Strange…
“How can I put into words what I felt if one day, when I see a mirror, there's no reflection of mine. The emptiness's stroking my eyes, is it lying? I look upon myself there, no hands, no face, no skin, no colors, nothing but the blank.”
Air woke up… surprisingly.
She’s stupefied by the mirror in front of her, standing still without word, looking through deeply. She didn’t see herself there. She didn’t see a girl she used to see. If there had to be someday, a different day from the other common days, she didn’t expect to be like this. She didn’t count on this abnormality, happening so much like this. It was indeed so that she prayed all the night to have a different life another day she woke up. She prayed not to have a boring day all the rest of her life. She prayed not to have any resentful day when she didn’t have problem even in such a weary. She prayed to have a life, not a linear one. She prayed. She prayed. Yeah she prayed.
Everything seemed to be easy for Air, too smooth, clean, order, settled, like there’s no trouble at all. And she’s weary with that, at the point she realized that life wasn’t superb because there is no such problem. So, that’s the way she prayed in order to make her life changed. And today, when she woke up, life wasn’t going on the same anymore. In front of the mirror, she couldn’t find herself.
Not only herself. She couldn’t see her grey room, grey wall, grey bed covered by grey blanket, grey floor. Everything was grey in her room. There’s a big picture hanging on the wall, picture of the rain with a lady walking away under the grey umbrella. The picture was very much also so grey. If there was a yellow one, it was the light from the lamp in the corner of the street where the lady aimed to be.
When Air stared the picture every time before sleep, she always wished that one morning she woke up she found herself was the lady on that picture.
“Dear me, when I wake up someday I want to be that young lady, walking in the rain and finding her own freedom through that curving road, never gonna stop, endless. Dear Mom, maybe I will miss you, but not really because you make me trapped. I want a change. I want my life changed,” she wished with her interior monologue in her mind. But, not only her life that never changed, in her sleep she never had that dream indeed. She’s a clumsy girl who never had a dream in her sleep. Her life was so linear like a bee line, not interesting at all. And she’s always bored with that. She wanted the rain, she wanted the outer air, she wanted a trip, she wanted a challenge, she wanted a life, she wanted, and she wanted. She wanted everything.
Now, in that mirror, she couldn’t find herself.
She saw a wood, forest, jungle. She knew that was a wood or a forest, maybe a jungle. What ever the term, there’s no the different while she compared it with the nuance she read from the fairy tale. There’s the sunlight set through the gap of the leaves from too many gigantic old trees. Again she collated what the fairy tale told about a forest is. There’s a sound of the twitter birds, heard chaotic but so melodious in her ears compounded with the melody of the water flowing in the small stream and shrieking of primates far away there.
“So beautiful,” was her first response after seconds of surprise.
She raised her hand. She tried to reach her mirror, there’s no glass on it. It now remained a square frame with another world behind it. She approached it, yet she curiously wanted to wander in that different world.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
She chanted that word thousand times in a moment she put her bare feet on the wet grass upon there. Still with her pajamas, she smelt the green humus like a carpet on the land. There’re flowers she’d never seen before, colorful and adorable. The very natural flowers never been touched by the human before, she thought. It was the most entrancing scene from the most beautiful garden out there in her world. There’s no more grey room of her.
“Is it really exists?” she asked herself. But she didn’t care at all; she kept playing there, leaping from the rock to another, exploring the place she never found before. She’s so happy. Her life was changed. Now, she was thinking. How can that mirror become so magically like this? Why now? How can she find the answer? Again, she didn’t care. She didn’t have to know why. She just wanted to be happy in this fascinating forest with its beautiful scene, gigantic trees, and the smell of untouchable flowers, green humus, wet grass and twitter birds. She explored them. She explored her loneliness in where there’s no one except her, seemed like it’s reserved only for her. Then…
She ran.
She danced.
She ran again.
She danced.
She sang a song.
She’s so happy.
She really desired to enjoy the world like this forever as she wanted to insert this world into her mind. But she remembered her mother. She turned her head to the ways she came in. “Can I come back?” she lamented, although deeply in her heart she didn’t want to. This world served happiness.
