Parc.
Tonight.
I look at her, waiting for her to look at me again, and then our eyes met...

Parc.
Tonight.
It's not that good actually, I wonder why people like to come here.
Maybe because of the music? I don't know. The place is closing anyway and I don't care why.
I'm sitting here, talking with other guys.
The other bands are playing on the stage after ours, we are the opening act.
We choose to sit on the corner rather than to join the crowd in front of the stage. It's okay, we can still hear the sound anyway.
The place is small, and ugly. Luckily, it's shady in there so people won't expose the ugliness of the place.

After chatting and drinking the Cola from the pitcher (I promised to myself not to drink again this time), I take a moment to rest and look around. Geez, what a quite tiring time I had after the performance.
Hmm, I had nothing better to do so I look at the watch. It's nearly midinight but the crowd is still getting more and more crowded.

I look around at the crowd, like hoping that someone I know would come here. But of course, I don't even know someone here except my friends who are sitting beside me now. Because I don't have something better to do, I keep continuing this unimportant activity, until my eyes look at the girl who stands at the back row, about ten meters in front of me.
Then she looks at me. And our eyes meet.

She turns herself around and look at the stage again. I watch her patiently until she looks at me. Our eyes meet again.

Should I ask her number?

Damn it. This is in J A K A R T A and she's automatically-ninety-nine-percent lives in J A K A R T A. I really hate this J A K A R T A thingies actually (I have my own reasons for that) despite the great architecture and the all the skyscrapers. So I try to keep my business in J A K A R T A as least as possible. And I don't want this girl to be something to keep me in touch with J A K A R T A.

I'm really not in the mood of a commitment thing right now. This means, if I make a move on this girl, it will probably just for having fun or a one-night-stand-thing. Hmm, am I starting to be an asshole? But I think it's okay to be one since I'm single now. Because right now, I just want to have fun and just going around with a girl without even care about the commitment thing.
Hey, don't think of me badly, there's nothing wrong with that actually. I'm single, and I won't forced her to listen to my words. I just want to have fun, can I just do that?


She still looks at me again. She's quite nice, physically, and sexy.
Goddam it.
I took a cig and light it. After I drink few gulps from the softdrink, I looked at the Miss-I-Don't-Know-You-But-You're-Quite-Sexy-To-Me for the last time.
The next thing is, I stand and go out to find some fresh air. Fresh air to make me can think clearly. Fresh air to erase her from my mind. Fresh air that reminds me of someone.

I grab my cellphone and send her, that someone, a message:
+ How about dinner tomorrow night?

I've tried to post writings on this blog, but it seemed that last week had been a busy week for me. It was because the goddam college, and the goddam assignments I've had. And my brother came back from Jakarta with five friends. The spare room didn't enough for all of them, and it turned out that I had to give up my room to one of them. I don't like it. It's not because I had to sleep downstairs in the television room, but I never like my room being entered by some strangers. The room is full of privacy and things, you know, and I don't like to imagine stranger touching and taking my stuff out from where they were before. And they never turned off the bathroom lights, and left the toothpaste-pack opened. Goddam to all of them..

You're forgiven, not forgotten
I forgive you, but I don't forget how you said sorry and promised things would be better next time,
and still, nothing better happened as you're still neglecting me.
So now, let us just go our own way and live on our own...

When the night comes, Mom always tells me not to go outside.

But since last week, I sneaked outside from the window and went to planet PluPlu with Marvin on the spaceship.

Have you ever heard a planet called planet PluPlu?

I just got back from planet there, visiting the girl who lived with Bubu in planet PluPlu. She's an old friend of mine. It has been a while since I met her. Since I didn't really have works to do last week, it's a holiday, I decided to visit her and just say hi.

A little planet not very far from the moon, planet PluPlu is. But you can never see it from earth because it always hides behind the moon. In planet PluPlu, everything runs on nanosecond. You don't feel the difference when you are on the planet. You must compare the time with the earth time. I just went there for a few minute I think, but when I went back to earth a week had already passed. Luckily I don't have any homework to do, but Marvin said Mommy probably would kill me if she knew I went there with Marvin and we would probably missed seven breakfasts, seven lunches, and seven dinners, twenty one desserts, and twenty one glasses of milk. It doesn't really matter actually. Marvin's spaceship has a time machine that will allow us to move back in time. He just put the timer to one week before and ta-ta-ta-ta, we're back just a second after we got off.

