Mother's calling

This may or may not be his worst decision. Iskandar was never good with decisions after all.

Hours of road trip from Yogyakarta to Madiun he barely realized it was near evening, when kernet finally yelled his destination as next stop. Sky had turned marigold in color and soon to be navy. As the bus stopped and the door opened, he took his only backpack and got up from his seat. The old vehicle was filled with people, but somehow only half as crowded from the last time he remembered. That spared him from trouble while exiting the bus. Vaguely he could hear the old woman who was sitting across him saying, "Give my regard to your mother!" with a jolly voice. And Iskan only gave a nod before going out. His smile was covered by a facemask. She was a great talker along the journey

Alas he needed to go out quickly. Setting his feet down he quickly made his way out, slipping through new passengers that were about to board up and out of the station. Soon enough he reached the streets of Madiun, a city that he had not visited for nearly five years. Small town bearing heavy history. Small town that had his favorite childhood snacks, brem and bluder and numerous waterfalls and places to visit. With fewer crowds than big cities, it was personally an ideal place for Iskan compared to big bustling Jakarta and Yogyakarta. 

And yet he never really wanted to come back.

It was in the middle of the dry season in Indonesia. July, nearly half of the year. Weather had been hot and humid since days ago but somehow today was stiflingly hot. Even when the sun was about to go down. On the sidewalk he stopped and tried to make a call. Old Sony Xperia J on his hand, he eyed the screen waiting for the call to be accepted. Two to three attempts were made, all to the same number called 'Om Cokro' . Iskan was told to call if he had arrived, although he felt that won't be too pleasant for both of them.

At the fourth call, someone replied on the other side. A man, definitely older than him. "Ah Iskandar, you have already arrived d-don't you?"

"Yes Uncle," he replied calmly although noticing the slight stutter on the other's voice. Knowing what's up despite what they had talked yesterday. "Can I really stay at your house for a few days?" He asked, making sure. 

"Um, yeah, about that…," there was a pause before his uncle continued. "I forgot to tell you that Dila and her friends suddenly came home around noon and occupied the rooms. We can let you share rooms with her but I'm not sure you will be comfortable with that. We're very sorry for the sudden notice! I can pick you from the station and drop you off your grandpa's though. I don't think he has any guest-!"

"No thank you Uncle I understand," if Iskan had any dismay, he didn't express it any slightest in his voice, as if his replies came out automatically. "I can go to Mas Satya's house."

" Satya… your old neighbor? He's really okay with it?"

"Yeah, he was excited when I told him that I'm going back to Madiun," luckily. 

"Oh good then!" Om Cokro sounded genuinely relieved, if Iskan could laugh, he would. "So, you're good on your own?"

"Yes. I'm okay. Will visit you tomorrow." And just with simple approval and goodbye, Om Cokro finished their convo. That would be their last for today. Iskan was okay with it. He knew not to overstay one's welcome and not to say anything when he was not welcomed at all. Om Cokro was just too hesitant to reject him. He could've done it sooner. Iskan was mature enough to understand without made up reasons. Though slightly looking up not to bump into someone or something, he proceeded to text Satya that he would come and stay overnight later. 

'Cool! Will wait here. Sorry couldn't leave the kiosk just yet' Satya replied within a minute.

But he wasn't going there just yet. After thanking Satya he shoved his phone back to pocket. Heaving his backpack again he walked all along the sidewalk, knowing his next destination.

Took him a few minutes bargaining with a pedicab driver before going there. The day was getting late yet he enjoyed no rush from the trip. Much different than the bus where it was stuffy, he missed the slow pace and the breeze while riding a pedicab. Just like a bike but you just sit back and enjoy. The street was not as crowded as Jakarta. It had been a long time since his last stay, yet he quickly remembered numerous places, streets, and so on. It was his home, he always knew his place.

Just like how he still knew where she was. The reason why he came back.

The pedicab brought him to a portal of an alleyway. No specific address to be followed, Iskan just requested him to go here. He got down from the cab and paid before walking along the alleyway. There were houses on the right, little paddy field on the right. Yet what he was searching was none of that. He went a little deeper. Hoping someone was still selling flower petals somewhere around here. It would be appropriate to visit with flowers.

Even though on each of his steps right now, he still feels reluctance daunting on him. Awful feelings were still looming over. He wanted to forget her and turned his back, never once looking back. Should he go back after all? Couldn't he just stay back and let it pass? It was not important to go back anymore. No one was waiting for him there. Only his abstract sentiments.

But she never let him rest easy.

"Kandar, won't you visit me?" Always the same woman. Begging him to visit her after years. It made him restless as for years he ignored her. He was unwilling to turn to her let alone talk. But she was as stubborn as him. For days he lost sleep trying to evade her in his dreams. He didn’t want to go back, he didn’t want to meet her again. There would be no use for it. 

"Please Kandar, please visit me. Im sorry...," And yet after all, he came today. Embracing the unbearable feeling. If I don't go there, then why would I come to the place that rejected me? He tried to strengthen himself to keep going. He kept walking until he found the stall he was searching and brought those petals in a plastic bag. White and burgundy, always in that color. Sometimes light green. Nothing too fancy. He continued to where she was, ignoring the seller that started at his departure.

Just needed a few more minutes until he arrived, no matter how slow his steps were. Burdened by silent thoughts that never passed his mouth. Just at the corner before the turn, where the cement wall was not colorful like the other houses, and when the white brick gateway came into view, he knew he had arrived. Taking a deep breath he walked in, nodding to a man that sat near the entrance saying he wouldn't be long. It would be just a quick visit. Rare to find anyone lingering around past evening.

