Dear N,
Of this morning I already scoured my thoughts, evoking images of your laughter and smiles, on the snowless nights of late December. I have been thinking about you in these minutes, without cessation, as pieces of you still linger on me. And here I am, with heart still sweltering from an insatiable feeling of missing you. The day hasn't passed, yet by now, something has compelled my hands to write you a letter. A letter of forlorn longing.
I am sorry that I have to go abruptly, leaving you early and not waiting for the year to change. Our Christmas rendezvous might be just transient, but, trust me, it will be forever engraved as the best Christmas I have in life. I can still hear you giggling when I was trying to remember some characters from Mahabharata. Or that time when I brought children magazine in lieu of a more proper crossword book. My heart is still blooming from that night when you hugged me, nestling in between hundreds eyes of the adherents of a sworn enemy that bears the same red marks upon them as the team I love. (You were part of them, too. But you know I love you too much to transcends this difference.)
My love,
You are dearer and dearer to me in each day. I loved you before, but it was not like this now. This all now is much more wonderful than before. And you wonderfully assured me that you will go with me, through joys and miseries, through laughs and tears. You see my flaws, my weaknesses, my errors. I am stripped and naked, devoid from any concealment, yet you opt to love me back as what I am. As who I am.
You are all together my faith, my hope, and my confidence; the security to my vulnerabilities, as the roof beam to a house in a stormy day. And I am prepared to love you with all your weaknesses. To be blind of those. To be blind forever, together. Is it a madness to believe for this to go forever? But didn't the wise use to say that love is insanity? If that is true, then I don't want to be sane.
I want to love you, even if every reason to love you has burned away.
Dear N,
As I am writing this to you, you know that I am half a thousand kilometers away from you. I have to stay here for a while. Wait for me, someday, I will go home again.
Meanwhile, if you miss me, just look at the west. I am there on the sunset. Look closely under the sun. As its last gleaming escapes from the edge of the day, there I am whispering you prayers and blessing from the faraway.
Sleep well, and live well.
With a lot of love,
A.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Kepada Tuan G
*) Kepada Tuan G.
Ada idiom dari bahasa Latin yang saya suka, tempus fugit, non autem memoria; waktu berlalu, tetapi ingatan tidak. Namun, terkutuklah saya dengan ingatan episodik dan ingatan semantik yang luar biasa tak berimbang. Saya mungkin ingat tentang X dan Y, atau tetek bengek hal-hal trivial lainnya. Bodohnya, saya malah lupa ulang tahun seseorang yang bisa dibilang adalah guru saya dalam menulis.
Saya mengenalnya semasa kuliah, pada semester-semester akhir. Saya lupa bagaimana mulanya kita bertemu. Mungkin di warung kopi Akang. Entahlah. Ah, betapa buruknya ingatan episodik saya. Namun yang saya ingat ia adalah orang yang menipu saya dengan penampilannya. Di luar dia seperti pria biasa yang tidak meninggalkan impresi apa-apa - setidaknya, sampai dia membuka mulutnya.
Di kepalanya terekam berderet fakta dan sejarah dan pengetahuan, begitu rapi. Suatu dunia yang tidak pernah saya hiraukan sebelumnya karena saya sibuk melihat yang di luar, di kejauhan sana, pada lain benua. Dia mengingatkan saya - meskipun tidak secara eksplisit - bahwa adalah bebal untuk tidak belajar tentang sesuatu yang lebih dekat dengan diri kita sendiri. Sesuatu yang tidak melulu global nan grandiose.
Namun bukan berarti dia tak acuh dengan apa yang ada di luar. Saya ingat kami mengobrol banyak, membandingkan antara pemikiran Marx, Rawls, dan anarkisme, pada bordes sebuah kereta ekonomi yang menuju ke Bali. Dan saya belajar banyak darinya, termasuk belajar untuk menulis. Sesungguhnya, dia lebih pintar daripada saya.
Saya ingat komentar Martin Heidegger pada sajak Der Ister karya Friedrich Hölderlin. Heidegger menulis: "spirit loves colony". Pada mulanya, "ruh" diberikan padanya suatu takdir. Takdir ini, bagaimanapun, masih tak kelihatan, masih ekuivokal. Dalam perjalanannya, ia mempelajari yang-lain, untuk pada akhirnya belajar mengenai dirinya sendiri. Dan begitulah teman saya ini menjadi salah seorang "ruh" liyan yang saya temui dalam sungai Danube kehidupan saya.
Padanya tidak saya ucapkan apa-apa, selain terima kasih, ucapan klise selamat ulang tahun, semoga panjang umur, dan sukses selalu. Juga, semoga cepat menemukan jodoh.
Apa lagi yang bisa saya berikan pada seorang Sisifus versi Pulau Sumatera yang sudah bahagia, selain doa untuk mengiringi ia "dumadi", menjadi sebaik-baiknya manusia menurut cita-citanya sendiri?
