Lost Child.

The noise sometimes stops, but nothing is certain. Sometimes they don't.
Echoes in my head.

I typed slowly, my fingers following the rhythm of the thumping bass. More often than not, it rings in my head, right after I woke up from my seldom peaceful slumber, before I wash my face or brush my teeth. When I like a song, I like it, probably a little too much. When I hate something as well, it's not very different either.

And right now I hate myself. For putting myself in this situation.

Things can be worse, of course. Thankfully they're not. But it can be better, and I regret how I didn't even try to work on that.

I barely floss. Maybe that's why the dentist took two of my molar, and working his way towards convincing me on the third. Anaesthetic and medical bill aside, I just don't like the idea of this person prodding inside my mouth yet again. Nothing personal.

I clenched my left fist, eyes closed. This was the best part.

In an interstellar buuuuurrrsssttt

My molar-deprived gums felt a gust of air brushing inside.

I'm back to save the uuuuuuniiiiveeeerseeee

I do wish I have the capability. I wish I could stop saying that. I'm part of the universe, anyway, why fret?

"How long have you been standing there?" I removed my earphone as the music finished.

"Two hours." The figure by the doorframe answered.

"I've only been here for ten minutes."

"Okay, two minutes then."

"My voice is that good?"

"I'd pay for the lipsync, but don't push your luck."

"Thank you. Now, what do you want?"

"A good night's sleep and acne-free face."

"But that's me."

"Then we both want the same thing."

"Where is this conversation going, anyway?"

"I dunno, ask the audience, maybe?"

"Fifty-fifty?"

"Okay, let's stop here."

"You started it."

"Fair enough."

"Now will you excuse me I'm quite busy at the moment."

"Lip-syncing?"

"The album hasn't ended yet."

"I figure so." She walked closer and put an envelope on my desk.

"Tomorrow?" I asked.

"Yeah. Good luck." She headed out.

Alone once again. Playback resume. One click, two clicks. A few typing here and there. I took another sip from my mug, set it down, and open the envelope. You never know how hopes and fears can come from a sheet of paper.

Three Unsolved Mysteries of The Universe

...more like Tayverse, because they're mostly mysteries from my time and age, and I don't intend to pass on this stupid legacy to next generation or anything. lol.

Sometimes you just look at the sky and at one point you would ask, "why is it blue?" and find out it has something to do with wave frequency of the sunlight refracted by our atmosphere. Maybe you do it at night, and instead wondering, if the stars aren't visible that much, how do the scientists know there are millions of billions out there? Maybe when you were a kid you asked your parents where babies came from. And then you don't ask ever since.

Alright, I digress. Those are all good questions, and I've been told that in science there's no stupid question. Almost all good stuff begin with 'why?' or 'how?', and might hold the key to the future but these three unsolved mysteries of the tayverse only need one keyword: "what?" and past-driven instead.

Yeah, that's kinda what I've been asking myself, what the hell man? You could try to shift that curiosity into something far more useful, and instead all you can manage is these dumb-ass questions??

Sometimes I ask myself, "what the hell is wrong with you?" but we're not going there today. These so-called mysteries are less of mysteries than reminiscent tale of stuffs that shape me into who I am today. Okay, maybe 'shape' is a bit too much. They're more like chapters of my life. Chambers, if you will. They're like... bits of memories that shaped like jigsaw puzzles, where I'm missing one of those parts. And the search for the answers would resemble me looking underneath my board game drawer or shaking the jigsaw box to make sure nothing left inside.

1) That "Miharu" comic

This was a reminiscent chapter during my elementary school era. I have read A LOT of comics throughout my life, but this one particularly glues its way into my head: because I literally FORGET its name and now I feel like I can't die peacefully until I know what the title is.

It's been a while, obviously, and it's actually more like a shojo manga in chibi-like artstyle where the main character is a small school girl who has a crush on a boy, who's also liked by this rival girl character. Your typical shojo. The distinction is that our girl has magical split-personality kind of thing where she can change her personality (and I use this term loosely) based on how she ties her hair. 

So she has three different split personalities: the smart one, the fierce athletic body, and the kind, well-mannered one. Just your average life, really. I recall she named them accordingly: "Mi-chan", "Ha-chan", and "Ru-chan", and thus their names combined made up her actual name: Miharu. THAT'S the first clue I used to search the name of the manga, but so far I found none resembling that. There are a lot of shojo manga distributed in Indonesia that aren't freely scanlated on the internet, so I guess it might be one of those.

