What a difference a day make? A damn alot. The glorious morning sun and the cloudy afternoon, good chat with cheerful Ms.Sri and a fun short motorbike ride downtown Ubud with Komang..it was all so perfect, alot nicer when we had this delicious home-made lunch by Ms. Sri upstairs.
I was sitting next to Komang when he was adding me to his Facebook's friendlist. Then Stan Walker belted out his infamous Blackbox and i was like, 'Ah..I love this song!' listened to it for a while, thought it was an audio from Happy New Year e-greeting card Komang has sent. Dumbshit, it was my mobile. I let out a weak Oh and fished it inside my left short's pocket.
This woman was speaking as if she was fighting with her own breath, a trace of emotional leftover was too obvious in her voice.
'Mom, I'm okay,' I answered, 'where am i supposed to be?' I joked which I shouldn't have done when she was trying to get assurance from me. 'Yes, mom, i'm in Bali. Sound and safe.'
I shut up and let her unrolled the whole thing. She got this phone call from Java, from a city in the Jakarta neighborhood, i cannot recall the name. This damn jerk called mom's number in his amateur fraud skill and said I was in a road accident, crashed hard on someone that I've got to take him to a hospital and badly need some money. Mom, i felt sorry for her, broke down in tears and was almost got carried away with this whole bullshit.
'Lemme speak to my son,' she demanded.
'Of course, I recognize your voice,' she said, now sound more collected, 'then, I called him names.'
I laughed, soon she followed. Anyhow, both of us know the first thing I would reach out when I'm in a problem or in an excitement is her. We later talked rather about her plan for the day. 'We're making New Year's cookies,' she said,' one or two kinds at a time.'
It was the first unexpected phone calls/news.
When Mikale and his visiting friend left, I sat down in the living room. Men's Health magazine has never been an interesting reading for me, so i just lazily leaving around the colorful glossy ads, smiling at those nice stuffs they're bitching around. Good stuffs. Love'em.
New text message. I reached out for the phone that laid on the dark drawer on the left. It's from Yan, my housemate.
'Jerry, how're you doing? Feel at home in ubud, dont you? Please come home (Denpasar) ASAP.
Get ready to find a new place to live! The landlord is giving us limited time to move away because he's giving/renting his house to his married brother. This info comes from the landlord himself.'
Fuck. I stared hard at the message, my mind ran panicked, 'Where should I go?' I said under my breath, by now I totally sat helplessly, crossed-legged on the floor. The nice color-play from the Christmas tree in front of me meant nothing at all, it failed to distract me from the idea of having to find a new rent and move, buy stuffs, and all.
I raised up and dragged myself to the front gate, dialled Yan's number even though there will be no much else for him to say. I stood with my right hand rested on the gate, welcomed by failed attempt of Yan to speak in a harsh Batak/Medanese accent. I let out a weak laugh, appreciated his sense of humor.
'Does he want me to move, or it goes for all of us?' I asked sharply, held my head on my shoulder lever, as if I was speaking to him in front of me. The small road was barren, the leftover fake snow were still on the pathway's side.
That's just great.