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Argumentum ad Sanguineam
Pertanyaan tentang film horor adalah pertanyaan mengenai emosi: mengapa kita menikmati ketakutan, teror, rasa jijik, dan tragedi? Dahulu sekali, Aristoteles, dalam esainya tentang kritik drama, "Poetics", pernah mencoba menelisik tentang ketertarikan manusia akan rasa jijik dan rasa takut. Menurutnya, manusia tertarik untuk belajar, dan bahkan dari hal-hal jelek sekalipun, ada pelajaran yang diambil oleh manusia. Namun, dia pun juga alpa untuk menjelaskan mengapa manfaat kognitif yang diperoleh lebih besar dari pengalaman negatif yang dirasakan oleh manusia.
Kajian psikologis tentang film horor memberikan pandangan yang baru tentang daya tariknya. Daya tarik mengenai film horor itu sendiri sudah didokumentasikan dalam pelbagai tulisan dengan baik (Tannenbaum, 1980; Zillmann, 1984). Beberapa peneliti mengajukan jawaban dari segi biologi evolusioner, yaitu bahwa film horor merangsang manusia untuk mengukur level ancaman. Perasaan jijik dan takut akan kematian mengisyaratkan bahaya, dan memancing perilaku primal manusia untuk melindungi diri demi kelangsungan hidup (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, dan Solomon, 1998). Tanpa bermaksud seksis, secara evolusi, dahulu sekali laki-laki lah yang mengambil peran (secara fisikal) untuk melindungi keluarganya dari ancaman. Hal ini didukung pula oleh riset yang menunjukkan bahwa pencinta film horor adalah mayoritas pria berusia 15-45 tahun (Tamborini dan Stiff, 1987). Dan, sedikit banyak, menonton film horor bisa dianggap sebagai sebuah ritus kedewasaan, di mana siapa yang tahan menontonnya dianggap cukup berani oleh teman-temannya.
Penjelasan ini tentu saja tidak menjelaskan mengapa kita menikmati horor dalam media seni, dalam keadaan yang secara sadar kita ketahui relatif aman dari bahaya. Ada teori yang mengatakan bahwa pada waktu kita menonton film horor, sebenarnya kita sedang menahan rasa takut untuk menikmati sebuah "sense of euphoria", sebuah katarsis emosional di akhir filmnya. Salah seorang teman wanita saya yang menggemari film horor (bahkan gore) mengatakan selain karena dia menyukai anatomi tubuh manusia, film horor memberikan sensasi yang menggairahkan, traumatis, serta sebuah kelegaan emosional secara bersamaan; sebuah kanal untuk memproyeksikan emosinya kepada tokoh dalam film (emotional displacement). Menurutnya, film-film seperti ini menunjukkan pada dia bahwa hidupnya lebih beruntung daripada si korban dalam film. Kita lega bahwa selalu ada akhir yang bahagia, meskipun hidup - yang disimulasikan oleh film horor itu sendiri - penuh dengan hal-hal mengerikan. Akan tetapi, periset University of California, Berkeley, Eduardo Andrade, dan periset University of Florida, Joel B. Cohen, tidak sependapat. Dari hasil penelitian mereka, mereka menyatakan "novel approach to emotion reveals that people experience both negative and positive emotions simultaneously -- people may actually enjoy being scared, not just relief when the threat is removed. [...] the most pleasant moments of a particular event may also be the most fearful." Kita memang menikmati emosi negatif yang ditimbulkan oleh film horor. Dengan kata lain, kita semua menjadi masokis di hadapan layar perak yang sedang menampilkan adegan pembunuhan atau dikejar-kejar setan. Kita semua bahagia untuk menjadi tidak bahagia saat menonton film horor.
Tentang Gore
Secara umum, film horor membangun tensi pada penontonnya dengan 5 cara: misteri (misal, Fear in the Night, 1947, atau Silence of the Lamb, 1991), suspens (The Haunting, 1963; The Omen, 1976; Rosemary’s Baby, 1968), gore (The Evil Dead, 1982; Dawn of the Dead, 1978; Rumah Dara, 2010), teror (The Shining, 1980; Jaws, 1975), and shock/syok (Shock Corridor, 1963; Suspiria, 1977 - meskipun film Dario Argento ini juga mengandung unsur gore, misteri, dan suspens). Gore, atau sering juga dilabeli dengan splatter film dan torture porn, adalah jenis yang mengeksploitasi tentang darah, unsur kekerasan yang brutal, juga mutilasi organ tubuh yang ditampilkan secara grotesk dan serealistik mungkin. Jika ada beberapa orang yang memisahkan film gore dan slasher sebagai genre berbeda, maka saya lebih cenderung melihat slasher sebagai perpaduan antara film gore yang minimalis, dengan teror (thriller) di dalamnya sebagai landasan tensi film tersebut. Biasanya, film slasher memiliki tokoh antagonis seorang pembunuh berantai dan pilihan senjatanya tidak lebih dari sekedar alat pemotong biasa semacam pisau, kapak, pedang, atau gergaji mesin.