There were a few stories about her, but what I can remember is when she and the rival compete to win that boy's heart: through sport events and brain games. I just realized that due to those magic people inside her hairstyle (not literally), the Mi-chan 'supercomputer robot' who knows everything, and the 'possibly retired from the olympics and decided to possess this little girl' Ha-chan, she basically cheated her way through the whole thing. Dammit, Miharu. Have some respect. (but moral quiz tho: is it really cheating if it's a part of her?)

If you guys ever remember reading something like that, please help a girl out. I'm frustrated because this isn't rocket science but so hard to discover. Thanks inb4.

2) Colin's shirt From The Basement 2008

I'm a relatively recent fan to Thom Yorke and the Radioheads, which is a pity because I've been liking their 'The Best Of" album since high school. Given that statement, being a fan implicitly means following their news, watching their live shows, and of course... memorizing their names.

Colin Greenwood is just your average bassist (usually forgotten, lol jk ily colin) and From The Basement is just your average (it's not) live music show where it's sound produced by surprise, surprise, Radiohead's own producer Nigel Godrich. So in 2008 they performed most of songs from their then-recent album In Rainbows, and Colin was donning this totally average tree-themed black tee. Totally average, right? But nobody knows where they can get it. At least as far as I know from online group discussions, nobody has managed to find out where to buy it. This doesn't mean that I want to buy it, per se, but I was just curious (I still am, actually).

FYI, the Radiohead fanbase is really extensive, and they're usually really quick to catch if something's up. Last week some fans took a picture of Thom (the lead vocal if you don't know, you cretin) when he was signing stuffs during their South America tour and not long, someone posted info about how his totally average-looking shirt costs $300. Pretty normal, huh. I'm not judging his fashion choice, but it's just weird that so far nobody manages to give me info on where I can get Colin's shirt.

3) That shady Jakarta motel on July 2008

This is a real story about a real place, somewhere in Jakarta, but probably isn't like one you quite imagine. Long story short, I joined a group tour abroad for a few days, and was supposed to fly home immediately after a short transit in Jakarta. But for some reason, the flight home was delayed until the next day at dawn, probably around 4-5 am, so the group had to stay for a few hours in Jakarta after landing at around 10-11pm. The organizer didn't book a hotel for us (because this wasn't in the original plan), and this was a time when browsing and booking hotel online through your smartphone wasn't yet a thing. So I guess in a last minute attempt to avoid these preteen junior high schoolers from reporting to their parents that they had to sleep on the bus, we were booked a motel.

Shady-ass motel. 

I figure it was the cheapest thing they could manage, but really? Even I knew it was a building specifically engineered for, uh... one night stands. Imagine bringing a group of preteen students to stay in the same motel as the other, uh... customers. But just recently that I realized how messed up that prospect is. It was more of me wondering what factors were put into consideration that they decided it was okay for us to be there in the first place. The location, maybe it's close to the airport? The room rate, maybe it was almost 1/4 the price of normal hotel? Who knows, right??

I've been talking to my old friends who were joining the tour, but they don't seem to remember where it was, either. There are no picture, online documentation, social media status whatsoever that give some clue of its whereabouts.

Or that it ever happened. Maybe it didn't happen at all. Maybe I'm going crazy. Old friends, please reach my contact should you ever remember where it could be. Cheers.

Holding Back

A couple nights ago I had a chat with my old friend (yes I have friend), basically reminiscing about our past. We've been friends since junior high, which was like... 11 years ago? Damn time flies. But of course it does, if all you've been doing is looking back. We talked about that time in junior high school, hoo boy, classic moment of my period. I feel like it's the only time I actually live my life and make memories, not even my high school moment can compare. SO much stories.

This blog has a pretty old tag I labeled '9sbi', and that's where I write random stuff about my junior high class - 9sbi. I was in 9th grade when I started writing blog posts. I even created a blog dedicated for my class, where I would write events happening in the class, in journal-like manner. Bear in mind that I was still in 9th grade - or my 15 y.o ass - so looking back, I get serious cringe syndrome. I remember I initially wanted to make it sort of like an information center for my classmates to check on homework or event information, while also putting up magazine-like articles where I report what happened weekly (or daily? I had big dreams). It was a time of no practical chatroom apps like Whatsapp or LINE, and Facebook was just barely known, so I figured that would help.

When my friend called me that night, we decided to take another look at the blog again. Man, never have I laughed that hard in a while. The sense of familiarity and sentiments, with hints of cringe here and there, I was once again a junior high student with obsession towards Linkin Park. What really hit me was how carefree I wrote back then. I didn't worry about my classmates looking at my writing and thinking to themselves 'wtf is this guy writing'. I didn't worry about exposing my obsession towards LP. I figure it's very unprofessional and off-putting to be making references about your favorite band in a totally irrelevant article about classmeeting, but hey was I young and dumb (and happy).

