Please know that this is my first time writing fictions and and and and excuse me while I punish myself for not doing a good job ;___; /sobs/

An enormous smile is hardly unnoticeable hanging on his face, as he lightly walk down a random alley of a mall he found his car drive him into. He used to be a mad passenger begging to be taken to any near stop before he ran back to his own home.

But he gave up. This ride named life where he’s in is just as humorous as it sounds.
Rather than trying hard to oppose the scenarios, he got to understand that he needs to laugh together. And play on any roles he got until the unused switch decided to turn off itself. Until then, he decided to keep playing on its uncommon, impossible exit with no pattern games.

Next moment he realized that he’s in a bookstore he has never been before. He used to be out with his funny friends, and he’s never fond to any boring places like this one.

He gives full right to his feet to get him around that place to finally stop between bookshelves of a category he cannot remember due to his weak mind. Or maybe because of that somewhat familiar situation in front of him.

It is a girl, standing still holding a book, clearly not concentrated to any words in it. Instead her round eyes are motionless. Her breath tries helplessly sucking oxygen, yet her mind seems to have given up on everything. Her small body shakes occasionally as she hold a tight grip on her cardigan, trying hard to live.

So he stood beside her. He watches everything for quite an enough time for a basketball match he used to play. He might be very ignorant, but in that time, he knows best it’s nice to have someone to be with. It goes beyond encouraging; it’s offering hands for her to climb up from that familiar hole he just came out from.

“What kind of pick up line is that?”

He laughs at it openly and search through her dark orbs. It will took another time for her to realize that her fringe are out of place because of her sweat from before. “Everything’s fine, you know.”

“What?” He chuckled as he bet his all happy life today that she has been attempting suicide, that she’s in a difficult time. It’s familiar.

“Everything you’re in. The confusing mess. The bad guys.” He recalls everything he has gone through, shooting words for her. But he’s about completely sure she is experiencing the same. She’s a person he can see through like a reflection, where he can actually looks at himself just by seeing it. How rare is that?

“I hope I can break free like you soon.”

He closed his eyes for a while, telling life that its joke today is particularly funny. What is this, two-way mirrors? It seems like today’s scenario have something to do with looking glass where they can see each other bare. Whatever it is, he’s in.

“Keep any razor away from you, girl.” He taps her back like a little child. He got 15 minutes to reach the cafe where he have appointment like usual with his friends tonight.

There are a lot yet to say, but some things are better to be kept in. Like on how he wants to hold her and let her cry out his heart. Where he wants her to fill his life and both of them reading each others mind without much effort. Just like how he wants them to actually meant to be. Want this so-called coincidence end like he — or maybe her too — wants.

“I must go now.”

But then, life is the autonomous director here.

“Bye.”

If you meet stranger, what makes you walk pass her?

He takes a deep breath. In his side, the appointment from before went just like that, wasting time with crappy music as the background. It hasn’t been too long since they depart, he wonders what would happen if he actually bring her away, and he wonders if she is still there. If she’s still stand there lifeless with teary eyes.

The next day, the next week, and the next month, he keeps making route to drive past that place. Hoping that life bless him with another joke contains seeing her walk by the rain where she happens to know that it’s his car. Where she will jump in, where they will talk about things while life drove them to whatever path it got.

It’s faith.

If you meet a stranger, what makes you walk pass him?

It is some random day where she is just strolling through many of shelves in a bookstore. Today was scheduled to be ordinary; another hours of her hanging out with herself — partly because she doesn’t have friends to go with — and the need of zero-internet time to repel any trivial things distracting her mind. That is, by reading good books. Or anything else that would happen between.

She is in mess. A mess which people keep pointing their fingers ordering her to tidy, yet she doesn’t even remember making. It used to be just fine when she sleep a short nap she remember taking, but then she wakes up on the other side of the bed seeing the world beneath her falling apart. She points back at the universe on why out of other 8 billions people, they choose her to carry this scenario.

Despite that she keeps on walking, trying hard to ignore screaming at the back of her head. That cutter she carry everywhere for college project turned into something nearly promising, something that made contact with her pale skin only-God-knows how many times.