She’s looking for the frame of the mirror. “Where is it?” asked her. She ran for it to find the entrance she came from. She ran quicker, broke through the shrub, leaped from the wood to grass to rock to everything, and cleaved the twigs hindering. She realized that she had been running too far from the entrance.
She ran and ran until she found the mirror. It was out there, finally. She jumped into her room. The wind blew and flew the dry leaves to her room. The jungle was disappeared, now she could see her reflection and her grey room there. She saw messiness, her pajamas was torn by the twigs she cleaved while running out there. Her feet were wet and full of mud. She’s out of breath.
There’s a knock on the door. Her mother called her. “Air! Air! Wake up!! What time is it?” She wouldn’t wait then she opened the door and found her daughter in such a messy. She’s confused what was happening. She checked the windows were closed and locked. She had no idea why it was happened to her daughter, but she saw the eyes of her daughter were sparkling like a star. Air smiled.
After that day, she felt there’s something wrong with that mirror. But not absolutely wrong, it’s a miracle, magic, mystery, or whatever it was she couldn’t put into word.
She wanted it happened again. She got up from the bed, got near to the mirror. She stood there, in front of the mirror. Could it happen again? She put her hand on the surface of the mirror. It worked. It turns like a TV screen when someone changed the channel.
Silence….
She saw a sprite, fairy, angel, so beautiful.
That most beautiful woman was skating smoothly upon the ice. Every time she’s passing by, groups of pigeon were flown away from her hands. Air was completely amazed. The field of ice in an acrobatic show tent was so white and brightly in a head-light made that skating woman sparkling like an angel, if there is such an angel. In the real world, everything that unexplainable, metaphysic is pointless, there’s no terminology to denote it. But Air had already known “angel” a word used to denote this magical and beautiful appearance. That woman in about 28 was wearing a white ballerina costume, skating beautifully with one leg upraised and spreading her hands. For Air she was like an angel, something appeared from nihilism, so suddenly and full of enchantment.
Having skating danced for thirteen round, there were thirteen pigeon flown away from her hands. They were flying after the woman. It seemed, those pigeons were about to womanize that woman. Those pigeons were white too, like the costume of the woman, her skin was white too, and the tent was also either. Everything here was so white. It gave no chance to the other colors to appear, but the whiteness in this tent was much and better than her grey room, she thought.
“I want to be like you,” Air murmured. She started to upraise one of her legs and spreading her hands just like that women did. She started to skate. But she failed. She’s fallen to the ice so cold. She grinned painfully. The woman realized that she’s being watched by Air, suddenly the pigeons were disappeared and then she approached her. The woman helped Air to rise up.
Both of them are now sitting on the audience seat.
“I want to be like you, I want to skate, dance, be white and so peaceful like you” Air relented.
The woman only smiled, and said for a while.
“Man is the master for everything.” she started.
“That’s what our leader said.” She added.
Air didn’t understand. She’s startled at the moment. “Everything?” asked her.
“Yap, everything. When we were colonized, we asked God for help, but there’re no changed, God didn’t do anything. So that our leader said man has to decide everything and so the destiny. That man is the master of everything means that he is the master of the world and of his own destiny; that man decides everything means that he plays the decisive role in transforming the world and in shaping his destiny. ” The woman explained, Air was just satring her coriuosly.
“The fact, man was the one who can fight the colonizer from this country. So, even worshiping to the God is not forbidden, our leader argues that the fight of man can change his own fate and destiny. And so could you. You could change you destiny. You could change your life. It’s what you want isn’t it?”
“Who is your leader?”
The woman only smiled and rose from her seat. She’s going to walk away from Air.
“Hi, wait! Where am I actually?” Air yelled at her.
“Welcome to Korea, Dear!” said her and disappeared.
After having those experiences, Air always went to bed with a feeling that she would go to a far away land. She’s still sleeping without a dream. But the dream became so real in that mirror. When she woke up in the other day, the first thing she aimed was that mirror. How can life become so wonderful nowadays, said her in mind. She knew the answer, it was because that mirror. It would never reflect her grey room anymore, when she woke up in the morning she found a new different world behind it and she could wander there every time. A whole world was in that square large thing hanging on the wall.
It had been one fine day; she woke up because she heard people called her name. The sound was from the mirror. Those were boys and girls in her age called her up. It appeared a railway station with a background of the Alpine mountain.