Back then, I didn't think much. I didn't hold back about what I want to write. Of course, in a professional situation, that would be unlikely preferrable. I understand that there are things I need to refrain from telling, references like LP lyrics that I need to keep to myself. That old blog was definitely for internal purposes, we were all still young and got no real problems weighing us down, and everyone knew what an LP freakbug I was so I guess nobody minded.

Things change, of course. I realize how far I've become, and how much I've been holding back on my writing because I worry about what people might think of me. Maybe I'll unintentionally overshare things that are supposed to be private. Maybe writing so much about myself would make me appear narcisstic. Maybe exposing my feeling would damage my reputation. Maybe I would look obsessive talking too much about my favorite bands.

I realize how I can sometimes think too much about nothing. I get anxious thinking that somehow a future employer might stumble upon my writings and think I'm too fragile to deal with real problems. I get cold feet everytime people say they read my blog, regardless of what they think of it. I worry that I treat this blog too much like a shrink and I reveal too much of my weakness for the world to see.

For a moment, that night of reminiscent set me free. I smiled, knowing that the person who carelessly rambling about her favorite band and unprofessionally, but happily crafting her young and unwise words to shape a writing of her style, that was me. That childhood mischief was still within me, small and steady, writing away in her old axioo laptop with windows 7 installed (but that axioo laptop was already broken and windows 7 is practically non-existent so maybe she died already also but I'm trying to keep my optimistic mood here so yeah)

I plan to keep her alive. Wish me luck for a worry-less 2018 T. Thanks.

I just finished reading this book Fight Club, have you ever heard about it?

I closed the book and put it down, staring blankly ahead. The hell did I just read?

I smiled because it was a good piece of read. I haven't had my mind boggled like that since the last time I saw the movie adaptation, a long time ago, young and dumb and didn't know better. Now I could see why that was a movie of many's favorite. A cult. I could see the charm back then, but after reading the book, I understand.

On the other hand, I felt a twinge of sadness, because it's over. Honestly I didn't want it to finish reading that quickly, but it was 200-ish pages of excitement and familiarity, action and confusion. What am I saying.

You know the feeling when you've finished a good book and now you're sad to be back to your boring reality? Well.. it's my state now. I know deep inside that a good book shouldn't be a mere escape from my reality, and it's supposed to change my life for the better. But that's just wishful thinking.

I haven't been exactly an avid reader, the most I could do was with comics and light comedy novels, and that's why I was excited to be actually reading a book to the point of finishing it in just a few days. Speaking of which, have I told you about Action Philosophers? Well, it's comic, but I recommend it nonetheless.

I've been trying to read more, because of how bad my attention span gets nowadays, especially now that I don't have classes anymore. I couldn't get through a 15-minutes YouTube video without getting distracted, mainly by my phone. I couldn't get my brain to correspond to my general muscle memory, like when I'm doing things but my mind is wandering elsewhere (or nowhere, it's just dormant).

I've always wanted to be a writer, even now. Doesn't matter what I write, I just typed away. And what better ways to start being a good writer than reading a lot?

Cats Cats Cats

Tonight my rants will be taking a short break and instead I'm going to talk about something important.

Cats.

You heard me right. Cats. Typically furry, carnivorous mammals we constantly bump into in our everyday life. And I'm not complaining. I'm an obvious cat person. I see a cat on the street, I approach it. Brief boop on the nose, a little pet if they're of the friendly kind, and small bits of cat food if I happen to have it on me. Brief encounters with this creature can put me in a good mood, especially the friendly ones.

I have had the experience of owning (owning might not be the precise word) cats in the past. Most of them are dead or missing right now (talk about being a good cat-parent). See, what I mean by owning would be something like seeing them around my house a couple of times, give them food until they're comfortable being with us and decide to take over our front porch. Just... casually... pooping all around the yard. They're basically stray cats that we took into our hands. We don't have a local shelter where we can go and adopt pre-maintened cats, so it's all up to us how to take care of them.

This kind of taking-care-of-stray-cat cycle has been around for quite a long time in my family. We live in a suburban house complex, and there are a lot of stray cats hanging around. We couldn't just feed every single ferals, and considering how territorial cats are, once one or two commonly united cats decided to take over our yard as their kingdom, others just naturally avoid the area. Once we also took a group of abandoned kittens from mom's office to home to be taken care of. They grew up well, but then they decided to wander off elsewhere, one by one. Ungrateful bastards.

smol villa

Oldest cat we have had we named Villa. Male cat, white fur with orange coat around his face and tail. He was born in our house around 2011, with one (or two) sibling(s) four years ago, he's still living with us now although his siblings had moved out. He was named such because during his kittenhood (is that a word) he was really playful, and liked chasing this orange decoration around like a football. Mom's really fond of football, and she suggested that name.