Pada era internet ini, penggemar gore menemukan suaka di berbagai forum internet. Misalnya pada image board 4chan, Charon Boat, Ogrish, LiveLeak, atau subforum Disturbing Picture pada Kaskus serta r/gore pada Reddit. Ada sebagian orang yang bahkan tertarik untuk melihat film pembunuhan aktual, seperti cuplikan video amatir konflik Sampit atau video pembunuh berantai dari Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraina, yang diberi judul "3 Guys 1 Hammer" oleh para /b/tards (saya tidak merekomendasikan Anda untuk mencari klip ini, karena apa yang Anda lihat adalah adegan pembunuhan yang nyata). Jarang sekali bagi gore untuk muncul dan populer di perfilman mainstream, meskipun Dawn of the Dead, The Evil Dead, Saw, Rumah Dara, Hostel, serta serial TV Spartacus: Blood and Sand masing-masing menikmati kesuksesan baik secara finansial maupun dalam resepsi para kritikus film. Beberapa film gore lainnya semacam The Human Centipede hanya menjadi film-film kategori B yang dicerca oleh kritikus dan gagal secara finansial.
Hal ini bisa dimaklumi, karena konvensi perfilman umum (jika memang ada) menahbiskan bahwa film gore itu unwatchable - tidak bisa ditonton. Namun kita semua yang menontonnya melanggarnya bak Adam dan Hawa yang memakan buah terlarang. Dan ternyata saya menemukan bahwa film gore memang tidak monolitik. Ada banyak tema yang pernah dieksplorasi di dalamnya, bahkan pada film-film yang bukan arus utama dan dianggap cult. Cannibal Holocaust (1980), misalnya, mempopulerkan genre found footage/mockumentary yang lantas secara sukses ditiru oleh The Blair Witch Project dan Paranormal Activity. A l'interieur (2007) dalam subteksnya bercerita tentang obsesi dan perasaan kehilangan seorang ibu yang mengalami keguguran. Men Behind the Sun (1988), yang berdasarkan kisah nyata Perang Dunia II, bercerita tentang kejahatan perang dan kengerian eksperimentasi pada manusia oleh Unit 731. Yang lain, seperti film pendek Cutting Moments (1999), sangat mengganggu perasaan saya karena dengan subtilnya menggambarkan keadaan sebuah keluarga yang sangat disfungsional. The ABC of Death (2012) - proyek antologi 26 film pendek kolaborasi 26 sutradara yang masing-masing diberi satu huruf untuk dibuat film - juga memiliki beberapa film dengan premis yang menarik; misalnya bagian L is for Libido karya sutradara Indonesia, Timo Tjahjanto. Meski begitu, ada juga yang pure violence semacam Murder-Set-Pieces (2004) dan August Underground’s Mordum (2003) yang membuat saya menyesal telah mengunduh dan menontonnya.
Sebuah film gore, jika dia hendak muncul di arus utama seperti Saw, maka harus memberikan suatu sense of unrealism, sebuah sensasi yang menegaskan pada pemirsanya bahwa ia hanyalah film fiksi, dan bukannya snuff film. Ia harus menjadi simulakra yang tidak hendak merangsek perlahan-lahan menggantikan kenyataan. Manusia suka jika dia masih mempunyai perasaan bahwa dia masih memegang kendali atas situasi, termasuk kendali atas rasa takutnya sendiri. Maka ketika suatu gore menjadi terlalu nyata, dan ketika si protagonis menjadi terlalu helpless, orang akan berpikir jika hal tersebut bisa terjadi padanya dan tidak mungkin baginya untuk melawan keadaan. Film gore juga hendaknya memiliki proporsi - menjadi brutal namun tetap berseni. Sehingga, orang yang menontonnya tidak perlu merasa bersalah setelah menonton film yang alih-alih berseni, malah terlihat sadistik bak menonton video nyata buatan seorang psikopat. Itulah mengapa beberapa film gore berakhir menjadi film-film samar (obscure) yang ditonton oleh sebagian kecil orang saja.
Milan Kundera pernah menulis dalam bukunya, "Unbearable Lightness of Being" bahwa:
"The aesthetic ideal of the categorical agreement with being is a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist. This aesthetic ideal is called kitsch. … Kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and the figurative senses of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence".
Mungkin film gore adalah sebenar-benarnya perlawanan terhadap kitsch. Lewat wujudnya yang dianggap sebagai sampah estetika, kita sejenak tercengang dan melihat bahwa hidup (dan kematian) adalah sesuatu yang alih-alih sakral, merupakan sesuatu yang profan, yang fana. Kita terguncang, kita bergidik ngeri melihat momen-momen brutal dalam klimaksnya, tapi kita menikmatinya. Kita menikmati sebuah kehidupan yang dilecehkan sampai kepada titik absurditas. Pada akhirnya, film gore adalah "[...] a perverse sublime." menurut seorang kritikus dan feminis, Cynthia Freeland. Stephen King, dalam apologinya untuk film Hostel, mengatakan "sure it makes you uncomfortable, but good art should make you uncomfortable." Akan tetapi, saya tidak begitu yakin apakah Cynthia Freeland dan Stephen King sudah pernah menonton August Underground’s Mordum atau belum.
