It just fun to write without being interrupted

February 25, 2014

Silam Aku

"Segala yang silam memang tak mustahil tinggal kenangan dan akhirnya dilupakan, tapi tak berarti lenyap senyap sekali. Mereka hanya tenggelam, mungkin amat dalam, menghendap di dasar palung ingatan. Menjadi bagian tak terpisahkan dari diri kita. Suatu waktu, manakala terusik rangsangan situational yang relevan, endapan itu dapat merayak ke permukaan sebagai laku yang mungkin tak terduga oleh akal sehatmu" - Sitok Srengenge




Dalam hati aku, penuh penipuan. Aku kata Silam tidak akan menyentuh peribadiku sebagai insan. Ternyata aku hanya menipu diri sendiri. Silam terlalu banyak menyentuh aku, hingga hangat sentuhannya masih berbisa di kulitku. Hingga menjadi sebahagian wajah, tangan, dan badanku. Aku disentuh Silam, dirogol Silam, dihenyak Silam hingga aku tidak tahu siapa sebenarnya aku jika Silam tidak mendatang. Baik buruk Silam itu, terpaksa aku gagahkan jua kerana Silam telah mencubit aku ke alam nyata dan membentuk aku dalam jasad pemikiran sebegini. 

Ya, aku hanya insan gagal yang meraung dalam sengsara Silam. Aku juga kadang terharu dalam keindahan Silam. Mahu melupa tapi apakan daya, Silam itu sebahagian dari peribadi aku bukan? 

Silam itu aku.
Silam itu aku.

Aku harap, buruk baik Silam, Kau terima aku seadanya. 
Kau juga yang mengiyakan kejadian Silam itu.
Kau juga yang mengiyakan kejadian aku.


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February 12, 2014

Keeping You Near

I want to keep him near. Though my body pushes him away, though my heart resents him, though my mind wants to block him from poisoning it even more, though it made me decline others who want to love me, I don't want to ever be apart from him.

It is said that sometimes you can't let go off love because it is better to hurt than to feel nothing. Yes. I am scared of feeling numb. It felt like death except it isn't cold. No anger, no sadness even. Just, nothing. Like I don't exist, even so, I’m just a thin vapour in the air. Floating about like an insignificant mist.

I don't want to not to like him. I want to like him. Because I don't have anybody else to like. And I just don't like anybody. I like him. I want to like him, in the most possible way of normal people liking another. I don't want to let him go. I don’t want send him away. I want to like him and I want to keep him near. Maybe not too near but I want him here in a space where I know I can feel him though having not to see him, touch him nor talk to him. It felt selfish but I do, I like him because of me. I want to feel the feeling of liking other. And I just can’t stand the feeling of numb.

Yesterday I searched for The Great Gatsby like a pirate on a treasure hunt. Soon I discovered that the gold were buried somewhere in the Leisure Reading room. The map was an easy read but the gold was limited. Forgetting the serial number of the book, I went shelf by shelf and there were about ten or more there but I continued searching. I felt like a lost wild animal. I told myself that I am not to leave until I found the book. At a brink of giving up and the library was about to close, I turned on my laptop, logged onto the library search engine and began searching again. Though at the verge of my weak battery life, I did it I searched for it. And there was only one copy left according to the results. The others were either on loan or borrowed by unknown Fitzgerald’s fans. I admit I am not a fan. I don't know whether or not I will like Fitzgerald. But I wanted the book so badly because it reminded me of him. It made me feel like if I read it, I’m looking at the words he used to look at, understand and felt the joy of reading as he used to feel. So, yes, the code was lrPR6057A319S66. I put my laptop aside and looked for the shelf aforementioned. Why, bless my soul! I was sitting next to it all along! And there it was, the book, the ONLY copy left unborrowed, sitting there nicely waiting for me to grab onto it. I snatched it quickly as if there were thousands of jerking hands reaching for the book too. I looked at the row of books. Yes. It was the ONLY copy left and I got it.

Boy! Wasn’t my smile broad and I swore my eyes were holding back joyful tears for I had grasped onto the remnants of him. He was slipping through my fingers but I managed to get a hold of him though with just a finger, I had him. And he felt near. I felt win.

