It was her, then another her, and another.
The first photo was still in negative, looking like an alien color palette — white turned into black, the balcony bar and the trees of Italy were in neon blue and red. Yet, the silhouette of the girl looking over the balcony at the street of Italy was her, there was no room for error.
With two clicks, the color turned around, and the waves came washing down on Gema.
Judi.
Finding her, was wave after wave when the hull of his ship was not even whole.
But not all cold harsh waves, some were warm.
Judi was someone who accompanied him throughout the three years of his life, one who shaved his mustaches on days he didn’t feel like waking up from bed and one who accompanied Gema to eat all the dishes he cooked at ungodly hours. She wasn’t a missed opportunity because he fought for her, nor she was a calamity as for the entirety of their relationship, she was a bliss and softness and an incredible lover.
So, he didn’t ponder for long, he let the waves came and ceased away — the way he made amends with their end not long after the break up. He kept her by mumbling, “she looked pretty in the deep blue summer dress,” and “egg tart, always her favorite,” when her photo showed up here and there. Not, “I need to get her back,” nor, “I don’t wanna see her face anymore.” He loved her, he did.
Gema put the last edited photo from the film into its folder, then continued to the second developed strip — again, not carefully watching the first photo from the strip and went right into his Epson scanner and Photoshop application.
And then, it was him.
This is her film roll.
The incoming emotion? Diabolical.
It wasn’t waves that came crashing, it was an entire tsunami.
“Lo mau moto gue gimana?” Judi once asked the first time they looked into their new apartment.
“With love?”
She rolled her eyes and kissed him on the lips. “Cringe.”
Gema didn’t mean to flirt then. Unlike Judi, he wasn’t an inspiring photographer, he didn’t have a how, he only had a why; to immortalize what his eyes couldn’t. Life is a stream of moments, one day he plunged himself into ten feet of emotion, the next day he might not remember the bread he ate on the side of Jalan Braga or the count of eyelashes of a woman he watched for minutes after waking up. Then came months or years later, if not for the photograph he took, some stories could be lost forever in the maze of his brain he didn’t have a map for.
So, he took everything. The last day his dog laid on his sofa before his uncle picked her up to her new home; the first wallet he cut and glued and stitched by himself; and the face of everyone who connected with him, loved ones or even a stranger on a Yogyakarta Station.
There was a time when Gema and Judi were running through the apartment complex in Gandaria. Water droplets poured slowly like snow on a first day, and the evening sun half sank into the night, casting the soft purple cloud with a tinge of orange. Judi looked over her shoulder at Gema, with a smile, “Cepet! Nanti gue masakin bubur.” The words warmed his skin despite the wind which bit his bones cold, and he knew he needed to film that very smile — be damned the safety of his gear, as this moment might not have a rerun.
How? He didn’t know. Why?
Because he captured what he loved and love came in a form of a woman.
To be reminded that Judi pictured him the same way he did was a cold case he wished no one ever reopened or resolved, it was better left to die with their separation.
He knew the face which gazed upon him on the screen now, his face. He glanced at it every morning on the bathroom’s mirror while shaving his face clean. Yet this one looked strange.
The happiness was strange.
He was that happy with Judi.
This was his; his smile, his joy, his peace. Life was easy — or easier at least — when you had someone your heart whispered for; the world outside could be poured by a beastly rain, but as long as there was someone for Gema to cuddle with, as long as there was a creak of her neck he buried his face onto, then he will be at home with every air he inhaled — the scent of wet soil overpowered by a blend of linen spray and peach from fabric softener Judi chose. This was him.
He had forgotten far too long, that;
Gema captured a lover and a love.
Judi captured a lover and what was gone, what was him.