Kajian psikologis tentang film horor memberikan pandangan yang baru tentang daya tariknya. Daya tarik mengenai film horor itu sendiri sudah didokumentasikan dalam pelbagai tulisan dengan baik (Tannenbaum, 1980; Zillmann, 1984). Beberapa peneliti mengajukan jawaban dari segi biologi evolusioner, yaitu bahwa film horor merangsang manusia untuk mengukur level ancaman. Perasaan jijik dan takut akan kematian mengisyaratkan bahaya, dan memancing perilaku primal manusia untuk melindungi diri demi kelangsungan hidup (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, dan Solomon, 1998). Tanpa bermaksud seksis, secara evolusi, dahulu sekali laki-laki lah yang mengambil peran (secara fisikal) untuk melindungi keluarganya dari ancaman. Hal ini didukung pula oleh riset yang menunjukkan bahwa pencinta film horor adalah mayoritas pria berusia 15-45 tahun (Tamborini dan Stiff, 1987). Dan, sedikit banyak, menonton film horor bisa dianggap sebagai sebuah ritus kedewasaan, di mana siapa yang tahan menontonnya dianggap cukup berani oleh teman-temannya.
Penjelasan ini tentu saja tidak menjelaskan mengapa kita menikmati horor dalam media seni, dalam keadaan yang secara sadar kita ketahui relatif aman dari bahaya. Ada teori yang mengatakan bahwa pada waktu kita menonton film horor, sebenarnya kita sedang menahan rasa takut untuk menikmati sebuah "sense of euphoria", sebuah katarsis emosional di akhir filmnya. Salah seorang teman wanita saya yang menggemari film horor (bahkan gore) mengatakan selain karena dia menyukai anatomi tubuh manusia, film horor memberikan sensasi yang menggairahkan, traumatis, serta sebuah kelegaan emosional secara bersamaan; sebuah kanal untuk memproyeksikan emosinya kepada tokoh dalam film (emotional displacement). Menurutnya, film-film seperti ini menunjukkan pada dia bahwa hidupnya lebih beruntung daripada si korban dalam film. Kita lega bahwa selalu ada akhir yang bahagia, meskipun hidup - yang disimulasikan oleh film horor itu sendiri - penuh dengan hal-hal mengerikan. Akan tetapi, periset University of California, Berkeley, Eduardo Andrade, dan periset University of Florida, Joel B. Cohen, tidak sependapat. Dari hasil penelitian mereka, mereka menyatakan "novel approach to emotion reveals that people experience both negative and positive emotions simultaneously -- people may actually enjoy being scared, not just relief when the threat is removed. [...] the most pleasant moments of a particular event may also be the most fearful." Kita memang menikmati emosi negatif yang ditimbulkan oleh film horor. Dengan kata lain, kita semua menjadi masokis di hadapan layar perak yang sedang menampilkan adegan pembunuhan atau dikejar-kejar setan. Kita semua bahagia untuk menjadi tidak bahagia saat menonton film horor.
Tentang Gore
Secara umum, film horor membangun tensi pada penontonnya dengan 5 cara: misteri (misal, Fear in the Night, 1947, atau Silence of the Lamb, 1991), suspens (The Haunting, 1963; The Omen, 1976; Rosemary’s Baby, 1968), gore (The Evil Dead, 1982; Dawn of the Dead, 1978; Rumah Dara, 2010), teror (The Shining, 1980; Jaws, 1975), and shock/syok (Shock Corridor, 1963; Suspiria, 1977 - meskipun film Dario Argento ini juga mengandung unsur gore, misteri, dan suspens). Gore, atau sering juga dilabeli dengan splatter film dan torture porn, adalah jenis yang mengeksploitasi tentang darah, unsur kekerasan yang brutal, juga mutilasi organ tubuh yang ditampilkan secara grotesk dan serealistik mungkin. Jika ada beberapa orang yang memisahkan film gore dan slasher sebagai genre berbeda, maka saya lebih cenderung melihat slasher sebagai perpaduan antara film gore yang minimalis, dengan teror (thriller) di dalamnya sebagai landasan tensi film tersebut. Biasanya, film slasher memiliki tokoh antagonis seorang pembunuh berantai dan pilihan senjatanya tidak lebih dari sekedar alat pemotong biasa semacam pisau, kapak, pedang, atau gergaji mesin.
.
Karena natur emosinya yang sedemikian ekstrem, bisa dilihat bahwa penggemar gore adalah marjinal. Mereka sering kali teraglomerasi pada kelompok-kelompok kecil subkultur, bahkan sejak jaman dulu. Salah satu penyedia "hiburan" bagi kaum pencinta gore yang paling terkenal, Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, sudah beroperasi dari tahun 1897, di Jalan Chaptal, daerah Pigalle, Paris. Grand-Guignol, begitu ia seringkali disebut, merupakan suatu teater yang menyediakan pertunjukan drama dengan cerita yang brutal dan amoral. Konon katanya, beberapa penonton pingsan dan muntah pada saat pertunjukan. Dan bagi Grand-Guignol itu tandanya drama mereka sukses.