Villa's story is kind of sad, because he was such a friendly and playful kitten, with eyes lit up at round objects rolling around and paws to play with others, but one day he just got... hurt. His front left leg got messed up pretty badly, and he became hostile quickly we couldn't even take him to the vet. He then went incognito for quite a while, but went back with noticeable physical change and attitude. He used to like being pet, now he doesn't even let anyone touch him. He doesn't play with our cats anymore, only around for feeding time, with most of his time outside fighting other strays. He was now the territory master, so at least it's an accomplishment. I'm still feeling guilty we didn't get to take him to the vet, though.

large villa

Anyway, after a few years of having domestic shorthairs (read: mutt) come and go, this rare (is it though?) beauty suddenly appeared out of nowhere, hanging around our neighborhood, meowing. Our maid found her and we feed her. We had no idea where or whose house she could be from, because she doesn't look like our usual mutt. She looked like something out of a pet shop, with relatively long coat of fur, and she was very friendly. She immediately made herself at home at our house. After a brief discussion with brother, we named her Joan.

ma bby

To our surprise, she was toilet-trained. Most of our cats initially dropped their bombs around the yard and then we cover them with sands and kerosene to get rid of the smell. Some managed to take it on the litterbox, but we had to train them first. Joan on the other hand went straight to the back toilet where our washing took place, and managed to pee near the water drain. We only found out after we noticed her walking out of the toilet. She became mom's favorite in an instant.

ma bbyy

Things took a positive turn for Joan. She was the first cat mom was willing to neuter, and didn't mind regularly take to vet (because we know she wouldn't run away like others did). She wasn't a playful one, though, mostly just chilling around. Of all the cats we had, I think it's safe to say that she had the most territorial coverage around the house. She even managed to enter the toilet (which most cats never dared to) and my room (and mom would scold because my brother had fur allergies). She likes chilling in the living room, where she would be immediately greeted by eager petting by my brother and me, or foot petting by mom as if she was a walking furry doormat. A huge improvement, considering mom barely touched most of our cats.

To this day, Joan is still alive and well. I don't see her that much because I've been temporarily moving out to another city to finish my college...

...where I made another cat my pet. Meet Ibeng. (read: e-bank)

meet my newest companion

Ibeng came at a good time, which was during my (hopefully) final college semester where I barely had anything to do other than working on my thesis. Got no class left, so I spend most of time at kosan, writing away, cleaning my room, even took the time to wash a few of my own clothes.. and feeding cats.

But T, how are you keeping a cat at kosan? I'm so glad you asked, my friend. You see, right now I live in a second floor, and the front of my room is an open balcony. Beyond the open balcony is not your average view, but rather, the roofing of the building. The roof was like an intersection for stray cats, and sometimes they stop by to salvage bits of leftover food/trash from the trashbin.

roofing

crime scene

One uneventful night I just had the idea of putting my leftover food on a disposable container and put it on the roof near my balcony. I did this a couple of times and now I have this little shit begging for food every single day. So I just had to put cat food on my list of expenses because how could you say no to that face?

"food plz"

Basically I just feed him outside my room, he hung out for a bit to groom himself and took a nap on my doormat. His visit could be daily, sometimes he doesn't visit for a few days straight. He keeps me company during late nights of typing (or browsing around randomly), leaves, and then goes back in the morning meowing loudly and waking me up for his cereal (cat food). It's nice because he doesn't hang around for too long or get too clingy, and he would leave if he needs to go to the toilet.

nappy nap

It occurs to me to give him a bath because he's very dirty I can't even pet him (usually I use tissue should the temptation become too strong), but his eyes went wide to the sight of water. I once tried washing him with wet cloth; I got scratches and he didn't visit for a week. Oh well.

It wasn't always peaceful, though. Sometimes other stray cats try to eat the food I put outside, and when Ibeng was around, he would taunt them away. Sometimes the stray cat fights other stray cats around the roof, and Ibeng would just watch from afar because I think he thinks he's safe now he got a human companion that would chase the fight away should it become too annoying.

they're fighting, mind you

Of course Ibeng wasn't the only friendly cat in the city where I am right now. They are everywhere. There are cats in my campus, around my kosan neighborhood, on the street where I walk. Wherever it was, I am particularly grateful of the cats that let me pet them and make my days, become remedy of my exhaustion, or just amuse me with their antics.

