person that can make you fall in love with yourself, especially when they're around - marriage isn't such a bad idea. Spending the rest of your life with that person isn't scary - it's something you actually look forward to.

Homunculus (30 Hari Menulis #27)

Someone is living in me.

She is breathing, breathing hard.
She always starves
for something terrible
something awful
to happen.
She is always there,
somewhere in me,
living,
breathing,
waiting.

If her time comes,
when
her time comes,
she will break out
and rip everything I've ever had
to a million
a billion
a trillion little pieces.

And I will never be whole again.

And I'm scared
of that time.
I'm scared of her.

I'm scared of me.

Predicament (30 Hari Menulis #23: Action)

I find myself in a predicament: there are fireballs traveling in what seems like light speed heading my way.

I imagine it would suck so hard if they made contact with my bare face. Good thing I managed to block it with a water barrier, then.

The firebender moves to my left, and I don't waste any time. I bend the barrier into ice spikes and send them his way. He's too fast, though. I swear it's barely physically impossible to move directions while you're running as quickly as he did, but if it's him, anything's possible.

I try my luck, locking him in an ice jail as he runs past a trail of water from the lake right next to us as fast as I can. It works, and I almost smile victoriously before I notice his grin.

He heats his whole body. The ice is melting, so I quickly get into the lake before he sets himself free. I surround myself with water tentacles, and dear God it takes so much of my energy when it's midday and I can't borrow the power of my brother's dead ex-girlfriend. I don't show it, though.

He breaks free.

I try to hit him with one of my water tentacles, but he dodges it to the right. Unlucky for him, though, I've already readied the second tentacle.

SPLASH.

He's soaked all over, his long hair glistening under the sun. He looks at me for a fraction of a second, and he runs.

Toward me.

Into the big, deep lake.

Is he crazy? This is completely my territory!

Confused, I freeze the surface to lock him in, but he's already swimming deeper by the time the water freezes above him.

My heart pounds as I wait for him to break the already melting frozen surface and show himself, but it's been a second too long. Where is he?

The sudden heat of the water surrounding me answers my question. I'm startled at the temperature that rised way too quickly, and lose my balance. I fall into the water.

I haven't had time to make sense of my surroundings when I see the fire in his eyes approaching me.

I could have just frozen the water around him before he reaches me, but I'm out of breath and energy and my lungs are just screaming at me demanding oxygen, so I quickly move my legs and swim towards the completely melted surface.

I gasp for air, taking enough to get ready to dive back in and find him, but before I can do anything, his face shows itself right next to me.

"Tag," he smirks as he places his hand on my head, "you're it."

You've Got A Text! (30 Hari Menulis #16)

"MYA"

"Who is that? Found yourself a new girlfriend?"

"Missing you already"

"Adorable. Are you drunk?"

"No... I don't have to be drunk to text my girlfriend"

"Actually, you do. You're very practical with texts when you're sober."

"You know me so well! Are you an angel?"

"Just on the weekends. Where are you? You're not driving home after this, okay?"

"I'M NOT DRUNK"

"I don't believe you."

"Fine. I'm at Matt's"

"You are? Why?"

"Carolyn broke up with him I'm here for moral support"

"Moral supports aren't supposed to be intoxicated."

"I'm bad at it apparently"

"Should I take that responsibility? I can drive you home afterwards."

"NEGATIVE he doesn't want anyone to see his ugly face he cries like a little girl"

"Alright. Well, tell him I'm sorry. Are you staying there? I can come and bring breakfast for you guys."

"YOU ARE THE BEST WIFE"

"I'm not your wife yet, Alex."

"YET??? DOES THAT MEAN WHAT I THINK IT MEANS?"

"We are NOT doing this over text. Go get some rest."

"ILYSM!!!"

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not familiar with Internet abbreviations, like a normal 30-something who doesn't hang out with teenagers?"

"It's I love you so much remember it because I'll be saying it a lot"

"Oh because it's too much trouble to actually type every word down?"

"No because it's cool like spy codes"

"You're definitely more drunk than I thought. Go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning. Also: ILYSM2."

"Using 2 as too is a bit juvenile don't you think"

"OH SHUT UP ALEX!"

Scrambled (30 Hari Menulis #3: Fiksi Romantis)

Picture taken from vitalfarms.com

I wake up famished.

I look at my husband sleeping peacefully, and then carefully get my body out of the bed. I slip out of the room quietly, deciding not to close the door in case the sound of it wakes him up. He's a light sleeper, that one.

I go into the kitchen and open the fridge. There's nothing much left, since we went for dinner with our friends earlier in a fancy restaurant, celebrating their second pregnancy. It was a joyous night, but I just couldn't for the life of me understand why expensive food came in teeny-tiny portions. Did they think we were dwarves?