Hal ini bisa dimaklumi, karena konvensi perfilman umum (jika memang ada) menahbiskan bahwa film gore itu unwatchable - tidak bisa ditonton. Namun kita semua yang menontonnya melanggarnya bak Adam dan Hawa yang memakan buah terlarang. Dan ternyata saya menemukan bahwa film gore memang tidak monolitik. Ada banyak tema yang pernah dieksplorasi di dalamnya, bahkan pada film-film yang bukan arus utama dan dianggap cult. Cannibal Holocaust (1980), misalnya, mempopulerkan genre found footage/mockumentary yang lantas secara sukses ditiru oleh The Blair Witch Project dan Paranormal Activity. A l'interieur (2007) dalam subteksnya bercerita tentang obsesi dan perasaan kehilangan seorang ibu yang mengalami keguguran. Men Behind the Sun (1988), yang berdasarkan kisah nyata Perang Dunia II, bercerita tentang kejahatan perang dan kengerian eksperimentasi pada manusia oleh Unit 731. Yang lain, seperti film pendek Cutting Moments (1999), sangat mengganggu perasaan saya karena dengan subtilnya menggambarkan keadaan sebuah keluarga yang sangat disfungsional. The ABC of Death (2012) - proyek antologi 26 film pendek kolaborasi 26 sutradara yang masing-masing diberi satu huruf untuk dibuat film - juga memiliki beberapa film dengan premis yang menarik; misalnya bagian L is for Libido karya sutradara Indonesia, Timo Tjahjanto. Meski begitu, ada juga yang pure violence semacam Murder-Set-Pieces (2004) dan August Underground’s Mordum (2003) yang membuat saya menyesal telah mengunduh dan menontonnya.
Sebuah film gore, jika dia hendak muncul di arus utama seperti Saw, maka harus memberikan suatu sense of unrealism, sebuah sensasi yang menegaskan pada pemirsanya bahwa ia hanyalah film fiksi, dan bukannya snuff film. Ia harus menjadi simulakra yang tidak hendak merangsek perlahan-lahan menggantikan kenyataan. Manusia suka jika dia masih mempunyai perasaan bahwa dia masih memegang kendali atas situasi, termasuk kendali atas rasa takutnya sendiri. Maka ketika suatu gore menjadi terlalu nyata, dan ketika si protagonis menjadi terlalu helpless, orang akan berpikir jika hal tersebut bisa terjadi padanya dan tidak mungkin baginya untuk melawan keadaan. Film gore juga hendaknya memiliki proporsi - menjadi brutal namun tetap berseni. Sehingga, orang yang menontonnya tidak perlu merasa bersalah setelah menonton film yang alih-alih berseni, malah terlihat sadistik bak menonton video nyata buatan seorang psikopat. Itulah mengapa beberapa film gore berakhir menjadi film-film samar (obscure) yang ditonton oleh sebagian kecil orang saja.
Milan Kundera pernah menulis dalam bukunya, "Unbearable Lightness of Being" bahwa:
"The aesthetic ideal of the categorical agreement with being is a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist. This aesthetic ideal is called kitsch. … Kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and the figurative senses of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence".
Mungkin film gore adalah sebenar-benarnya perlawanan terhadap kitsch. Lewat wujudnya yang dianggap sebagai sampah estetika, kita sejenak tercengang dan melihat bahwa hidup (dan kematian) adalah sesuatu yang alih-alih sakral, merupakan sesuatu yang profan, yang fana. Kita terguncang, kita bergidik ngeri melihat momen-momen brutal dalam klimaksnya, tapi kita menikmatinya. Kita menikmati sebuah kehidupan yang dilecehkan sampai kepada titik absurditas. Pada akhirnya, film gore adalah "[...] a perverse sublime." menurut seorang kritikus dan feminis, Cynthia Freeland. Stephen King, dalam apologinya untuk film Hostel, mengatakan "sure it makes you uncomfortable, but good art should make you uncomfortable." Akan tetapi, saya tidak begitu yakin apakah Cynthia Freeland dan Stephen King sudah pernah menonton August Underground’s Mordum atau belum.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
A Magician of Heart
Tonight's the end. I gulp a whole bottle of codeine pills, and
Vicodine, too, with a cheap Vodka I bought with the last pounds in my
pocket. I count in my heart...
One...
Two...
Three...
In my waiting for departure I am thinking about her, the ghost who inflicts so much pain and so much joy in my life.
Four...
Five...
Never crossed my mind, that I can only love her in my defective mind. In my insanity, I found love.
Six...
Seven...
Five years have gone by since that one summer's afternoon. I can still remember the details vividly, as if it was just yesterday. The air... the room was radiant by the light of the sun that refused to step down. A flock of golden clouds sauntered slowly on the tangerine sky. I remember sitting down by the windows, on a wooden chair. It was warm inside. On the outside, some children were playing football. Some of them were cycling. None of their laughs could register to my brain. I felt bland. I felt lifeless. Yet I can flawlessly recall that day, because that day is the day she came to my life.
"How are you dear?" My mum's voice echoed from across the room. "Are you feeling well?"
"I am okay, mum."
I am okay, mum. It's just... I am not me.
My heart dared not speak the latter sentence. I just couldn't stand the thought of me worry my mum again.
The fault in our stars have cursed our family with this defect. First, my father. A decorated sergeant who was honorably discharged in his prime time. One day, a depressive episode manifested, due to his mental illness that finally surfaced. The next day, he's probed with evaluation. Two months after, he was out of the military. The next year, he shot himself to death. Leaving a widow with measly veteran benefit and a son who inherit the same illness. Perhaps it's time for my turn.