“Hi Air, would you come with us??” said a boy with his hand waving on her.
“Yeah, come in! We will go some place you won’t regret!!” a long black haired girl added.
Air saw a train, there was the noisy of the boys and girls who impatiently waited Air to join and made a long trip. The air was so nice and the weather was either, but Air would not go. She stood still in front of the mirror. She refused it. She didn’t like crowded. She chose being alone.
She observed those boys and girls. They wore pajamas just like her. They enter the train and left her in her room.
The world in the mirror was so wide opened. At the short time she could learn many things from it. She felt that her brain was full of knowledge and experience and not everybody could have the same one.
Her mother was still confused about the strange happened to her daughter in that room. In that very grey room, her mother often found the bizarre track of Air footprint. There were not only the track of mud and the dry leaves, but also the things like pearl, a pair of ballerina shoes, cord wood, batik, cinnamon, shell, diskette, hat, shears, a thick book entitled “Modernism”, goggle, T-shirt I belong to Jesus, gun and finally a condom.
Her mother was so panicked with the last two things she found in Air’s grey room. But she tried to stay wise. Air said that she was just fine. And her mother believed her. There’s nothing to be worried about. Air was a good girl; she wouldn’t do anything out of control, guessed her mother.
Next day, she had been reserved with a scene she wished to see. That’s a color of lavender on the sky. She saw it from the mirror of course. She approached it and entered the mirror like she used to do.
The sky on that beach was always so beautiful at the dusk. The Sun slowly moved down through that horizon. Air was so happy being accompanied with the waves on that beach and those coconut trees that waving together harmoniously. Her hair was blown by the wind like it’s ready to fly over that twilight. She sang a song cheerfully, walked step by step above the soft white sand and ran happily.
She cantered over the beach.
But then she’s stopped.
She’s shocked by the view she saw in front of her.
There were uncountable dead bodies laying on the sand. The dead bodies were scattered about the beach. Air was stupefied, there were hundred, thousand or even uncountable corpse laying like there had been just a war.
Air ran away from it, but the corpses were now everywhere. She trampled them, paced them with her feet that turned to be red because of the blood of the corpse which was still warm. She checked about two or three corpses. She hoped that one could still alive ant told her what happened. But all of them were remained corpse, meant DEAD bodies. She felt pity but also disgusted about it. She didn’t know what to do. She just cried.
She ran from one corpse to another. The world in that mirror became a place she could wander happily no more. Her tears bathed the hopeless body that facing the death in pain. The face of the corpses was pathetically unspeakable. The face can reflect the pain and share bitter incident.
On that ashore, the waves of the water and coconut trees were waving harmoniously. The sky turned red because the sun was a half drowned to the horizon. And Air, she was just a black shadow walking between the laying death corpses. The birds ended their shrieking and disappeared. Air plunged in thought on that twilight. The dead bodies were the corpse of people who were killed. Some of them were stabbed on their chest, some of the others had their neck cut, the others got the arrow of their head and stomach, and the rest were shot by the gun and the worse were sundering into pieces by the bomb.
What happened?? Air hoped it was just a dream. A night mare. She walked to leave the ashore. She walked to find the entrance of that mirror but she couldn’t find it she started to run quickly and quickly, but it useless. The sound of the waves was still heard vaguely. She’s confused about where she was. Where should she back to her room? There’s no life here, just the waves, sand, coconut trees, and dead bodies with their unwritten story. She couldn’t find the way she entered.
In her room in which everything was so grey, her mother opened the door. The room was empty. She came into it. She checked the window, cleared and locked. Also she ensured the bathroom. All were empty.
From that square large thing hanging on the wall, she saw a reflection of the picture with a woman walking under the rain and the umbrella in her hands. It reminded her of something.
“I want go somewhere, far away…” said Air once upon a time when she was a child, “to the world you couldn’t imagine mom,”
Her mother went out from the room, she lamented, she yelled.
“Airrrrrrr”
The mirror was still the same, deaf, mute, hanging on the wall, reflecting that grey room.
“How can I put into words what I felt if one day, when I see a mirror, there's no reflection of mine. The emptiness's stroking my eyes, is it lying? I look upon myself there, no hands, no face, no skin, no colors, nothing but the blank.”