That's not what I wanted to tell you anyway. In this Planet PluPlu, lived a girl. I can't remember her name, it's a strange words which produce a strange sounds when you pronunciate it. But what is a name anyway; it's just a matter of labeling someone. I still can remember her clearly. It's her hometown. There's no one else wanted to live there because it's way too far from earth.

She lives there alone with Bubu. It's a tiny creature with square shaped heads. I don't like him very much. Neither does Marvin. But it's the only friend she had there. I pity her sometimes because of it, but she never complaining about her situation. So I guess it's probably the best thing for her. But Marvin never wants to got off from the spaceship. He kept complaining, Oh yeah, when I got on the ground and that little ugly creatures say I'm a junk, a junk probably I am...

When I got there, she had already baked me cinnamon cookies for me and Marvin. Since Marvin is a robot and he was still in the cockpit, I ate all of the cookies. Her cookies were great, it's the one with the rainbow flavor; I forgot to tell you that she likes to make rainbows too. She asked me to make a rainbow with her once. We made it with laughter and joy, and the rainbow will grow from the ground and up and up to the sky. And then we climbed upon the rainbow and slid together to the ground. It was fun; we could make our own rainbow shapes and colors, and then played

Bubu never like it when I spend with her; I think he was jealous. He often comes towards me and just kicks me and then runaway.
It's okay, she said, Bubu always like that when I with someone else.
Why so? I asked her while Bubu sitting on my head and playing with my hair. Maybe I'll just ignore him.
It's hard to explain, you see. He's mine, my lost boy, noone wants to play with him.
Really? Why? Now he jumps ON my head.
He always lie, and the lies tends to become true. Noone likes him, all of them migrate to other planet to avoid him. He lives alone until I come here.
Why does he not leave with them? I looked up to see what has he done to my hair but can't see a single thing.
He can't go, my poor Bubu, he's the one who holds the center of the planet and everything rotates around her. She grabs Bubu into her arms and hold him. Unexpectedly Bubu becomes very calm.
Poor Bubu, suddenly I pity him.
What are you doing with him anyway? Do you play a lot?
Not really. We just like to dream the night away, imagining just how long is forever actually.
Do you talk with him? Or you just dreaming instead of talking?
We talked, she said, in our own way. And we dreamt of having houses in the periphery, and to be buried in Tibet or Antartica.
Bubu fell asleep in her arms.

Marvin shouts from the spaceship, Let's go back, we have been here quite long enough. Oh I wish I could stay here long time so I never be an old trash can...
And because of Marvin, I remember of getting home already because in this planet, everything went fast.
Well, I better go now. Next time I come here again visiting you if you don't mind.
Of course I don't mind. Just bring some friends, we don't have any. She laughed. A rainbow grows from the ground beneath her feet.
I smiled. Of course I will, but my Mommy wouldn't allow me to go out again if I don't go home now. See you later!

I ran to the spaceship and went in. The spaceship flew us up into the sky. She waved at me; Bubu smiled and waved at me too. I waved them back until I could’nt see them clearly. From up there, I can see the rainbows spread out from everywhere on the ground. It's such a nice planet, everything is so beautiful, especially the rainbows, you should see it. Maybe next time I went there I will asked you to come with me.

My eyes were so heavy and I feel sleepy.
It's okay if you wants to sleep, I'll do the driving. We robots are never sleepy. Never need a rest. Oh how poor are we robots...
But I can't hear any single words that Marvin said.
The last thing I remembered is the image of the aurora.
And then I fell asleep again...

The Grown-Up Things

I've told you before, suddenly I feel like I was bored with all of my stuff. I knew it's not because of the daily routines; this boredom stuff happened on the middle of my holiday. Or maybe I missed my usual routinity? I wasn't quite sure what the cause to this aggravating thing was. It felt like I'm not interested into any fun things anymore.