It is never sweet when the razor dances on her wrist. But it is familiar, it is something she can bear already by now. That is her lullaby, and in the same time, her little heaven. It is a song singing, reassuring her that her problem is not the end. That her problem is still okay. There’s this thing, that razor, that would be worse. The last stanza she never heard of this song would be something with a sharp sound at the end — the sound when the razor finally made it deep into her artery, or maybe her loud last scream before her soul flies away; she doesn’t know.

Her wandering mind is forced to fit back to her body by the clicking sound in her head. She stood still, getting a grasp to the whole surrounding. The next second she let out a relief breath that she’s still in that bookstore — instead of strange dark place some gangsters would actually lock her up in like before. Or any wrong side of her world suddenly formed because she is in that particular mess, where everything is not right.

But then in reality, she is just one of the faceless crowd in that afternoon swarming around finding books. She checked details of herself: her cheap outfit, her wallet, her old cell phone. The time plastered in the wall’s clock is still ticking. Everything else is normal and in its place. Just a man staring at her. And stuff like busy woman, kids… Wait, a man?

She takes a quick glance on her right, she saw a tall figure near her. Second glance, then she realize that there is this man beside her. Third glance, she swears that man is looking at her, giggling.

“The hell is wrong with you.” She mumbled unconsciously and try to concentrate on whatever books she has managed to take out minutes before this. Finger crossed, she waited the man to respond, which turned out to be: “Hey, how are you?”

She tries hard to remember every pick up lines she have ever heard in films between her lonely nights, but comes to no relevant result. She has never seen anyone being whatsoever flirted with a ‘how are you’. Which to think about it, is ridiculous. Why would a man lurking around here to flirt her? Oh, maybe he’s just asking where the restroom–

“How are you is a basic conversation starter, you know.” He shrugs lightly.

She raised her eyebrow. Whatever that man has for her today, she’s not into monologue. Or anything else that include messy-haired guy with a worn out bag slinging on his wide shoulder. “What?”

“You just said ‘what kind of pick up line is that?’ by now.”

That day, is a day where she is reminded all over again to keep her loose mouth shut. And that day, is a day where she knows would never be the same.

Orang-orang yang gue kagumi punya jawaban dahsyat untuk pertanyaan ini. Mereka bakal hadapi, terus coba, dan pada akhirnya bangga dengan hasilnya. Kalo gue? Waktu sesuatu ga berjalan baik, gue akan kabur.

“Winners are not those who never fail, but those who never quit”

There you go. That quote turns me into ‘total loser’ category. If something went wrong, I’ll find thousand reasons to defend myself; I don’t fit the role, this doesn’t fit my purpose, they made me hurt. My favorite situation would be ‘I’m tired, I want to hide myself under the blanket forever’. And at the end of the day, I’m gone. I quit.

Waktu di dalem benang kusut begitu, gue hampir tidak pernah punya motivasi untuk buka simpul-simpul benang itu. Itu pasti yang dilakukan orang-orang yang gue kagumi: face it. Yang bakal gue lakukan adalah nangis, dan cari celah untuk keluar.

Ketika orang-orang itu frustasi buka simpul benang, gue kabur ke bawah selimut. Mereka berhasil buka simpul, dan gue masih akan frustasi seterusnya di bawah selimut gue.

Gue bahkan ngerti konsekuensinya, tapi sampe sekarang gue masih hobi jadi quitter. Gue masih ngetik di bawah selimut ini, yang entah sampe kapan. Masa orang punya passion buka simpul benang, terus gue punya passion ‘sembunyi di bawah selimut selamanya’?!

The thing is, I’ve tried. Gue belum pernah benar-benar berhasil buka simpul benang kusut masalah gue, tapi gue udah veteran jadi penduduk ngumpet-di-bawah-selimut. Dan… ga asik.

Mungkin gue perlu ditampar dan disadarkan dari kebiasaan buruk gue ini. Supaya keluar dari selimut gue, dari comfort zone gue, dan mulai belajar menyelesaikan masalah instead of quitting. Nah, makanya, buat yang quitter juga, tampar-tamparan yuk.