Air woke up… surprisingly.
She’s stupefied by the mirror in front of her, standing still without word, looking through deeply. She didn’t see herself there. She didn’t see a girl she used to see. If there had to be someday, a different day from the other common days, she didn’t expect to be like this. She didn’t count on this abnormality, happening so much like this. It was indeed so that she prayed all the night to have a different life another day she woke up. She prayed not to have a boring day all the rest of her life. She prayed not to have any resentful day when she didn’t have problem even in such a weary. She prayed to have a life, not a linear one. She prayed. She prayed. Yeah she prayed.
Everything seemed to be easy for Air, too smooth, clean, order, settled, like there’s no trouble at all. And she’s weary with that, at the point she realized that life wasn’t superb because there is no such problem. So, that’s the way she prayed in order to make her life changed. And today, when she woke up, life wasn’t going on the same anymore. In front of the mirror, she couldn’t find herself.
Not only herself. She couldn’t see her grey room, grey wall, grey bed covered by grey blanket, grey floor. Everything was grey in her room. There’s a big picture hanging on the wall, picture of the rain with a lady walking away under the grey umbrella. The picture was very much also so grey. If there was a yellow one, it was the light from the lamp in the corner of the street where the lady aimed to be.
When Air stared the picture every time before sleep, she always wished that one morning she woke up she found herself was the lady on that picture.
“Dear me, when I wake up someday I want to be that young lady, walking in the rain and finding her own freedom through that curving road, never gonna stop, endless. Dear Mom, maybe I will miss you, but not really because you make me trapped. I want a change. I want my life changed,” she wished with her interior monologue in her mind. But, not only her life that never changed, in her sleep she never had that dream indeed. She’s a clumsy girl who never had a dream in her sleep. Her life was so linear like a bee line, not interesting at all. And she’s always bored with that. She wanted the rain, she wanted the outer air, she wanted a trip, she wanted a challenge, she wanted a life, she wanted, and she wanted. She wanted everything.
Now, in that mirror, she couldn’t find herself.
She saw a wood, forest, jungle. She knew that was a wood or a forest, maybe a jungle. What ever the term, there’s no the different while she compared it with the nuance she read from the fairy tale. There’s the sunlight set through the gap of the leaves from too many gigantic old trees. Again she collated what the fairy tale told about a forest is. There’s a sound of the twitter birds, heard chaotic but so melodious in her ears compounded with the melody of the water flowing in the small stream and shrieking of primates far away there.
“So beautiful,” was her first response after seconds of surprise.
She raised her hand. She tried to reach her mirror, there’s no glass on it. It now remained a square frame with another world behind it. She approached it, yet she curiously wanted to wander in that different world.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
She chanted that word thousand times in a moment she put her bare feet on the wet grass upon there. Still with her pajamas, she smelt the green humus like a carpet on the land. There’re flowers she’d never seen before, colorful and adorable. The very natural flowers never been touched by the human before, she thought. It was the most entrancing scene from the most beautiful garden out there in her world. There’s no more grey room of her.
“Is it really exists?” she asked herself. But she didn’t care at all; she kept playing there, leaping from the rock to another, exploring the place she never found before. She’s so happy. Her life was changed. Now, she was thinking. How can that mirror become so magically like this? Why now? How can she find the answer? Again, she didn’t care. She didn’t have to know why. She just wanted to be happy in this fascinating forest with its beautiful scene, gigantic trees, and the smell of untouchable flowers, green humus, wet grass and twitter birds. She explored them. She explored her loneliness in where there’s no one except her, seemed like it’s reserved only for her. Then…
She ran.
She danced.
She ran again.
She danced.
She sang a song.
She’s so happy.
She really desired to enjoy the world like this forever as she wanted to insert this world into her mind. But she remembered her mother. She turned her head to the ways she came in. “Can I come back?” she lamented, although deeply in her heart she didn’t want to. This world served happiness.
She’s looking for the frame of the mirror. “Where is it?” asked her. She ran for it to find the entrance she came from. She ran quicker, broke through the shrub, leaped from the wood to grass to rock to everything, and cleaved the twigs hindering. She realized that she had been running too far from the entrance.