That may explain why I'm feeling super ravenous right now, I could eat a horse. I glance at the kitchen clock--it's a little past two in the morning. I consider just drinking milk and going back to bed, but I don't think that's going to be enough. So in a quick, familiar motion, I ready the pan and start scrambling some eggs.

"Whatcha doing?"

I shriek, utterly startled by his voice coming from behind. I didn't hear his footsteps at all!

He laughs. "Sorry. It smells so good, though. Eggs?"

"Yeah," I reply. "You know I can't cook anything else."

"I know." He comes closer, and looks at the food. "That looks way more appetizing than what we had earlier at the restaurant, though."

"You're just flattering because you want some."

Again, he lets out the most adorable laughter ever known to mankind. "Hey, I'm just telling the truth. But yes, please."

I smile. "I made enough for the both of us, anyway."

I finish cooking. Before I can put the eggs on two different plates, he swiftly takes the pan off my hand and pours the content into one big bowl. "Let's go eat this while watching whatever's on TV," he says. He's already walking toward the living room anyway, though.

We sit in front of the TV, quietly chewing while not really focusing on the action movie playing on the screen. He nudges me a little. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask?"

"You're just so quiet."

"I'm eating."

"But it's an action movie. You haven't complained at all about how fake and majorly dramatized it is."

I smile weakly. He knows how much I dislike action movies. Actually, he knows so much about me. He practically knows me better than I know myself, probably. It's sometimes a bit scary to think about. "I'm fine... just, you know. Thinking."

"About what?"

"About how I'm a bad cook."

He lets out a small laugh. "You're pretty great at making scrambled eggs, though."

"Yeah, but that's all I can make. I can't even properly do household chores. I don't know how to properly, like, sweep the floors, or wash your car, or clean the toilet. I can't even... I can't even give you children..."

I'm surprised at my own tears and words. I didn't realize that ever since our friends announced their second pregnancy, I'd been feeling lost. Less of a woman, somehow. I know we got into this relationship--this marriage--fully knowing that reproduction is not an option because of my condition, but sometimes it still bothers me. I didn't think it bothered me this much, though.

He puts our plates away, and envelops me in his warmth. "Hey, silly," he whispers. "You know we've talked about this." We have, many times. He seems to understand that I need some reassuring though, so he continues, "You're a great carer, okay? Those kids in your daycare love you, even a stranger can see that. Okay? You're also a great writer. Those kids love your books. Have you seen how big their eyes get whenever you read them aloud?"

I stifle a giggle. It's true, they're so animated it's adorable. Recalling it already makes me feel a little better.

"You're also a great egg-scrambler."

I laugh. "Is that even a word?"

"It is to me," he grins, and then it turns into a soft smile as he loosens his hug and looks at my eyes properly. "You're an amazing woman, you know that, right? I didn't marry you because I wanted someone to wash my car, or take care of the house while I'm gone. I married you because I wanted you every day in my life."

My eyes water again, but the blur doesn't hide his blushing face. He's probably really embarrassed after saying stuff like that, because we normally don't say anything romantic ever. I smile to myself. That's true, we don't declare our love every single day, but we do show it with how we treat each other. I feel so silly. There was nothing I should have been worried about.

"Besides," he says, after I calm down and we finish eating our food, "I really like your scrambled eggs."

CSWC: I Swear I Wasn't on Drugs, I Think

Image taken from usgennet.org

This is the third time I'm feeling watched.

Yes, I'm aware that I'm alone. In fact, I'm 150% sure I'm alone. I moved to this sorry excuse of a house exactly two days ago, if only to escape from the mundane humdrum of my utterly unexciting hometown. Oh, also to get away from my parents, but obviously I told them nothing about it. What I did tell them is that it's been ages since Grandpa died, and this house is probably still worth a lot if someone actually takes care of it, and it's kind of near my college so I don't need to pay a whole lot of money for a room that comes with a crazy roommate.

After weeks of my skillful persuasion, which included approximately 1000 dishes washed by my hands to let my mom watch some pathetic soap opera that she doesn't even pay attention to, my parents finally let me, their one and only daughter, to live alone.

Actually no, not alone. My best friend Bombay (who is also a cat) is living with me.

So maybe I shouldn't say that I'm 150% sure that I'm alone since Bombay is probably somewhere around the living room taking the third nap of the day, but still. I'm used to her judgmental stares whenever I eat too much or sleep in, so I know this is definitely not one of those.

It feels creepily like I'm being watched... Protectively. Not by anyone, I don't think. There may be some weird and perverted dudes and dudettes around this area, but it's practically midday and everyone is either out there working and living their lives, or sleeping their lives away.

I look around me. Nothing's unusual in this kitchen. There's the old stove, the old fridge, the old table and chairs, and... The old picture frame on the wall.

