Dear, Soul!!

Faiq's Story : Flasback (3)

Faiq, who had previously been partying with Jazz and his friends, chose not to come tonight and walked alone to a bar not far enough from where he lived. He would only make his friends worried if he came up with this feeling of being in a state of turmoil.

The bar he visited was not so crowded, making him able to calm down his feelings even more.

Faiq stepped in and headed straight for the bartender's desk. A person of a fairly old age stood there and greeted Faiq warmly. Judging from his age, it seems like he is not someone who works in the Bar, but an owner or maybe the father of the bar owner who is down directly controls the Bar.

“Bitte gib mir ein glas wein” said Faiq who ordered a glass of wine on the bartender who had previously shown a smile sign of hospitality.

At first glance Faiq thought, whether he was at the Bar or at the cafe, seeing the hospitality that his bartender showed.

“Hier ist ihr wein, sir” Said the Bartender who handed in kindly the wine ordered by Faiq.

“Thanks..”

Faiq gulped down the wine with a single gulp, he was aware of himself who could have lost consciousness there from being drunk, but he did not care. He needed something to calm his mind, and the one he chose was wine. He would call Jazz to pick him up when he couldn't get home by riding.

“You look so young, are you a student?” Ask the bartender still using the same language as before.

“Iya” Reply Faiq briefly in the same language

“I don't see the facial lines of the people here on your face. Are you a person from outside?” Ask again who saw the Asian face belonging to Faiq which is very different from the typical European face.

“You're right, I'm from Indonesia”

“So you're here to get an education? Or on vacation”

“I student”

Although he only answered briefly, Faiq still responded to the questions asked for him.

“You don't look all right now.”

Faiq turned to look at the bartender. A friendly face full of smiles was still the bartender showed him.

“You're right, something's bothering me. And I need alcohol to help me calm my feelings”

“This is the way that some people think is right. But this is not true” he said while still pouring Wine into Faiq's glass every time Faiq asked for it.

“Why? In fact alcohol can indeed soothe feelings” refuted Faiq.

“Actually it doesn't calm you down. Alcohol just makes you forget a problem or something that bothers you. The alcohol that you think can calm you down is actually just taking over your mind, so your consciousness is gone and you forget about your problems. Do you think it can be called calming the mind?”

Faiq was silent, still trying to digest the words of the unknown old man who was chatting with him while figuring out what the person meant to say such a thing to him.

“She just makes you forget, so you feel comfortable not remembering what you're burdening, and that's only temporary. While the results you can encounter from alcohol-induced hangover, can get you into new trouble because your consciousness is taken over”

“Then you think, what can be done to calm the mind that can be greater than alcohol” Tanya Faiq returns to her interlocutor who seems not to justify her current actions that try to calm her mind with alcohol.

The old man chuckled, still showing his hospitality.

“You must fight and solve your problems, not by running away and confirming that alcohol is the truest way to solve them”

Faiq fell silent, and again sipped the wine in his glass until it ran out.

“You don't understand” said Faiq and again thrust his glass asking to fill the wine to the full.

The man continued to fill Faiq's darkness to the brim even though he was giving advice about alcohol that would not help in solving the problem. Yes, his service as a bartender still has to do.

“I'm not saying this because I've never felt in your position so it's easy to give you a joke. Precisely because I was once like you, so I can tell you things like this”

Faiq raised his head, looking at the old man with a smile that did not slip from his lips.

“What problems have you been through and not vent your feelings on alcohol?”

“Actually it wasn't about what problem I went through that I could pass without alcohol. Rather make alcohol a runaway from my problems and even add to the problems even worse”

“You mean? I don't understand..”

Yes, the words of the old man right sounded a little ambiguous, so it was only natural that Faiq did not understand.

The old man sighed for a moment, then slowly told him his story, if it could help the young man sitting in front of him with a bottle of wine he had drunk, you can learn lessons from the story he's about to tell.

“I was once like you, I meant to calm my mind with alcohol. My parents did not approve of the relationship I had with my beloved heart. All I thought about at that time, was how I could forget all my father's rejection of the woman I loved”

Faiq with his consciousness slightly weakened by the alcohol he had drunk enough, gasped when the old man told a story that was almost the same as his story.

“I was angry at my father” the old man continued his story. “I'm angry because he doesn't approve of our relationship. To vent my anger, I came to a bar and gulped a lot of alcohol there until my consciousness was gone”

Faiq stopped sipping his wine and began to focus on hearing the stories of old men whose names he did not even know.

“Actually I do not know what my lover told my father, nor do I know what happened exactly, which I know my father blessed our relationship after my lover came and spoke to my father”

“Then what's the problem? You guys have got blessing instead of”

“Yes, and the problem is with the alcohol that I've been gulping down and getting me drunk. When my father decided to bless our relationship, he kept calling me and asking me to come home to tell me about the blessing he had given you, but because I was drunk so I didn't answer his call. I forgot where I kept my phone. Until finally when I realized, what I met was the most painful thing”

Faiq's forehead is wrinkled, showing that he who is confused is also curious about the continuation of the old man's story that he does not recognize but has told things like a friend.