I never expect that that afternoon carved a lasting impression, even more so since my mind is botched from a concoction of brain-suppressing medications. That afternoon... that gleaming window... about five meters from outside of the window, came her. The wind blew her short, silky-black hairs as she walked closer and closer to me. I could only caught a glimpse of her face... her eyes. She looked into my eyes - a habit that she never lost - and I swear to god I was trembling at that moment. And then she was gone, disappearing into thin air. So fast, as if the earth swallowed her in one quick swoop.
"Life is not a dream, you know." A whisper came from behind.
I jolted from my chair. And there she was, smiling menacingly.
"What the fuck... Who the fucking hell are you?!"
"Son? Are you okay? Whom are you talking to?"
"Uhh, sorry mum. I... uh, the kids outside are playing in our yards. Gonna mess your flowers so I shooed them away."
"Oh, okay, then. I am going to go downtown. You feel like coming?"
"I guess, no, mum. I am fine."
"Take care, dear."
"You too, mum."
"Liar, liar..."
That voice again. She was standing next to the door. I could now see her clearly. Her slender body leaned against the wall, with her thin legs crossed. She tilted her face to me. Her round face, her melancholic eyes, and one little mole adorning above her thin lips. Lips that smiled a beautifully cynical smile. Her face was a landscape of wonderland. She was beautiful. Perhaps the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
"Are you an angel?"
"Maybe."
Her sweet puffy cheeks reddened as she chuckled. "You will know who I am."
Since then my life was naught but a poetic version of reality. She was a magician of heart. Her passing apparition distorted everything that is real. I saw her on my waking hours. On some night, she would even sit next to me on my bed, from dusk to dawn. Exchanging words and whispers. Commenting on my frailty body, or about this old world - the philosophers, the peacemakers, the war mongers - while having our eyes locked on each others'. Her mind was like a library of infinite books. A vastness that I could never fathom.
I didn't know her name, and she didn't tell me, either. Until one day, I saw the sky carved her name by the clouds.
Nadja.
Nadja, the sweetest angel ever made by the immortal hands of God. The sweetest being in my life.
"You are not prepared to understand me. Everything that you see is a juxtaposition of two or more realities, including me."
I didn't understand a word she just said when I asked more about her. Since then I only knew her as an angel. A heaven-sent.
Day by day, Nadja haunted me. Even stronger. I saw her on TV. One day she was the anchor woman, and she told me a story about what happened in Middle East. But frankly I didn't care, I only cared for her voice, sung like lullabies. Like a bedtime story. On another day, she was the weatherman. The swirl pattern formed a heart shape. How sweet of her, I thought. I've never been romantically loved that much in my live.
One day - after disappearing for few days - she appeared as both the pizza delivery guy and the face on pizza box. Both of her was angry, saying I didn't miss her that much. I begged for apology to the baffled pizza guy and the pizza box. And that's when my mother noticed my illness.
My medications separated me from her. The first time I took them, Nadja taunted me.
"You're weak. You're useless! You let those pills deteriorate your brain? You will never see me again!"
Nadja resented me, questioned my love for her. My mum was beside Nadja, trying to contain her tears. Her body was unsteady, shivering. Her eyes were looking at me, tired, almost as if this life turns to an unending vigil. I could know that my mum was scared from the realization that the only love left for her is about to suffer like her husband. My heart was torn in dilemma. Love is not supposed to be contested, to be compared. Yet I had to choose.
Every time I took the meds, Nadja didn't come. I ached in agony. The medications robbed me of my Nadja and my willpower. I felt cold and empty. I couldn't express anything but a mask-like expression. Nadja is my bittersweet distractor. In my catatonic state I could only remember her, as if universe means nothing without her.
I missed her so much I decided to stop taking the meds, just to see her again. I expected her to be so angry with me, but she wasn't. She was as angelic as she always was.
"I miss you too."
I began to see her everywhere since I stopped taking my medication. I saw her face on the billboards alongside Cheshire Road. Her omnipresence began taking over my life. She was on everyone's faces, with all eyes towards me. Looking at times very cheerful, but sometimes also very sinister. She even wrote me messages, displayed everywhere. In newspapers, sometimes, I read a letter or poetry made by her, signed "Nadja." In other times, license plates on the street spelled her accusatory voices, like a barrage of moving angry text messages. It drove me crazy. It suffocated me.
On one rainy afternoon in the middle of August this year, well past 4 PM, I was driving my car downtown. I had to buy grocery since my mother was ill and must stay in bed. Usually, I always drank my meds in needs like this. But this time I forgot taking them, and Nadja began appearing again everywhere. I tried my best to ignore her, keeping my focus on the road. One of her was on the sidewalk, waving at me, trying to tell me something. I was too distraught by her to dodge a parked car.
Inside a car I just hit, a couple were struggling to get out. I sighed in gratitude, for such a fatal inattention almost took away several lives. I saw the man got a bloody cut in his forehead. The woman got bruises here and there. Worse, their faces gradually changed to Nadja's as they screamed and yelled and limped towards me. Soon, other people approaches me and my car. They were... all Nadja. My head hurt so much from the impact and all the illusions. I couldn't sort things out. I couldn't remember a thing afterward - except the feeling of touching my damp shirt, soaked with blood. I passed out.
