unspoken truths

Author's note: The piece contains a few details taking from Indonesian culture from a non-Indonesian. I hope I don’t misinterpret or miscommunicate. Also, the origin myth I’ve created is based upon the Indonesian belief, but I’ve added my own spin to it. Please do not take this as an accurate representation, this is only meant to be an exploration on my part. 

--- 

I can hear Ma distinctively now. She tells me, “Listen, dear, to the stars.”  

We’re sitting together on the coarse rooftop of -our- my rented residence, looking up at the specks of flickering white. It’s a beautiful, obsidian sky illuminated by the lampposts of -rural suburbia- urban premise. I can see her, for the first time in a long time.  

Her ivory locks gleam gorgeously in the moonlight. Her skin, fading into the skies itself, seems unreal. But I keep quiet, waiting for her to speak again.  

I’ve waited for such Saturday nights, free of work, for quite too long. I say this, though I’m grateful to be by her side, nonetheless. She’d always introduced me to new constellations in the sky, telling tales that only the skies themselves inhibit, nobody else. It’s a prized treasure of mine, to be holding such secrets.  

Ma points to the moon. “Look at her scars, Akyli.”  

I only nod. Nobody talks about Dewi Ratih, the moon goddess, and her stagnant, deteriorating state. They only speak of the beauty she’s known to have in tales of the past. 

“People view her acts resembling pure beauty; if only they knew,” she continues. But why don’t they know? Isn’t it obvious? That such blemishes aren’t natural? That Dewi Ratih, out of rashness and hatred, cut off pieces of her flesh and bled her water and life dry? She stands nothing but an emotionless rock in spacious fluid now. I shrug, in subtle distaste.  

“They don’t know because nobody tells them.”  

She shoots me a fervent glare—and I must’ve imagined the translucency in her eyes. As if something or someone told her otherwise, her gaze softens once again, and she looks down in her lap.  

“They don’t know because they didn’t choose to listen,” I can hear her murmur. She seems lost. Flickering, like the stars—in and out of reality. I’m not good at keeping my thoughts to myself, but I try harder to now. It’s of no use because I feel my feet moving without my consent, my hands shoving themselves into my pockets, walking me down the rickety stairs back to my apartment room. I don’t look back a single instance.  

“Next time,” I can hear her whisper from afar. Or- was it me? I have no more strength to open my eyelids, but I can feel her presence in my grimy space. Though I don’t want to wait for the next Saturday, though I’ve asked her countless times, she’s never failed to deny. I lull into her bittersweet lullabies as I doze off into heavenly breezes and divine constellations.  

-- 

You’ve assuaged yourself. 

-- 

May 12th, 2021 – two weeks prior... 

I’ve lugged myself around for the past week, hoping to find some sense of security in the promotion I’ve received in pay. Taxes rob such dismal victories, so I return to the comfort of the balcony, the topmost floor of the somewhat urbanized building I found residence in after Martha, a school friend, introduced me to this place. She successfully convinced me to settle due to its low charging costs, but I personally feel she had other reasons in mind.  

The city lights glare from down below, but not nearly as much as the blue light stemming from the phone I have grasped in my hand. I’ve seated myself on a vintage wishbone chair which doesn’t fit with my surroundings, distancing myself from the shrubbery lining the lower sections of the roof.  

Scrolling through the lists of missed calls, I take about calling some friends and checking on them. Ma’s at the top of the missed calls list I’ve made. Then again, it was selfish of me to call an hour after midnight; she’s maintaining her stout sleep routine and I doubt likes such interruptions.  

I’ve been homesick, recently. I know there’s no possible way of me visiting any time soon, but I hold on to the possibility that after I save up enough, the cost won’t dent my patch of savings that I’m already indebted to due to college. I forget how I’ve gotten here in the first place, at times. That the trip to New York Ma faithfully sent me on was for success to pursue me, not for me to run after it. “Call me once you’ve made a name for yourself, lah,” she’d tsk. Or maybe something like, “I don’t want to see you again until you take a trip here, to Indonesia, yourself.”  

It’s been 3 years since.  

She’s an interesting woman, so incredibly memorable for me to hear her voice miles away, cooing me to sleep and whining at my inability to maintain discipline. No, she’s my Ma, my Ibu, that’s all.  

Is it pointless to call again?  

I suppose I’ll leave a message.  

--but she’d frown at my inability to maintain contact, saying that I had taken things too far.  

Maybe I have, but she didn’t stop me.  

 --

But was it her responsibility to?  

--

May 19th, 2021 - a week following...

I was told an eclipse is nearing, one all the way from Asia to the Americas—lunar. That, the sun, for a mere second would turn into a ring of fire used in circus antics for people to jump through. The last mention of such a thing occurred when I was quite young, in January 2009, back in Sampit, the village, and family.  

