Black Room

Life

Money is life in life

****

I left 3rd grade feeling fond of my success turning red ink into my report card. Me and Aldi laughed happily over the black one lesson that read red ink. While ijep and nando smiled wryly, they accepted their defeat by making buk nit as a scapegoat for their failed remedy.

"Yes, but still good luck can be in ansur-ansur. Kalaqus. Do not know the cave will complete the Indonesian language what not" said aldi

"That siraja is swollen. It does not have a heart" said Ijep.

"Who doesn't have an ijep heart" Sapa buk nit walked hurriedly past us. The atmosphere was silent for a moment. We were all silent when the buk nit was already behind us.

Aldi and I shut up. I have trouble holding back laughter looking at ijep's expression.

"Eh ibuk's. What's.. This is buk, nando, cook ngak numpangin aldi go home soon aldi finished remedi and nando not"

"Yes nando?" ask buk nit by continuing to walk up the stairs with his stomach that began to look swollen.

"No buk" answered nando hurriedly "Lu what the hell" Nando clocked ijep's head

Buk nit up the stairs and passed. Our laughter slowly began to come off, our laughter was heard chanting in the barn, echoing as our happiness this afternoon.

The sun was shaded behind the black clouds, so the sky featured a shady afternoon as we climbed the stairs. The view of the rice fields that line behind the local ipa and also the beautiful road that looks to split the rice fields into a beautiful panorama at my school. My school looks spacious with the ground gradually separating some of the local.

The school looks empty. Just stay with us and buk nit inside the school. Remedies make us come home slower. But I feel satisfied. My only memory is two more. It does not feel like there are 7 lessons that I have succeeded in remedying. Nando and ijep live three each, while aldi lives one ingris language.

Nando and ijep have less skillful abilities, though they are diligent and almost never truant. They have weak memory. I felt the ease because I felt I had a strong memory. That's why I can get through the remedy so easily. I can memorize quickly.

I went home with aldi, while nando with ijep. Me and aldi turned right at five, while nando parted straight with ijep to his boarding house.

In front of the intersection of Al-Furqon mosque, aldi greeted buk mutia who stood in front of the shophouse. I saw buk mutia smiling. Then I looked at buk mutia. Busy looking at the vehicle passing in front of me. It's better than staring at buk mutia

"Him mother" Tanya aldi,

"Yes it was buk diana came home first picked up by her boyfriend" Sahut buk mutia

"It's hard to tell me to pick up my mom's boyfriend" said Aldi.

"It's busy where there's aldi's girlfriend" Sahut buk mutia. "Where does aldi" asked buk mutia to divert the topic.

Lies. Buk mutia has a boyfriend. Name's ade. She lies. Gumanku's.

"Finished donk" replied aldi.

Buk mutia sounded a little laugh. While I still survive do not want to see it. I feel disappointed every time I see buk mutia.

"Here he is, who has been looking for" said the ipan who suddenly from behind. Ipan looks alone and so neat.

"Eh***" Sahutku. "What's wrong?"

"Where is it? Just got home at this hour?"

"Remeds"

"Buh tumben diligent" said ipan ketus

"Kesawahlunto yuk" He said

"Well?" My toot.

"Happy" Sahut ipan with a smile "Udah join me" he said.

"Two aja"

Ipan.

"Now"

"Yes, you go home and get changed" said Ipan.

"OKAY. Later on by phone"

"The cave's been calling your number active"

"Oh yes hp cave at home. Don't bring it"

"Jaudah cave wait ya"

I went home and passed without looking at buk mutia.

****

I sat down and gathered with my friends in the usual place we spent the night. Rumah gadang is the traditional house of the jambak tribe. This house is like a headquarters for us to gather and share stories.

Tonight we sat down with a bunch of dried marijuana and a liter of palm wine. I feel like I'm at a height with a combination of dope shabu this afternoon. The hair that still feels tense and the head that feels roomy makes me so relaxed tonight. But I try to control myself so that my other friends do not sensi because I know I swept.

"Tumben wise these words of the pream tonight" Sahut bg gates.

"Well, pram if you're ready your baby will look smart" Cetus bg deni.

"If you are ready, your insights will be open" pram answered and smiled.

Pram is also ready to suck shabu. That means it wasn't just me who combined three-dimensional poison into my consciousness. There are pram and bg deni who turned out before also sucking meth both. While I got a shabu from ipan which turned out to take me to the rice fieldlunto to exchange a line of marijuana and a gram of methamphetamine.

"His fault. The risk of being ready for life is a dry bag" said Pram

The price of one package of methamphetamine is 200, 300, 500, and 800. That's pretty big money in our limitations as users. Our average pencharian is a gold miner. Among the eight people we had in the house of Gadang. I'm the only one still in school. The other is a daily gold miner. Except Gates who is indeed jobless happy.

The economy is based on gold mines. Where if this gold mine is razed or banned by the government for a long time. So, the economic life of the community will experience a financial crisis. Even traders in the market like my mother complained about the lack of market. Mother said the gold mine raid brought economic collapse.