I woke up at the Sacred Heart Hospital, with stitches above my left eyebrows and dislocated shoulders. Police demanded explanations, and after several inquiries, the court decided that I was too dangerous to myself and others. The court order compelled me to take medication else I would be put in mental institution. I could only imagine how sad my mother was. An agony not so subtle was hinted in her face. I didn't dare to see my mum's face afterwards.
Can you imagine lovers separated not by distance but by sanity? Maybe there is only one in this world; only Nadja and I. And now my sanity becomes an unbearable quality to have. I've dreamed of her so hard that I'd rather lose my grip on reality. I want my insanity back. I want to hear stories coming from her lips again; to sleep with her voice that is so dear to me while embracing her body as she lays next to me. I want Nadja no matter how much she caused me pain.
Eighty two...
Eighty three...
Tonight is nothing but a collection of emptiness. The empty sky deprived of star lights. The empty bottles of pills. The empty heart of a man. Soulless. Loveless. This immense feeling of bleakness permeating from my room is more comforting than ever.
Ninety...
Ninety one...
My inner clock is counting the moment. What will come after this? Will this wicked son get punished for inflicting so much sadness and disappointment to his mother?
Will I meet Nadja?
I grin at such prospect. My vision begins to blur from tiredness and the pills. My whole limbs paralyze.
Nadja. The enigma who warped my soul and sent it in limbo. The beautiful angel who remains out of reach in reality and in my dreams. I have lost her. I no longer have her. May this death - this infinite night - bring me again to her sweet caress. May these pills be my one way ticket to ride.
Ninety nine...
I believe in everything that will bring her back to me.
One hundred...
As I close my eyes, every inch of my body screams her name.
I hear my room door creaking slowly.
-----
*) A homage to Andre Breton's book, "Nadja". Thank you, @nitnitha. :*
One...
Two...
Three...
In my waiting for departure I am thinking about her, the ghost who inflicts so much pain and so much joy in my life.
Four...
Five...
Never crossed my mind, that I can only love her in my defective mind. In my insanity, I found love.
Six...
Seven...
Five years have gone by since that one summer's afternoon. I can still remember the details vividly, as if it was just yesterday. The air... the room was radiant by the light of the sun that refused to step down. A flock of golden clouds sauntered slowly on the tangerine sky. I remember sitting down by the windows, on a wooden chair. It was warm inside. On the outside, some children were playing football. Some of them were cycling. None of their laughs could register to my brain. I felt bland. I felt lifeless. Yet I can flawlessly recall that day, because that day is the day she came to my life.
"How are you dear?" My mum's voice echoed from across the room. "Are you feeling well?"
"I am okay, mum."
I am okay, mum. It's just... I am not me.
My heart dared not speak the latter sentence. I just couldn't stand the thought of me worry my mum again.
The fault in our stars have cursed our family with this defect. First, my father. A decorated sergeant who was honorably discharged in his prime time. One day, a depressive episode manifested, due to his mental illness that finally surfaced. The next day, he's probed with evaluation. Two months after, he was out of the military. The next year, he shot himself to death. Leaving a widow with measly veteran benefit and a son who inherit the same illness. Perhaps it's time for my turn.
I never expect that that afternoon carved a lasting impression, even more so since my mind is botched from a concoction of brain-suppressing medications. That afternoon... that gleaming window... about five meters from outside of the window, came her. The wind blew her short, silky-black hairs as she walked closer and closer to me. I could only caught a glimpse of her face... her eyes. She looked into my eyes - a habit that she never lost - and I swear to god I was trembling at that moment. And then she was gone, disappearing into thin air. So fast, as if the earth swallowed her in one quick swoop.
"Life is not a dream, you know." A whisper came from behind.
I jolted from my chair. And there she was, smiling menacingly.
"What the fuck... Who the fucking hell are you?!"
"Son? Are you okay? Whom are you talking to?"
"Uhh, sorry mum. I... uh, the kids outside are playing in our yards. Gonna mess your flowers so I shooed them away."
"Oh, okay, then. I am going to go downtown. You feel like coming?"
"I guess, no, mum. I am fine."
"Take care, dear."
"You too, mum."
"Liar, liar..."
That voice again. She was standing next to the door. I could now see her clearly. Her slender body leaned against the wall, with her thin legs crossed. She tilted her face to me. Her round face, her melancholic eyes, and one little mole adorning above her thin lips. Lips that smiled a beautifully cynical smile. Her face was a landscape of wonderland. She was beautiful. Perhaps the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
"Are you an angel?"
"Maybe."
Her sweet puffy cheeks reddened as she chuckled. "You will know who I am."
Since then my life was naught but a poetic version of reality. She was a magician of heart. Her passing apparition distorted everything that is real. I saw her on my waking hours. On some night, she would even sit next to me on my bed, from dusk to dawn. Exchanging words and whispers. Commenting on my frailty body, or about this old world - the philosophers, the peacemakers, the war mongers - while having our eyes locked on each others'. Her mind was like a library of infinite books. A vastness that I could never fathom.