She ran and ran until she found the mirror. It was out there, finally. She jumped into her room. The wind blew and flew the dry leaves to her room. The jungle was disappeared, now she could see her reflection and her grey room there. She saw messiness, her pajamas was torn by the twigs she cleaved while running out there. Her feet were wet and full of mud. She’s out of breath.
There’s a knock on the door. Her mother called her. “Air! Air! Wake up!! What time is it?” She wouldn’t wait then she opened the door and found her daughter in such a messy. She’s confused what was happening. She checked the windows were closed and locked. She had no idea why it was happened to her daughter, but she saw the eyes of her daughter were sparkling like a star. Air smiled.
***
After that day, she felt there’s something wrong with that mirror. But not absolutely wrong, it’s a miracle, magic, mystery, or whatever it was she couldn’t put into word.
She wanted it happened again. She got up from the bed, got near to the mirror. She stood there, in front of the mirror. Could it happen again? She put her hand on the surface of the mirror. It worked. It turns like a TV screen when someone changed the channel.
Silence….
She saw a sprite, fairy, angel, so beautiful.
That most beautiful woman was skating smoothly upon the ice. Every time she’s passing by, groups of pigeon were flown away from her hands. Air was completely amazed. The field of ice in an acrobatic show tent was so white and brightly in a head-light made that skating woman sparkling like an angel, if there is such an angel. In the real world, everything that unexplainable, metaphysic is pointless, there’s no terminology to denote it. But Air had already known “angel” a word used to denote this magical and beautiful appearance. That woman in about 28 was wearing a white ballerina costume, skating beautifully with one leg upraised and spreading her hands. For Air she was like an angel, something appeared from nihilism, so suddenly and full of enchantment.
Having skating danced for thirteen round, there were thirteen pigeon flown away from her hands. They were flying after the woman. It seemed, those pigeons were about to womanize that woman. Those pigeons were white too, like the costume of the woman, her skin was white too, and the tent was also either. Everything here was so white. It gave no chance to the other colors to appear, but the whiteness in this tent was much and better than her grey room, she thought.
“I want to be like you,” Air murmured. She started to upraise one of her legs and spreading her hands just like that women did. She started to skate. But she failed. She’s fallen to the ice so cold. She grinned painfully. The woman realized that she’s being watched by Air, suddenly the pigeons were disappeared and then she approached her. The woman helped Air to rise up.
Both of them are now sitting on the audience seat.
“I want to be like you, I want to skate, dance, be white and so peaceful like you” Air relented.
The woman only smiled, and said for a while.
“Man is the master for everything.” she started.
“That’s what our leader said.” She added.
Air didn’t understand. She’s startled at the moment. “Everything?” asked her.
“Yap, everything. When we were colonized, we asked God for help, but there’re no changed, God didn’t do anything. So that our leader said man has to decide everything and so the destiny. That man is the master of everything means that he is the master of the world and of his own destiny; that man decides everything means that he plays the decisive role in transforming the world and in shaping his destiny. ” The woman explained, Air was just satring her coriuosly.
“The fact, man was the one who can fight the colonizer from this country. So, even worshiping to the God is not forbidden, our leader argues that the fight of man can change his own fate and destiny. And so could you. You could change you destiny. You could change your life. It’s what you want isn’t it?”
“Who is your leader?”
The woman only smiled and rose from her seat. She’s going to walk away from Air.
“Hi, wait! Where am I actually?” Air yelled at her.
“Welcome to Korea, Dear!” said her and disappeared.
***
After having those experiences, Air always went to bed with a feeling that she would go to a far away land. She’s still sleeping without a dream. But the dream became so real in that mirror. When she woke up in the other day, the first thing she aimed was that mirror. How can life become so wonderful nowadays, said her in mind. She knew the answer, it was because that mirror. It would never reflect her grey room anymore, when she woke up in the morning she found a new different world behind it and she could wander there every time. A whole world was in that square large thing hanging on the wall.
It had been one fine day; she woke up because she heard people called her name. The sound was from the mirror. Those were boys and girls in her age called her up. It appeared a railway station with a background of the Alpine mountain.
“Hi Air, would you come with us??” said a boy with his hand waving on her.
