While the Script is Drawn

Mosaic 23 - Anxious

"Everything's getting worse. Dogs! *******! ***!"

"What's wrong? Why are you so angry?"

"I'm anxious. Very worried."

"What are you worried about?"

"The future."

"you mean? I don't know what you mean."

"My future looks really bad. What would you do if you knew the worst would happen?"

"Make it better."

"Make it better? Yeah, but if that's any choice. While I had no choice. I only have one choice. One way. The path I inevitably have to take and it's towards a very opaque future."

"There's always a choice, man!"

"Omong empty. People can always choose. That's the most foul shit. The words that motivators always say are nothing more than lies. Can humans always choose? Yeah, it happens if there's a choice. And life doesn't always have a choice. You're just told to live it sometimes."

"Slow down, no need to gass. Slow, Brow. Now take a deep breath. Rightly so. Control your emotions. Yep. Now tell me why you're so worried about your future. Worried about something that hasn't even happened."

"I'm unemployed, one of them."

"Huh? There is a lot of unemployment in this era. More and more people. Find a hard job for mercy. And the foreign workforce is getting crazier in this country. It doesn't have to be that hot."

"My age is almost head three and I'm unemployed, how can I not be this hot. I should have been married at this age. Friends my age are married. Some even have three children. Even my girlfriend doesn't have one. I dare not approach a woman while I am still unemployed!"

"Then, from now on, you should find a woman to make you a future wife."

"You don't hear my words, yes!"

"Right, slow... Don't keep gassing. Dengerin. You know, a lot of people say that a married person is coming. Greater than if one were alone."

"I doubt that."

"Don't you see that some people who were poor looked rich after marriage?"

"Yeah, and some of the others his household became ruffled and had to end tragically because of the economic problems that convoluted, like a snake that twisted its prey to extinction. I don't want the economy to convolve me after marriage."

"Hey... Why don't you just get a job? That way you will have income and will certainly dare to approach the woman you dream of.”

“You think I didn't try it? Find the hard work of asking for forgiveness if you only have a high school diploma and your age is more than the maximum. Now that is sought by any company a maximum of 25 years old. That is also for those who are so old that the possibility of receiving is only 10%. I searched here and there but didn't get a job. Bad luck to me. Luckily, I could still buy coffee and cigarettes from my parents' diet because it helped him sell in the market. I wouldn't be able to pay a bill at a cafe for a date with a woman if it was that kind of income."

"Trust me, maybe now you're at the lowest point. But one day you'll be at the top. Life is always turning. Not forever down. Optimize."

"I can't be that optimistic looking at reality right now."

The conversations in my head were getting frustrating. The passion of life seemed to evaporate with a puff of coffee smoke on the table that I had not touched at all. Thinking about all the misery of my life made me lose my spirit. I thought about suicide, but I felt afraid, not afraid of death of course, but fear of the process of death itself. It seems like it hurts a lot. Slashing my pulse sounds really bad, - just putting a syringe on just makes me shudder. Or hang your neck, - it also seems to be torturing. Or drinking rat poison. It seems like those ways hurt. So I threw away my thoughts of suicide. I will also die alone.

After being hit by a tangled mind, the coffee that starts to cool on the table looks tantalizing, then immediately tangled. But only once shaved I immediately choked because of the sight that immediately made my tubers hot.

Looks like a sight that makes my chest tight. A woman with a floating smile was driven by a motorbike by a man I knew of the same woodcutter, smiling cheerfully. Romance is right on them and it keeps me clumped under the table. Between anger, jealousy, embarrassment, my feelings being unwarranted, I didn't want them to see me.

She is Eny Khumairah, the woman who should have been my lover. He's my friend's sister. I often go to his house to play with Bambang, his brother. Gradually the seeds of that feeling appeared. We often steal our eyes. Mutually timid. At that time I was still working as a counter guard.  

In the end I dare to take Eny on the road with very mediocre money. It happened once a month after I received my salary. There's no love in our relationship and I don't think it's necessary, at least I think so. The most important and obvious thing is that we like each other. Until time passes and things change.

"When are you going to marry me?" said Eny, even though it is a sentence of questions but more sound as a sentence marked exclamation. Married man? In the meantime I was officially unemployed. It's a simple question but the answer is very difficult. It's harder than the physics answer, I guess.

What do I want me to feed him? The rocks? A pebble? What do you buy powder and eyeliner for? A leaf? I finally told him, "give me some time."

"How long?"

"A year."

"alright. A year."

A year? It's nonsense. In the fifth month he finally broke off our relationship because my condition instead of improving was getting worse. It turns out he doesn't really love me. Or maybe I'm too cowardly. Maybe waiting for something uncertain will just make you tired. Our relationship is broken. He turned to Obed, the woodworker.

***

It's not that I'm not grateful for what God has given me, but that I'm really anxious about my future. Sesuram overcast in monsoon rain. A night without the moon and stars. The more dark the day. Everything seems to be getting worse with all the problems that come along.

I don't know how to. The people around me don't help much either. I was alone in the world. No friend is really a friend. You certainly know what I mean. Those who claim to be friends only exist when we are happy and when we are in distress they seem to disappear. As if I never knew us. Rains. I'm sick of everything. The world is like a hostile to me.

"Maybe my fate will be like that grandfather. Old run, begging, scavenging for anything that can be eaten. Life is hard without being able to choose what I want and I would be hard-pressed to die. You know, like criminals, poor people are hard to die with."

Back, the conversations in my mind were chattering.

"Still you're worried. The future, nobody knows. Well, except for the chosen ones like prophets or psychics. But you're just a regular guy. You think you know what's gonna happen? Dude, anxiety comes from ignorance."

"I'll be a loser."

"Rejecting something that can't be denied hurts more than anything. Never mind, just go. Think positive."

"Maybe you're right, my fears are unwarranted. I'll try to think positively of destiny."

***

If it doesn't work in your own city, why not try another city? The idea suddenly came. Well, maybe my values aren't in this town. Monitor. That's answer. Well, I should wander. But it's not like I never wandered. I've been to Kalimantan, Bali, but I don't make any money. I mean my salary's up. When I returned home, there was nothing left.

 Monitoring is also not just about finding work but also wanting me to start something different. Who knows if my fate has changed? Who knows. So I immediately packed my things that are not much into the butut bag until full.

"It's like guessing what number of dice will come out."

"At least there is hope."