Back home, I realised that I was to return the book in a week. So, I should be reading it by now since it was quite thick and I was poor at reading. Staring long onto the front cover, I waited for the drums of my heart to roll. None was felt. So, I flipped the first leaf, and read…

Chapter 1
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

Still, I felt nothing. The words meant nothing to me. So, I closed the book, lied down on my bed and stared out to the ceiling.

Slowly, vivid images of February 1988 appeared before my eyes, echoing voices filled my ears, later, smoke were forming colours and shapes and I saw him. He was smiling right at me. He looked healthy and for the first time, he smiled. In an instant, he was like a tease. He was standing at his window looking at me. He looked very calm and happy, inviting me to pull him into my arms and not know of me why I wanted to do that. He gazed at me with love and I want to grab onto him but I couldn’t. Then, the chilly winter wind lovingly stroke on my cheek. Tears flowed from the tips of my eyes and my vision became a blur. I cried for hours and cried some more till it made me want to vomit.

I hadn’t shed a tear since the evening I fell off my bike.

            “Are you OK?”

            He was my neighbour. The only friend I knew. I was quite shy and he was quite sickly. That evening, when he asked whether or not I was hurt, it was before his sickness worsened. Then, he was never at school. Mum said he had contracted an incurable disease. It made him bedridden. Often I just peeked through my window to look at him. He was always on his bed with a chess set but mostly, with books. I only spoke to him once. That was when my family paid him a visit and I remembered him reading The Great Gatsby. He said it was a book for the big kids. And I was too young to understand it.

            I never knew his name, or maybe my mind had deleted him from my memory. I never knew how old he was from my age, nor his favourite author. The only thing I knew about him is that he was the person that I like. Day by day I started to forget about him. It made my heart grew pale. I don’t want my heart to feel that way. And liking him was the only way to stop my heart from feeling nothing. So, I don’t want to forget about him. I don’t want to not to like him.

            The next morning I woke up feeling fatigue from too much crying. Weakly, I reached for the book on the bedside table where I put it last night. This time, looking at the front cover gave me a flush of anger. Suddenly, I was incandescent with rage and I wanted to tear off the pages but I couldn’t because the book belonged to the library. I was so mad at him, so mad for his weakness. Yes, the disease had eaten him up. He had lost his strength to move but did his spirit to live, too?

Every day I peeked through my window to make sure he was still breathing. Every day I smiled at him wishing he would smile back. But, no. He was too weak to even smile. He had surrendered himself to his sickness. He let them ate him bit by bit. I knew that he would die from his disease but ironically, no. He was perished in a fire. A fire ate his house in a gulp just like his disease eating him. And I witnessed his ironic death. It was a cold night where I was awakened by a flicker of light like a star in the sky. Then I learnt that the light was coming from his room. I got out of bed and later saw a plume of smoke billowed from his house. The blaze had burnt half of his house and was going for his room. I mostly remembered that he was staring at me from his bed as I stared at him from my window wishing he would save himself, wishing I could save him from that fire. His face that night was calm as ever but he wasn’t smiling nor did he wave at me. He was just blankly staring straight at me as I witnessed the fire consumed his whole body.

Death had taken him from me. Death had taken my warmth, my companion, my shelter, and I was hard-bitten since.

I looked at the book once more. I turned to the last page and I read the last paragraphs,

…the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
THE END

I closed the book as if I have finished reading it.

Numb is certainly something even scarier than death. Numb is what has frightened me. Numb is what has consumed me and driven me to always look for the remnants of my past; the remnants of him. Funny how the remnants that I found numbed me. yes, I felt numb. 

             I will have to return the book next week but then I chose to return it today. A book or no book, he shall never return. He shall never return even to my heart. He's dead. And so did my feelings for him. Why linger? Isn't it nice to just go with the current and see for yourself what you'll discover? Yes. I chose to just go with the flow. 

            After putting on my best clothes, I walked to the library. I returned the book. The librarian smiled at me. And I smiled back at her. Leaving the library that day, I suddenly saw that there were trees behind the park opposite to the library. There was a new waffle and hot dog stand in front of the post office. I looked at the people around me. And walked home that day believing that as long as I am attached to these, I could never feel numb again.
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