I can replay Ma’s scolding, especially when I’d urged her that I wouldn’t be blinded by the sun. That I was invincible. “Hentikan, hentikan—stop it,” she’d reply with a somewhat playful tone despite her irritation. She’s been a lot quieter growing up in comparison to that day. It’s as if the process of aging really got to her, and her indestructible mindset. The village knew her as an exuberant, more rebellious nature growing up, as compared to me, “pelamun” --daydreamer, my nickname.  

“Oi, oi!” she’d say that day, whenever she thought the sky turned a tint darker. And soon enough, nearing mid-afternoon, the eclipse made its appearance. She had not had as much of a religious connection despite everyone else claiming that Batara Kala, the demon king, would steal me away, just as it did the sun. Soon enough, dwelling in her insecurities of being a good mother, she told me to stay inside. “Silakan, silakan– please!” I’d say, but she’d hush me off with a wave of her hand and the attention she had towards me. When she wasn’t looking, though, I’d peer over the window to look at the sight.  

“Saya tidak mengerti.” –I don’t understand. I said, later in the night.  

“Apa?” –What?  

“The eclipse... Anda mengerti? Saya tidak tahu why it happens.” –Do you understand? I don’t know why it happens.  

“Bicaralah pelan-pelan.” –Speak slowly.  

“Wah-- the eclipse!”  

She held her voice back from me for the rest of the night. Sooner or later, I as a child ran into another one of my elders, whom, after asking my well-awaited questions, scared me off with tales of Batara Kala and his demonic evils. How, if Ma had kept me out any longer, I would’ve been poisoned with his evil behaviors. That quieted little Akyli down for a while. 

I look back and wonder, the different stories to such a tale. The same is shared with lunar eclipses; giants, this time, wanting to steal away Dewi Ratih, the moon goddess. But what if there was another story– another truth? What if us mortals had not had such an impact on the already supreme goddess herself? Had she no play in her destiny, doting on supreme saviors to save her? Or had all the credit gone towards places not due? 

–-

“Truth is a mere opinion, is it not?” 

--

May 26th, 2021, the day of.  

The balcony has called me out once more. It’s as if the sheer amount of homesickness I feel lurches me back and forth on raging tides, viewing everything as another memory to her. To the point where she’s here, looking back at me and talking to me as if nothing had ever changed… as if we hadn’t drifted apart. 

The breeze caresses my body, leaving a cold, frigid, but comforting wind feeling its way across my skin. It’s quite too cold, but I can’t seem to recognize it between the mesmerizing ethers. 

We’re sitting together on the coarse rooftop of my rented residence, looking up at the cityscape and its specks of flickering white. It’s a beautiful, obsidian sky illuminated by the lampposts of urban premise. I can see her, for the first time in a long time.  

Her ivory locks gleam gorgeously in the moonlight. Her skin, fading into the skies itself, seems unreal. But I keep quiet, waiting for her to speak again.  

I’ve waited for such Saturday nights for quite too long. I say this, though I’m grateful to be by her side, nonetheless. She’d always introduced me to new constellations in the sky, telling tales that only the skies themselves inhibit, nobody else. It’s a prized treasure of mine, to be holding such secrets.  

Ma points to the moon. “Look at her scars, Akyli.”  

I only nod. Nobody talks about Dewi Ratih, the moon goddess, and her stagnant, deteriorating state. They only speak of the beauty she’s known to have in tales of the past. 

But something in me stops me from saying anything else. I simply choose to listen to her, observe her, notice her. And it’s as if her story seeps into every sigh, every glance into the skies, to the moon herself. That they carry the tunes of her past, wavering between the sharps and flats to create an imperfect, melodious description. A picture, a scene. 

The more I look at her, the more my image of her changes. The more her appearance resembles that of Dewi Ratih, the more my eyes trick me into believing that she indeed is the goddess. But I cannot see otherwise; she is the woman I’ve misunderstood. The woman I’ve blindly thought to have assumed, to have known as my very own. 

It seems, right then and there, she floats off into the night, leaving nothing but flicks of stardust wherever she last stepped. She becomes the moon herself, gracing all those around her. And when the night goes numb, devoid of her presence, she holds a truth incapable of explanation, one carrying a romance, a pursuit of freedom, a strength so powerfully held to the pits of her heart… we– I… am a mere observer. 

The intimacy between both she and I is uncapturable by words. The one secret I will never know. The one secret I don't want to know. Holding myself against the midnight breezes, I carry myself back to my room, trudging down the rickety stairs as normal.  

"Next time," I can hear her whisper. Though I don't want to wait for the next Saturday, whenever that might be, I feel at peace with this one. I lull into her bittersweet lullabies as I doze off into heavenly breezes, divine constellations...  

And the harmonies of unspoken truths.