She had been here since… maybe since Iskan was ten. Been long time since the ground became her bed and blanket, meanwhile the sky became her roof. Plumeria trees here and there, their flowers scattered on the ground. Been long since she left their house and kiosk. Memories were pulled back from the bottom, and replayed by itself as he kept going deeper, mindful of his steps. The last time he came here... was the second or third time he did, not long after elementary school graduation, possibly. After all those years, this place still manages to leave an eerie impression for him. But that was good, it made everyone stay respectful, out of fear getting haunted by the ones who felt disturbed.

It was funny that even after years he still remembered where her grave was. In one of the sections a few steps away from grandmother and great grandfather's. The one whose grave was made by white tiles. By now Iskan was already kneeling beside her gravestone, if she was there, they would be beside each other.

But she wasn't. She was six feet underneath. Out of reach since Iskan was just a child. But even beforehand, Iskan was already unable to reach her just like he couldn't reach his father. 

"... Mother, I'm here…," he muttered after tugging his facemask down. "You have been calling me inside my dreams. Over and over. Are you happy now..?"

His hand trailing over the pile of soil in the middle of her grave. It wasn't even mere soil anymore. Wild dried grass had filled the surface. It could only mean one thing. "No one had visited you over the years too… no wonder…," he said emptily. Though it was saddening. None of his relatives cares enough to visit her. If there was someone needed to visit, it should've been Iskan himself. By this point, maybe ‘Sinner’ and ‘ungrateful child’ were the names thrown at him, written with invisible ink all over his face. Iskan did not care.

But at some point, seeing the abandoned grave pained his heart a bit. Enough to move his hands to eventually pluck the dry grass from her grave. She was your parent, and you're her son after all, they always said to him when he was a kid. You are ought to look after her even after her death.

Years ago, Iskan would be in turmoil whenever he heard that, but now, he may or may not have understood what they meant. There was still compassion left for her, though her face was barely familiar for him to anymore. He thought he would come here in bitterness and yet he turned out calmer and tranquil, although the pain was not completely over. “Sorry, that I just visited now,” that came out gently, and he continued, his fingers twisting the bottle cap before popping it off. He poured the content to the ground of her grave. Soon flower petals fell from his palm. From the head position, to her toe. Over and over. “I need to keep working. I couldn’t keep burdening Om Cokro and his family, you know. I think it's best to find work at Jogja… just for work… not college. Although I think you wouldn’t care about it, right? Because...”

"I thought you left me for good that day, why were you calling me then?"

"You decided yourself that day when I was off to school, remember? That you will follow Father. Begone from everyone’s lives. Running away. You just took a different approach to do it,” the words flew from his mouth. Sounded easy, but heavy on his lips. The word ‘suicide’ he was too afraid to say it directly. He sounded too soft, too careful, as if some parts of him had been duct taped to silence for years, leaving only pretense and indirection. But today, today he wanted to force it open. To talk even when he wanted to just stay silent. “Why did you show yourself begging me to come back now…?”

“I thought I was just a burden to be thrown from one place to another. To uncle.. To grandfather…,” words got sharper and painful as he tore the duct tapes off his tongue, even though it tastes really bitter. “They see me as a freeloader. When you decided to end your life, you may have thought just the same… I just never heard it from you all.”

“Even though I always asked you, years ago. ‘Mommy, what’s wrong?’ ‘Mommy why are you crying?’ ‘Can I help you?’” When he mimicked it, it sounded light and innocent, high pitched like a kid, at the same time also sad and concerned. “And you always said that I’m just a kid. I didn’t know and wouldn’t understand. When I asked them why you did this, why you left me, I heard the same. All of you left me in the dark…”

“It didn’t take me long to learn that Father was a bad man that left you.”

“It didn’t take me long to learn that you were hurt… and tired… and having a kid didn’t help that at all.”

“It didn’t take me long to learn what… what I was viewed as.”

Bit by bit his voice faltered just like his strength falling apart. “So why just now…?”

“Why just now you reached out to me instead of before. I could have tried anything to stay with you! Why now after years and YEARS leaving me alone?? After years of cutting yourself from me making me think that it was my fault that you chose to die?” he turned to the gravestone as tears spilled to the soil, fingers gripping to the tile. Emotions finally sprung free. He was never allowed to feel angry. Now he was angry. He was never allowed to feel a grudge, now he admitted to feel so. He was scolded not to complain and confront. Now he let it all out. Ironic because in the end no one heard what he was saying. Not his relatives, and most probably not his mother. He was talking to the wind, delivering empty hope that someone on the other side would sit and listen. “Because I was burdening you, just like what the others felt about me! And then when that I tried to detach myself, you just somehow came into my mind and begged me to come back? How many more times are you going to remind me I lost you a-and how hurt that was, Mother? Or am I just going insane? Or you were just being selfish?”

“I came back here over abstract thought that you need my visit even though you left me years ago. I never even ONCE complained about you leaving to the others. Can’t you see how much …,” the rant was cutted off by a sob. A forbidden expression of a male, they said. But here he was, letting a cry that had been sealed away for as long as remembered. Boys don’t cry. 

Yet today was the day the boy came home. To his mother’s call. And this was how he told her how his day went.

Terrible. Alone. Sad.

Abandoned

“How much did you break me...?” 

“And how much do I still love you?”

Unnoticed.

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Kernet: Bus driver’s assistant

Om: Uncle

Mas: Brother/older male/senior (informal)

Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Madiun: Cities in Indonesia

Brem, bluder: Types of snack