I've been trying to contemplate by lying on the roof slope, but I found nothing to answer the boredom misery and the riddle of my mind. The one thing interesting was there were no more rainy nights so there were no more clouds which made the sky as clear as a very thin glass. The stars were very bright, you could see them vividly. The bright stars made me remember that I used to try to count the stars when I was little back then. My best count is one thousand and six hundred twelve. But I didn't really interested to count it at the moment; I just watched the shining. I guess I'm just too old for that stuff.
Knowing that contemplating on the roof slope didn't quite work in solving my boredom misery, I decided to walk where my feet wanted to walk off. So I put my sweater with my scarf on and began to walk somewhere. I just walked.
The night was calm. There were almost no cars on the road. I passed by other pedestrians, many of them were a couple of young guy and young girl, no older than me, with their hand arming each other. Ah, lovers. When you fall in love, it seems that the world is just for the both of you. All you can think about is love. Ridiculous, that is to me, how you become blind to other things because of love. I don't want spending hours on the phone talking about love to my girlfriend if I had a deadline the day after. And acting so childish so you get your lover's attention. That's so phony.
I stepped the stairs and went to the café. After ordered the usual hot mocha latte at the cashier, I sat on the outside table so that I can watch this perfect night. That love thing almost made me forget about my boredom misery. But the thing came up to my mind again this time; it never got off actually.
I didn't know what to think of, so I reached my pocket and put all of my pocket stuff on the table. It's the sort of thing people do to when they have nothing to do but don't want to keep their mind empty.
There were my cell phone, my wallet, and few coins inside, plus my order which arrived later. I arranged the things from the smaller to bigger size, but it didn't waste me a lot of time for me arranging it. i still need to occupy my mind so I decided to take all the wallet things, except the money of course, out and put it on the table too. There were many cards: credit card, a lot of other people's name card, and my identity card. Hmm, the identity card design is the ugliest; I really don't like the color. And the text is still typed by a typewriter, not even a computer. It's so 90's. Maybe the government should ask a name card designer to make a better and up to date card design. I'm sure I can make a better design on my own.
Then I realized the answer to all of the boredom misery when I looked at my date of birth typed on that goddam blue card. I was already a twenty one years old man.

Did I think about growing up?

I hate when I should think about growing up things. You should act more mature, less childish. It's time you should think about life seriously. And you couldn't do anymore fun and enjoying things to spend the spare time. You should think about work too, and even marriage and family. Hmm, I don't like the last two idea, so maybe I just think about life and work, what I have to do and what I have to achieve. Don't worry about getting married, I don't want any. It's such a troublesome I think, to have a wife and children. Wife is just a person you'll have to argue with, and end up with the women cry. And later the women want a divorce. So why someone should marry anyway, I don't have any reasons to change my mind about not marrying anyone. I don't like children, they're really bothering, besides they're very annoying.

But this growing up things I found was a completely surprise. I felt like young Alex, who was only eighteen when he thought about the grown up things in that café because he met his old friend Georgie who was already marrying a woman and having a baby. Well, I don't know a friend of mine who was already married and I don't like to think about the marriage either, but I think my condition and Alex's is the same. So I tried to remember that goddam book I read: what did young Alex do after he realized the grown up things? Damn it, damn it, damn it, that was what I had in mind because I still forget the next part of the story.

But it was a relieved to know the exact problem of the boredom misery. Although I still didn't have any answers, I felt a little bit contented with it. I took a gulp of the mocha latte then putting my wallet and pocket stuffs back to the place they were before.

The nocturne was blowing and I felt a little bit cold although I already put a scarf on my neck. I didn't know how or why, it made me remembered the next part of the book. But heaven knows how miserable I was that night, because that Alex part is the last part of the story. The end. Fin. Period. Maybe I should write to Anthony Burgess to find a better ending.

Ah, goddam it.

So now, what should I do? I didn't really like the idea of growing up and putting behind all the childish things I like. I still want to play computer games, talk about the weather and the night with Mr. Reindeer, watch The Fairly Odd Parents on the Nickelodeon, and many other unimportant things.
But why should I care about the growing up things anyway? I don't even want to try to be one anyway; it just phony. Artificial. Fake. So I choose not to think about it, at least at that moment, when the night was calm and the stars are shining stunningly beautiful.
I took another gulp of my ice mocha latte. I look up at the sky and started to count the stars,
one, two, three, four, ....