Hmm. That's weird. I don't remember noticing this picture frame before. I step forward a few steps, and look at it closely. The weird feeling gets stronger. What is it about this picture? There's nothing extraordinarily extraordinary about it. It's just a photograph of some house.

Eh? Wait a minute. It's a picture of THIS house! But... It looks so... Proper. Like an actual house people would actually live and grow a happy family in, not this horror show with creepy creaks of the floor everytime you walk on it. Whoa. This must have been taken ages ago.

Whoa, okay. I definitely saw something moving on the picture. Fuck. Am I hallucinating? But I haven't even started smoking pot!

Oops, there it is again. Something's definitely wrong with this picture. The grass is swaying like it's windy. What? But it's a picture! Did I move to my dead grandparents' house, or Hogwarts?

I shiver. All of a sudden, I feel some chill. And then it starts: some kind of traditional music is playing. It's faint at first, but it gets louder and louder every second. Shit. Did I make the wrong kind of mushroom sandwich this morning?

Before I can even start to remember where I got the mushrooms from, something even weirder happens. The door opens. Yes, the door of the house in the picture. It opens. Holy fuck.

And something EVEN weirder happens: a woman walks out of the house. Yes a fucking woman fucking walks out of the fucking house in the fucking picture! And she's walking towards me! And she smiles when she sees me! And she waves her hands at me! Holy shit!

Why am I waving back???

"Hello, Mia," she says.

"Hello," I reply, because that's what you say if someone says hello to you, whether they're a real person or drug-induced hallucination.

"Say, do you take sugar with your tea?" she asks.

"Sure," I reply, because people who drink tea without sugar are insane.

She nods, and gives me a cup of tea. Out of nowhere. I don't even know how that works. What I know is, the tea is warm, and the amount of sugar is perfect, and this woman is beautiful, and I am probably a schizophrenic. Damn it, and I'm a Psychology student, too. How fucking ironic.

"Say, Mia, do you miss your Grandpa?" she asks, after calmly sipping her tea.

"Kind of," I say, sipping my tea. It's delicious. I'm delusional. "He was a good grandpa."

She smiles. "That's great to hear. He misses you, too. He's sorry that he can't come to see you now, but he will soon. He told me to give you this," she says, handing something to me.

I look at it. "A button?"

She smiles and nods. She's so beautiful when she smiles. What the hell. For a lady who lives in my imagination, she could be a model. Like, a Revlon model, because damn that face would have been perfect with a dash of red on the lips.

"You be good now, Mia," she says, turning around and returning to the house.

"Wait!" I said. "How did you know my name?"

"Because I gave it to you," she replies. "Nice to finally meet you, my granddaughter."

And then she vanishes into the house. The music stops playing. The grass stops swaying. The weird feeling is gone.

What's not gone is the empty cup of tea in my right hand. Oh, and the button in the left.

"Gah!" I shriek, startled at something tickling my foot. It's Bombay. "Dammit, Bombay. I think I really need to start looking for a pot dealer."

She jumps, and makes some great fuss about my sweater. "What the hell, Bay? What's wrong with you?" I ask her. I mean, I JUST saw my dead grandmother, would it be the end of the world if I heard her reply to me?

I put down the teacup, and look at her quizzically. It's weird, it's like she's pointing at my sweater.

"Oh," I say, looking at it. "It's missing a button."

Dreams

I want to fly all over the world and eat candies and chocolates and meet all of my friends and we will all sing together a song that we all know and love and we will camp in a mountain and sleep with the flirting stars and wake up with the sun's greeting and that is when the new day comes when we will eat more chocolates and make more friends and go on more adventures and take over the world.

I want to go to a foreign land covered with snow and I want to fall in love.

I want to live somewhere far away from the smokes and thunders, read books about happy things, paint in colors of music, dance to birds chirping, jump with rabbits and kangaroos, visit my friends on a polar bear, swim with mermaids and fly with fairies.

I want to be hugged before and after I go to sleep.

I want to forget how to cry.

I want no reason for tears.

I want the world to be happy!

All You Gotta Do

All you gotta do is wipe away my tears
All you gotta do is hug away all of my fears

All you gotta do is whisper in my ears

That everything will be all right

And the sun will shine

And the stars will twinkle (twinkle)

And the moon will sing to us

The melody of love

The melody of love

All you gotta do is be with me for years

All you gotta do is get along with all of my peers

All you gotta do is love, love, love

All you gotta do is love

All you got to do is love

Love Letter

I wanna write you something

A love letter

Where I'll say how I feel about you

I wanna let you know, baby

Just how much you mean to me

In the world

Of people telling each other lies

With what they say and how they act, but

Rest assured, baby, I'm nothing but a fool

When it comes to things like love

Like what I feel about you