She was on the floor, barely awake when the phone in her hands vibrated harshly from multiple notifications. She faced the phone to her face and saw between her half lidded eyes, message, Gemana, then putting down the phone again. Gemana. At once she arose from her sleeping position with a bump!
“Fuck.”
Her head banged the side of a desk and it created a loud rattle, her lipsticks and powder fell to the ground. She sat, back on the bed’s leg, cradling her head on her palm and collecting remnants of sobriety. The room was chilly as she forgot to turn up the heater, light coming from the small lamp atop the headboard, and everything was on the ground, as if a wild animal ransacked the place last night while leaving all their stolen goods — except the wild animal was a girl drunk from a wedding after party.
She eyed the phone, one time, two times. The outside world was still dark, but even not fully sober, Judi didn’t have the will to sleep again. What even is this guy rambling about?
There were chats about Judi leaving her possession on one of his boxes. It has been a year and a half since I moved out, I possibly don’t care enough. Then it was continued by a blue text, a link. The preview popped up when she opened the chat, sparkly water filling most of the picture, terracotta bricks of the fortress on the opposite shore; when was it? 2018? 2019?
Tapi ada beberapa yg kebakar pas gue develop. Sorry banget.
It wasn’t believable. Gemana who fried his sunny side up in a perfect circle and perfect half cooked egg yolk; Gemana who stitched layers of leather slowly but steadily, making a loop of thread, in the straightest line when he built his homemade wallet. He was clumsy at times, but not in art, never in art.
Judi didn’t call out his lie, though.
The missing photos, Judi assumed, were pictures of his face. As much as it was Judi’s, it was also Gemana’s. Perhaps, this was how Judi spared from his smile — which was often soft as the cloud but warmer than their fireplace.
Then, she opened the second folder. She scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, it was a never ending of her past self.
It had been a year or two since Judi received such a message. To say it felt outlandish was an understatement.
When they broke up, it changed the balance of her life.
It was hard to admit when the wound was fresh yet the ego to prove she was okay was bigger than the Caribbean Sea, that her life at that point was photography and her photography was traced in color Gemana taught her about. Before him, her photography was the city of Jakarta up above from Stasiun Manggarai, or the street in Kyoto devoid of vehicle but bicycles moving pass her, or the waves from Pantai Gili Meno nudging the end of her toes; it was the city and the street — depending where she was at. After Gemana, it was people, more often than not, it was him; the cry of a little brother when his sister got married; a woman observing orange, oblivious to her partner’s smile when her cheeks beamed under Yogyakarta’s sunrays; a cute face, from Gemana, half asleep under the white blanket, soft grumble slipped as Judi shook his arm, telling him to wake up.
This was all her now, a wedding photographer — to capture love in people.
Gemana though, would go one step beyond, to capture love by words too.
Instagram was the memento of his growth in life — in his composition of a picture and his achievement in himself. Some of it was blurred, under saturated, too much light, some grainy, and others had low quality from too much cropping; but for Gemana, everything was moment, it was not meant to be presentable nor perfect for the world to see. And he would write long ass caption under the photo, a reminder for when people are gone and memories get tangled, he could always come back to this, to cherish and to love the past.
He kept it in a diary like writing, there were titles and subtitles, “Sea #3: Selong Belanak” or “Though Over Coffee #6: Bongen”, and Judi got a special one: “Judi, a Lover”.
Until he deleted some of her photos.
In fact, only two or three remained in between dozens he had posted, and only one which caption was meant for her and her only; a happy birthday post for her 25th birthday. When Gemana didn’t say happy birthday to her last year, she went back to the post, and for the first time realized that the caption had changed. Titled “J.”, most of the captions were gone, and no “I love you” at the end of the message.
When they broke up, what was Judi will always be a fraction of Gemana, but for Gemana, Judi thought, she was archive-able —
a past.
So, to say it felt outlandish was an understatement; when Gemana made a new folder of her past, but her still, she was dumbstruck in a hotel in Sydney, trying to make sense of it all.
Trying to form a reply.