“When I came to my senses, I heard a loud sobbing sound from outside the room I was in. I walked out with my consciousness not yet fully gathered, and all I met was a picture of my sweet-smiling lover with white Lily flowers neatly arranged around her photo it”

Faiq surprised. His consciousness that had slowly disappeared earlier, regrouped and fulfilled it. White Lily placed around a person's photo indicates that the person has passed away.

“A-what happened to him?”

“Yes, he died. My heart was so broken knowing that, and what broke my feelings even more was that, when I found out that his departure was because of me”

“because of you??”

Faiq was stunned to hear the story that he thought was so heartbreaking.

“You know son, if I hadn't gotten drunk that night something like my lover's departure might not have happened. I may still be able to answer my father's call when he calls me, so my girlfriend doesn't have to run to find me. I know that fate is in God's hands, but if only I hadn't sipped alcohol that night, it would have been another story”

Faiq was speechless, the story he had just heard had an important lesson for him.

Faiq had thought of stopping sipping the remaining half-glass wine, but he gulped it down again.

“Now I know that alcohol is not a savior that can release me from the thoughts that are bothering me now. But I still don't know what to do to solve my problem, and again I don't know what way I can use to calm my mind other than sipping this alcohol until I forget about everything”

“What weight is your problem??”

Faiq just nodded.

“I'm the same as you, my father doesn't approve of me with the woman I like. In Indonesia, it is commonplace when we find parents who do not approve of their child's relationship just because he thinks the choice of the child is not appropriate to join his family” Faiq slowly began to tell stories.

Whether the influence of alcohol or because it had dissolved in the old man's story, Faiq finally told him about the burden he felt.

“I am a student majoring in architect in Indonesia, I really like my days in designing or sketching. I even received a letter wanting my design to be used, but in the end it just passed”

“Then what are you doing here if you like your life there?”

“As I said before, my father disliked my lover and asked me to end my relationship with him. Of course I refused and kept my feelings, but in the end I could do nothing against my father's will. My father was a great businessman, he gave me something I couldn't break to keep my loved ones there”

“Looks like your father was more cruel than my father used to”

“Yes that. My father sent me here so that I would have some distance to meet my lover, and so that I could forget him. But until now I've told you, I still love him so much, it feels like I want to be made dead because of my miss. I'm here right now, because I'm missing him and can't help it until I spill it on alcohol. But not just because of my longing until I gulp this alcohol, but every time there's a problem I'm definitely gulping alcohol. I think alcohol can make me a little calm”

“Just because your father wanted you to stay away from your lover, he sent you here? Isn't Asia and Europe too far away just to keep you apart?”

“Yes as you understand it, obviously not just for that reason alone until my father sent me here. In addition to keeping me away from my lover, my father also sent me here to study business. He wants me to continue what he has built at the moment, becoming a businessman like”

“Aren't you an architect student before? And you're happy with yourself as a candidate for architecture”

“Yes, but as I said before. My father asked me to pursue the business world and would replace him running the company he had built. And again, I don't have the ability to reject”

The old man was silent for a moment, breathing out a long enough breath.

“My life is harder isn't it?”

“Yes, I guess like that”

“Then from that, I want to make myself happy here by doing whatever I want and I like”

“Isn't that you're wasting your life?”

“Yes that. This is how I take revenge on my father. The son he had dreamed of becoming his successor, was now playing around. He won't be able to make me a successor if I'm like this, it's just like with him destroying what he's been making all this time”

“I think, your way of revenge is wrong”

“You mean? Now I am enjoying my life by doing whatever I want, having fun and having fun spending it all with my friends here”

“What by doing that, you are happy?”

“Of course”

“Then what are you doing here by gulping alcohol and telling me something painful like this? Wouldn't you be happy having fun with your friends? Then why not go with him now?”

Faiq was silent at what the old man said. He could not deny the truth he said.

Yeah, what am I doing here if I'm really happy with my friends? Why am I here by myself and venting my feelings by sipping alcohol alone to tell a story about my personal matters to a stranger, who not even Jazz had heard of this from me.

“Son, you are young and can take revenge that does not harm you like this, you can do better than this. Reply in a cool way”

Faiq did not understand what the man was saying. His brow frowned asking for more explanation than what he said.

“What kind of cool revenge do you mean?”

The old man who had been chatting earlier smiled for a moment.

“Be better..”

Faiq still did not understand what the interlocutor said.

“You have two options. Go back to your hobby as an architect, or continue your current education in earnest until later you can succeed and silence your father's mouth with what you have. When you are successful and can surpass your father, let alone to be able to make you do what you like, you can even determine what you want to do next, he said, including back finding the woman you love it”

“How can I go back to that woman, while my father does not approve it”

“Your father just wants you to be a successful person, and when successful later do you think your father will be able to forbid you to do something you like?”

Faiq fell silent, what the old man said was true. He can really be what he wants to be if he becomes a successful person.

“Run your life well, you are young and still have many chances to be what you want, don't waste your life”

Faiq stared at his interlocutor who did not know his name. Someone he didn't know, but gave him many important lessons.

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