What drove me.
I wasn’t into novel. Yes I read a volume of Harry Potter, one quarter of LOTR and full length of an indonesian chicklit (please be not disgusted at me, it was an highschool assignment). But I found no enthusiasm to read them chapter after chapter, except that we were being noted for having thick novel on our hand when at school. And except for the fact that it made it easier to have a talk with girl(s) we were interseted in (Me: “You read that too?”. Lina: ”err..ya.. chapter 5. You done reading it haven’t you? “.. you know that kind of crap).
But in a super boring holiday, I was surfing TIME'S Best Books, and I thought it’d be fun to read one or two fictions. So I take the book “The financial lives of the poet” by Jess Walter (and by 'take' i mean literally take.. not a single penny was spent). And it was actually fun as it turns out, although my little experience in reading english novel made it hard to grasp some idioms.
So, just as a boy acts like a superhero he just watch, I acts like my own superhero. Writing novel.
That’s for a little foreword. Enjoy.
☭☭☭
Chapter 1 – The World War II Sirine
Phebruary 17th. The class was not yet to start. The thundering rain outside interfered the noise that everyones making. I kept my eyes staring at the entrance, impatiently waiting the lecturer to come or someone else to announce the class was canceled, given that half of an hour had already passed. It was plausible that lecturer not to come, this was the first lesson on the semester. Not to say the rain. Every passing minute was an increment of the likelihood of the cancelation.
She was fairly well-dressed. Long sleeve folded like two or three times upward and left the collar stud untied. He made a few step from the entrance then set his head twenty degree higher to observe an empty seat on the rear end, but eventually stopped and sat at the front-row. She quickly drew her note and pen out of his full-loaded bag, afraid of losing more lecture unnoted.
I sat at the row next to her, while the other side of her row was the entrance. When someone passed through, I turn my head toward the door as if I got distracted by that, instead I directed my eyes right to her face. Her long curly hair covered up the side view of her face while she bended over her body to write points written on the board.
He barely up an hour ago, did the morning routine afterwards, that is: slept for another 10-15 minutes.
“How many more time ?! you are going to be rotten!” , mom yells him like the whole house was on the fire. Mom amplifies after the two firsts attempt failed as he instead tightly sticked his pillow to his right ear.
“Five minutes, okay! “, he yells back outloud, lifts up the pillow for a second then sticks it again to his right ear.
“I was up all night”, yells inside the pillow.There is no way mom listen to this. He starts to sleep again.
He actually is a man who could fall asleep in any shitty situation . Suppose there’s an earthquake 8.5 of richter scale, he’d be woken up minutes after (the chaotic sound of the crowd not the shaking), look down over the window and then like “the fuck is going on” and have a sit on the bedside, “hey its shaking”, nonetheless his laziness makes a naïve thought “it last no more than a second” and then carry out sleeping.
Or like what happened when he was at a civics class at the highschool. He bend down against the table fell asleep, just like he did in typical civics class before. But civics teacher did something untypical, walking around the class while teaching and found him sleeping. Lying down there dreaming about his online RPG character he was going to play after school, when the rest of the class having a debate about how the parlement should control presidential political decision. Civics teacher tried to wake him up but he wouldn’t wake up. Inevitably, it ended up with the higher authority, the new Hitler of the world history, herr Principal of the school slapped his face. He woke and cluessly glance at the tyran ruler and his aid, “Eeh… yes sir?”
Nothing could really wake him. Nothing, but mom’s yell. He just cant stand for that. Not even for a second. It reminds him to a science class at 4th grade, that there are 3 kinds of sound: infrasonic (a very low frequency that only bat could hear, ultrasonic (range of frequency human usually hear), and supersonic (the one that megaHertz of frequency). When teacher asked “Anyone like to give the example of supersonic ?” He always wanted to give one, but no. Moms yell not even in that category, it is in the hypothetical super-duper-sonic (one that gigagigaHertz of frequency).
“Ten minutes already, get your ass up!”, it suddenly wakes him up.
“Ah god..”, he groanes. He quickly raises up his back, “Okay ! Im up!”
He’s about to lie down once again, but this World-war-II-sirine-sounds-like would never stop.
He goes downstair to grab the cereal mom just made then gets back to his room before he reminded by the pencil that lying on a paper he sees when he passes the door. And there, he writes what he supposed to write last night.
About the stupid infantile dear-diary he just made, it’s the girl he obsessed for the last 2 months. Okay, fall in love, that’s normal, everyone does. But to write that on a diary, that’s girly and totally gay too. Fucking diary ? Seriously dude, why don’t you go to the mall, get some barbie dolls and start feeding them with your own tits ?
In retrospect, he never wrote any kind of that before. Sure, he got dozens of girl he fell in to (none of them seemed to interested though) but he never ever wasted his time (and of course ink and paper) to write it down. So what exactly is going on ? Is this the climax of his no-one-seems-interested feeling that accumulated since the first he knew that he needs girl other than the Worl war II sirine sounder- his mom ? Or is it the girl, made him stupid enough to write a stupid diary with stupid poetic naration of his stupid feeling ?
Let’s make a little assessment :
- Shes a girl (10)
- with a long tough-black hair (9)
- though it is curly (6)
- Rounded cheeck concealing her cheekbones (7)
- but overall, somewhat pretty. (8.5)
- Fair breast-size (with a costumary shape too) (7)
- About 168 cm of height (7)
- Well shaped (9)
- Majoring geography (5)
Those make 7.45 on the average.
Now his turn.
- He has an unquestioned XY gene (10)
- black hair too (9)
- but scarcely combed (5)
- and clearly not cute (5)
- 175 (8)
- Fairly well-shaped (7)
- Majoring Applied Mathmatics (8)
- Writes stupid diary (-1)
Well then, the question “what exactly is going on ?” is clearly answered. A 5.5 boy chases a 7.5 girl. Nevertheless the other plausible reason (climax of his no-one-seems-interested feeling) is not less reasonable. Maybe the combination of both.
Its been a generally acceptable theory that one can only jump by two points, although its not yet confirmed with the very latest method of experiment at the National Institute of Scince(or any institute as a matter of fact). So obviously he stands right at the edge of possibility. The edge where you decide to carry on chasing or to stop chasing to evade unnecessary effort that might plunge you into suicide contemplation (who knows ?).
Sometimes it crosses to his mind, things he got he thought would fill the gap. What is it?
“Okay, I read Tolstoy” . (How is reading Tolstoy makes you cooler? And if it does, how can you be sure she doesn’t read Dostoevsky ? She possibly reads McSweeney.)
“.. and I aint listening to popular crap song, I have a taste ”. (She probably listen to some french songs and shit, while the sole french song he ever heard was the everybody-knows la vie en rose.)
“ I still have my Cineplex member card. Valid for the next six months”. Okay, that one might counts.
“That’s it, I still stand a chance”. That’s how it always ends. Thinks he always stand a chance.
--- tbc---