"Shabu is indeed for people who have a lot of money" said bg deni while smoking marijuana very deeply.

Bg deni is right, in a meager income with an urgent need. We must not be selfish by neglecting basic needs only for pleasure which becomes a complementary need. While I was sucking shabu just because it was free. I wouldn't suck a shabu if I was asked to buy it first. Because, I realized that my life would be ruined if I had been dependent on the shabu that is not cheap.

That was the first time I smoked a shabu. I who introduced marijuana to ipan, replied ipan by introducing shabu to me. Our friendship is like a symbiotic mutualism.

Silly songs are playing adorning the story tonight. The conversation gets more intense discussing life. Money is life. That's our chat. People occasionally pass by in the streets of jambak.

"Life without a cellphone and a motor is like a broken leg, can not go anywhere" cried bg febi who described his complaint. Muaro bodi is a dead village, there is no busyness and life. Even bg febi once said the status 'campung **'. Bg Febi was fed up with the pardoned life. He felt he could go crazy, if he stayed longer in the village.

"There's no life here" Bg Febi wanted to be damned. He missed his life being destroyed.

Naff song played on the music list, terendap laraku melodious. When the cold strikes me, this song reminds me of buk mutia. Someone who broke my heart.

"Sir, if given one request from God, you want to be rich" said Momom.

We laughed at Momon's silliness.

"Hey mon, being rich is a dream of many" said Gates.

"Mon.. If only God had given one request.. It is good to ask to go to heaven directly mon" said Pram chimed.

"Yes well, obviously you survived the world" said bg eldom.

Momon was silent. We laughed more and more. Momon often uttered such silly words. That's why pram nicknamed momom with an empty barrel, or bg febi who called momon with kanslay. Momon came home. Momon's stomach was empty.

My BlackBerry rang, the notification light flickering the incoming BBM sign.

"Tomorrow's Sunday night, busy?" Ask fiona's message.

"You want to take me for a walk?" My reply

"Later the young teacher gets jealous" Reply fiona

Naff's song answers with his lyrics that give a twist. Like I admire someone who already has a girlfriend. 

....Tired of holding back what I felt, though I know, I still crave you....

"She's got a boyfriend" I replied.

In the end, the pain made me understand the sincerity of loving. A truly sincere heart will stop at nothing to love, even when faced with the reality of love clapping one hand. Sincerity will not disappear just because it is not reciprocated.

Rain began to fall, spatter then immediately heard rushing walking on the precarious. We rushed to go home soon. But it rained very fast.  We went back to the shelter of the rumah gadang. Our heads and some of our clothes were a little wet because we were intending to break through the rain.

"Well, what time is it?"

"At 12 hours less"

"Had forgotten the clock for breaking" Laughter gates who interpreted our habit when we had gathered. As if it were commonplace. Tonight just because it was raining we rushed home. If it wasn't raining. We haven't thought about going home yet.

The rain was getting heavier, strong winds directed the patches of water that bounced from the kula towards us. We clenched to the wall, sitting on the stairs. The rain blocked our way home, the sound of rain made the conversation frenetic. My phone vibrated, a message from Fiona came in.

"Before we graduate, my friend once thought after finishing high school what would it be?"

fiona was like asking for ideals. Things I never thought of. I went to school just to graduate. Not to be a pilot, a cop, or like an ideal that's too grandiose for me.

"Supassing is not necessarily. But the end of High School want to wander, work pt kumpulin money, later can be saved and then open a business. Dude?" My reply.

I haven't thought about my ideals? When my age began to be preoccupied with ideals, I just assumed that ideals were nothing but the nonsense of their expectations, as if hoping that everything would go as it did in the mind. I don't know, or I don't want to be anything. Until I laugh at their dreams.

A desire is a desire in the future. Like a dream in the future. Like ijep and nando who want to be police and army. Or aldi who wants to go to college after graduating later. If they ask for ideals, I just know I want to wander and live alone. I want to be independent. I feel I can step on my own. I don't need to be financed by my mother. My wish from childhood was to escape from my mother's embrace, I hated home when I was home. When their egos collide with each other, it gives the impression that I am just a burden that keeps them fighting. I don't know who's wrong. They continued to argue in high tones. Poking long with words that are profanity, can not be banned, they increasingly become insulting. Until it ends with the father leaving the house.

"If I want to enter the official tourism of women" Reply sms fiona.

Ideals are hope. Hope is our passion for the future. Of course, everyone hopes for a better life. Fiona wants to attend a tourism school. The thing that becomes his obstacle he must be able to speak ingris. For that fiona trying to memorize the ingris language.

While my ambitions want to wander past high school. For that I have to graduate with a pretty good grade.

The rain began to subside, we went home. I sleep with hard eyes closed. The effect of shabu was still felt this afternoon. Boredom began to decorate my Saturday morning, I surfed my twitter and my blacberry. As always, writing a tweet is my habit.