Moral of the story? I just really like cats.

Reflection.

I have been reading a decent amount of creepypasta, short horror stories, and urban legends. It's funny how I've always been drawn to suspense and mystery narratives, yet I can be so easily scared it's almost paradoxical. Creepy stories often make use of everyday objects: your bed, which under is infested with boogeyman or an entrance to the otherworld; your phone, which the dead friend's girlfriend or recently deceased relative contact you with; and of course, the mirror.

Who hasn't heard of the "bloody mary" urban legend, where if you chant "bloody mary" three times in front of your dark bathroom mirror, the bloodied disfigured woman would come and get you? What about the ritual of using mirror to catch a glimpse of the literal hell, where you put a big mirror to sit in front of past midnight with required tools and few drops of your blood? Or if you're quite imaginative, relating to the stories where your reflection in the mirror is actually a distant entity that would jump out and trap you in the mirror while it takes over your life given the chance?

What about the worst of them all: looking in front of a mirror and seeing something, someone, you can't recognize anymore?

When you do the past midnight-mirror ritual, you need to lit a candle. You do that, and I can bet you the candle is brighter than my eyes. They say eyes are the window to your soul, so what does it mean to see a window that doesn't even reflect you back? You're looking at emptiness. Just a vast space of transparency, not liquid, not solid. It's that inside of a cube you drew indifferently for your geometry or solid state physics homework.

Or maybe it's not emptiness. Maybe it's the numbness of failing to recognize an object.

Imagine living in your head for so long that when you take a look at yourself in the mirror, you think to yourself, "that's not me". Not because you've changed drastically, but because you have no idea of "you" in the first place. Could went from A to Z, from 10 to 21, or turning 22 last month, the reflection still doesn't make sense.

Is it because I failed to know myself? Is it because I lost track of the concept of change that the transition feels surreal?

I know how futile and selfish this kind of observation sounds like. I know it's useless to try and formulate myself. I know there are moments that I reflect and wish I could just say "yeah this is me right now and if it doesn't make sense when I look at myself later it's because things have changed and I'm a different person in this circumstance" and just go about my life. I know I shouldn't be boxing myself in terms, labeling myself psychologically or be scared of being myself.

I'm really amazed how I've made it this far, though. After all, it takes years and years of nurturing myself with sleep deprivation, lack of physical exercises, caffeine chugging, meaningless communication, and vacant consumerism to get to where I am today. I haven't slept last night, and I just finished my first cup of coffee this morning after binge-watching supposedly informative YouTube videos.

There's really no point in writing this. Did you think the beginning of this post would take you to a refreshing tale of horror? No, this is just my usual ranting. I watched The Sixth Sense yesterday and I found out that what I'm ordinarily writing is called "free association writing". If you're looking for horror stories you can check the r/shortscarystories or r/nosleep subreddit. Also, I recommend the Russian Sleep Experiment.

In conclusion, I would like you all to be grateful if you're able to look at yourself in the mirror and not having existential crisis or being obsessed of finding what's wrong with you. Smile at your reflection today, and maybe tomorrow will smile back at you. Take care of yourself and don't make the same mistake I have done.

Cheers,

T.

Isolation.

There are some personal aspects that I prefer to keep to myself, and this is how I cope. Sometimes I smile. Sometimes I don't smile when I really want to. Self-control, I told myself. Whatever it was I had in mind, it was restrained, forgotten, void forever.

Sometimes I nod. I had no idea what they said, but I nodded. I never knew what good I was other than listening, so I nodded. There are so many of them, in a lot of shapes and forms. I found out that I did not even need to listen, I just had to nod, and nod I did, and have been ever since.

Eye contact is a big red light. I keep my sight low and narrow, careful by nature. It drains me and somehow there's a certain danger I could detect. I hated those sunbeam-like entities, charming and loud. I was a shadow, and they hurt my eyes.

She said I plug my ears too much it contorts my reality. Honey, if only you could hear what I heard you would wish you never had them. Noises, not sounds. Screeching, too close, and tangling knots in my brain. I want to scream, but nothing comes out. A little squeak, lost in the crowd.

"Dark in here," I whispered. It looms over and replied, "It keeps me alive."

"Cold, too."

"I like cold." It said, smiling.

And we're friends ever since. I never told anyone. It never wants to go away anyway.

In a sense, yes, I am isolated. I am in a box, yet you never knew. I am locked inside, deaf and dumb.

"You have the key. Unlock yourself out." You would say.

I would, but knowing what's out there, I'd rather starve myself inside. It keeps me company.