“Yeah, come in! We will go some place you won’t regret!!” a long black haired girl added.
Air saw a train, there was the noisy of the boys and girls who impatiently waited Air to join and made a long trip. The air was so nice and the weather was either, but Air would not go. She stood still in front of the mirror. She refused it. She didn’t like crowded. She chose being alone.
She observed those boys and girls. They wore pajamas just like her. They enter the train and left her in her room.
The world in the mirror was so wide opened. At the short time she could learn many things from it. She felt that her brain was full of knowledge and experience and not everybody could have the same one.
Her mother was still confused about the strange happened to her daughter in that room. In that very grey room, her mother often found the bizarre track of Air footprint. There were not only the track of mud and the dry leaves, but also the things like pearl, a pair of ballerina shoes, cord wood, batik, cinnamon, shell, diskette, hat, shears, a thick book entitled “Modernism”, goggle, T-shirt I belong to Jesus, gun and finally a condom.
Her mother was so panicked with the last two things she found in Air’s grey room. But she tried to stay wise. Air said that she was just fine. And her mother believed her. There’s nothing to be worried about. Air was a good girl; she wouldn’t do anything out of control, guessed her mother.
Next day, she had been reserved with a scene she wished to see. That’s a color of lavender on the sky. She saw it from the mirror of course. She approached it and entered the mirror like she used to do.
The sky on that beach was always so beautiful at the dusk. The Sun slowly moved down through that horizon. Air was so happy being accompanied with the waves on that beach and those coconut trees that waving together harmoniously. Her hair was blown by the wind like it’s ready to fly over that twilight. She sang a song cheerfully, walked step by step above the soft white sand and ran happily.
She cantered over the beach.
But then she’s stopped.
She’s shocked by the view she saw in front of her.
There were uncountable dead bodies laying on the sand. The dead bodies were scattered about the beach. Air was stupefied, there were hundred, thousand or even uncountable corpse laying like there had been just a war.
Air ran away from it, but the corpses were now everywhere. She trampled them, paced them with her feet that turned to be red because of the blood of the corpse which was still warm. She checked about two or three corpses. She hoped that one could still alive ant told her what happened. But all of them were remained corpse, meant DEAD bodies. She felt pity but also disgusted about it. She didn’t know what to do. She just cried.
She ran from one corpse to another. The world in that mirror became a place she could wander happily no more. Her tears bathed the hopeless body that facing the death in pain. The face of the corpses was pathetically unspeakable. The face can reflect the pain and share bitter incident.
On that ashore, the waves of the water and coconut trees were waving harmoniously. The sky turned red because the sun was a half drowned to the horizon. And Air, she was just a black shadow walking between the laying death corpses. The birds ended their shrieking and disappeared. Air plunged in thought on that twilight. The dead bodies were the corpse of people who were killed. Some of them were stabbed on their chest, some of the others had their neck cut, the others got the arrow of their head and stomach, and the rest were shot by the gun and the worse were sundering into pieces by the bomb.
What happened?? Air hoped it was just a dream. A night mare. She walked to leave the ashore. She walked to find the entrance of that mirror but she couldn’t find it she started to run quickly and quickly, but it useless. The sound of the waves was still heard vaguely. She’s confused about where she was. Where should she back to her room? There’s no life here, just the waves, sand, coconut trees, and dead bodies with their unwritten story. She couldn’t find the way she entered.
***
In her room in which everything was so grey, her mother opened the door. The room was empty. She came into it. She checked the window, cleared and locked. Also she ensured the bathroom. All were empty.
From that square large thing hanging on the wall, she saw a reflection of the picture with a woman walking under the rain and the umbrella in her hands. It reminded her of something.
“I want go somewhere, far away…” said Air once upon a time when she was a child, “to the world you couldn’t imagine mom,”
Her mother went out from the room, she lamented, she yelled.
“Airrrrrrr”
The mirror was still the same, deaf, mute, hanging on the wall, reflecting that grey room.
***
Sudah setahun berlalu... aku rindu kelas ini lagi hiks hiks hiks
Kelas yang gak punya ruang kelas, kami bisa belajar dimana saja. Menulis dengan bebas, di bawah pohon, di teras, di taman, di mana aj
Kangen... pada kemana sih????