I didn't know her name, and she didn't tell me, either. Until one day, I saw the sky carved her name by the clouds.
Nadja.
Nadja, the sweetest angel ever made by the immortal hands of God. The sweetest being in my life.
"You are not prepared to understand me. Everything that you see is a juxtaposition of two or more realities, including me."
I didn't understand a word she just said when I asked more about her. Since then I only knew her as an angel. A heaven-sent.
Day by day, Nadja haunted me. Even stronger. I saw her on TV. One day she was the anchor woman, and she told me a story about what happened in Middle East. But frankly I didn't care, I only cared for her voice, sung like lullabies. Like a bedtime story. On another day, she was the weatherman. The swirl pattern formed a heart shape. How sweet of her, I thought. I've never been romantically loved that much in my live.
One day - after disappearing for few days - she appeared as both the pizza delivery guy and the face on pizza box. Both of her was angry, saying I didn't miss her that much. I begged for apology to the baffled pizza guy and the pizza box. And that's when my mother noticed my illness.
My medications separated me from her. The first time I took them, Nadja taunted me.
"You're weak. You're useless! You let those pills deteriorate your brain? You will never see me again!"
Nadja resented me, questioned my love for her. My mum was beside Nadja, trying to contain her tears. Her body was unsteady, shivering. Her eyes were looking at me, tired, almost as if this life turns to an unending vigil. I could know that my mum was scared from the realization that the only love left for her is about to suffer like her husband. My heart was torn in dilemma. Love is not supposed to be contested, to be compared. Yet I had to choose.
Every time I took the meds, Nadja didn't come. I ached in agony. The medications robbed me of my Nadja and my willpower. I felt cold and empty. I couldn't express anything but a mask-like expression. Nadja is my bittersweet distractor. In my catatonic state I could only remember her, as if universe means nothing without her.
I missed her so much I decided to stop taking the meds, just to see her again. I expected her to be so angry with me, but she wasn't. She was as angelic as she always was.
"I miss you too."
I began to see her everywhere since I stopped taking my medication. I saw her face on the billboards alongside Cheshire Road. Her omnipresence began taking over my life. She was on everyone's faces, with all eyes towards me. Looking at times very cheerful, but sometimes also very sinister. She even wrote me messages, displayed everywhere. In newspapers, sometimes, I read a letter or poetry made by her, signed "Nadja." In other times, license plates on the street spelled her accusatory voices, like a barrage of moving angry text messages. It drove me crazy. It suffocated me.
On one rainy afternoon in the middle of August this year, well past 4 PM, I was driving my car downtown. I had to buy grocery since my mother was ill and must stay in bed. Usually, I always drank my meds in needs like this. But this time I forgot taking them, and Nadja began appearing again everywhere. I tried my best to ignore her, keeping my focus on the road. One of her was on the sidewalk, waving at me, trying to tell me something. I was too distraught by her to dodge a parked car.
Inside a car I just hit, a couple were struggling to get out. I sighed in gratitude, for such a fatal inattention almost took away several lives. I saw the man got a bloody cut in his forehead. The woman got bruises here and there. Worse, their faces gradually changed to Nadja's as they screamed and yelled and limped towards me. Soon, other people approaches me and my car. They were... all Nadja. My head hurt so much from the impact and all the illusions. I couldn't sort things out. I couldn't remember a thing afterward - except the feeling of touching my damp shirt, soaked with blood. I passed out.
I woke up at the Sacred Heart Hospital, with stitches above my left eyebrows and dislocated shoulders. Police demanded explanations, and after several inquiries, the court decided that I was too dangerous to myself and others. The court order compelled me to take medication else I would be put in mental institution. I could only imagine how sad my mother was. An agony not so subtle was hinted in her face. I didn't dare to see my mum's face afterwards.
Can you imagine lovers separated not by distance but by sanity? Maybe there is only one in this world; only Nadja and I. And now my sanity becomes an unbearable quality to have. I've dreamed of her so hard that I'd rather lose my grip on reality. I want my insanity back. I want to hear stories coming from her lips again; to sleep with her voice that is so dear to me while embracing her body as she lays next to me. I want Nadja no matter how much she caused me pain.
Eighty two...
Eighty three...
Tonight is nothing but a collection of emptiness. The empty sky deprived of star lights. The empty bottles of pills. The empty heart of a man. Soulless. Loveless. This immense feeling of bleakness permeating from my room is more comforting than ever.
Ninety...
Ninety one...
My inner clock is counting the moment. What will come after this? Will this wicked son get punished for inflicting so much sadness and disappointment to his mother?
Will I meet Nadja?
I grin at such prospect. My vision begins to blur from tiredness and the pills. My whole limbs paralyze.
Nadja. The enigma who warped my soul and sent it in limbo. The beautiful angel who remains out of reach in reality and in my dreams. I have lost her. I no longer have her. May this death - this infinite night - bring me again to her sweet caress. May these pills be my one way ticket to ride.
Ninety nine...
I believe in everything that will bring her back to me.
One hundred...
As I close my eyes, every inch of my body screams her name.
I hear my room door creaking slowly.
-----
*) A homage to Andre Breton's book, "Nadja". Thank you, @nitnitha. :*
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