Diana Kurniawan

Breathing in, I let the tendrils of anxieties relax into a perspicacious gentleness from fears, noticing control over emergencies. Letting oxygen slowly escape through my teeth, courage out of the tensions settle into my chest.

 

Inconspicuously, courage stays through my life without my knowledge, although I expected provision and aid, yet no one came. It is standing alone breathing in cold air, although I yearn for his tall stature and long arms wrapping me inside his body. Courage leans in, holds me and moves me forward.

 

With the prejudice of comparisons and judgement, courage innocuously grounds me. It offenses no one and welcomes each moment with open arms. It doesn't let me swallow the pills when all direction feels like failures in life. Courage cries with the trying times, tearing down my walls and letting you read my vulnerability.

 

Just write.

"How are you getting in the building?" Rambo asked.

 

"With my longboard to the window levels and I know there's an open window somewhere, and break in," I told him. I didn't care what would happen, because it would be evening soon, and my longboard has fuel for another day and a half to fly.

 

"What am I going to do? I can't look obvious while waiting for you," Rambo said. "I'm waiting behind the next block."

 

"Just wait for me at the apartment," I told Rambo.

 

"Karina will be there with your Dad," Rambo said. "Be quick." I nodded, and walked to the Post building, with my longboard, in the dark.

 

There were crowds of people looking at the street lights, wondering why the solars weren't on. 

 

"I don't know what to call this lightbulb crisis! It's a total blackout and they don't care about pedestrians anymore," said a woman. "How are we supposed to feel safe?"

 

"I don't like the look of this," said another lady. "First the lightbulbs, then next its a potato famine."

 

I ignored the rucous talks and kept walking to the Post building, hoping to steer away from the public. 

 

The Post building looked haunted with dark windows and white paint and not a soul was inside. I walked to the back near the fast food restaurant and lifted off into the air with my longboard. I waited to rise to the top of the building to check if the rooftop door was open. The door was locked and I lowered my longboard along the windows and found a small opening in one of the middle windows along the high tower. The building has changed so much with glass all over the building replacing the structure of the white siding of the building. I crawled in through the small opening, and found myself inside a room with cubicles and I jumped on the flooring hoping I won't set off an alarm. The electricity was off and this was my glory. 

 

I dialed my wrist phone and hologram came up, with my Father's face. "Dad, I'm in. How will I find anything in the dark?"

 

"Find one of the boards, they must have some kind of outline of the news somewhere. Also, look inside the executive rooms, because those are the rooms where government official have their meetings," said my Father. "I know because I've met some journalists before and they said the rooms has all changed into government offices."

 

"Okay, I will call in an hour," I said, as I hung up.

 

I scrambled through papers in the big offices that were wide open, finding papers with policies and official business.

The papers had logos of The New Order and finally, for the first time, I saw the machete with fire logos printed on the official government. All these times, I never cared, until now. I didn't even know they re-wrote the Bill of Rights, to be what The New Order wanted, only to benefit the regime. 

 

A small red book fell on the floor, and it looked like a notebook too small to be anything important. I flipped through the pages, and written on November 3rd, 2525, was a dreaded agenda of Giuseppe Baptiste's Violin performance on the Capitol Lawn. 

 

Just write.

 

The trajectory of my path was convoluted at my birth, and the road whirled into a knotted yarn of working progress. Never knew why I was meant to be treated as an object of derision but the past haunted like a gravedigger's nightly shift. The thoughts left me still, silenced, speechless and wounded my mind into the deep valleys.

 

i wrote it out, because it was the only way out of the mindless overthinking. Too ambitious for a minute's reflection, but the opportunity lost that I endured felt too great to bear as the present. I became the past with my regrets and pained from the loss of love and dreams of a happily ever after.

 

The struggles I felt at five to forty-four felt endless. I kept count of the good times, as I wrote them out for myself to remember. It was all about writing my life out on paper or typing the languages of my heart into a working progress. 

Sometimes I wished I never knew how to write or read because I was called since I was young but the world hated me for it. Was I the working progress meant to end early in my days? Or was I meant to endure pain so great just to be forced to rejection? My world felt negative at this moment because I felt my writing was the burden of my life all along, or was it my gift and saving grace.

 

I couldn't escape the arduous road of my life, even when I thought I gave it my all. But, even through the negative, I couldn't escape my own words transferring onto these pages as my expression, my release, my solace, and my hope. Perhaps, I was meant to write after all, just because I was born for it.

 

Just write.

I yearn for the placenta with its growth of more than half a century, since a decade old I pray for. Some of its traces left behind appears in my hopeless eyes for a small cuddly bear in the middle of a store next to soft toys. I touch its fur hoping it grows its tiny nubs of fingers inside my womb, hoping for an immaculate birth. The stolen glances at mothers breastfeeding, at fathers kissing daddy's girl. The eugenics of the rapists's dream becomes reality.

 

I take everything lightly, ignoring the cute smiles from their bald heads and chubby cheeks. I pretend I have someone waiting for me at home just as the happy families I pass by and say hello to. But, with each smile, I take them as angels in all vulnerability. They are all friends to me, under 21 and over 0, they each represent my dream.

 

I sense a wonder when I touch a tiny human being, as a soft tender mercy inside my soul. Honest and forgiving, but stern in their belief for goodness in humanity. I give each one my hopes and blessings, that perhaps their walk will be kind. I don't ask for their stories because they gladly show it to me. The drueling hunger for a playmate or a caterwaul of demands. I love them all, each one gives me a high-five.

 

They are drawn to me and I am drawn to them. I care for their day and pray for their nights for a year, although I grew weary and place the neck pillows under my shirt. It comes out of deep longing for love, something I feel I lost. I suppose fortune tellers can't diagnose my future about this, because it is final. The loss of my dream is now my grief.

 

Just write.

A tractor of defeat exists inside my brain, on a rampage to lead through my pathway of success. It wounds its wheels and rages on the road inside my life, heading to a road I would travel. I precedes all of my intention for positive defiance against the negative world, and it blocks my adventurous plans. Sometimes it runs on all of my unrelenting hopelessness, leaving me powerless and destroys any form of emotional triumphs. It rejects all love and hard work giving jags of stabs on my faith.

 

This vehicle unwanted comes into my mind, when I let go of persistence as it lives on deviance. I struggle each day with its abuses with its big tractor wheels, squashing endorphins I ran the night before. It fuels on my mistakes, steps untaken, missed opportunities, wrong choices, memories of the past, and self-pity. This mobile defeat hurts my chance in living a life with plans for a glorious destiny.

 

Never knew how it cames into my mind, but it appears in a fatamorgana of a shiny yellow tractor capable of hauling off my future and true love. It takes away the blooming plants of self-worth, plucking it out of their roots, while dumping the soils with black hills of disappointment. It disturbs me how the tractor goes as free as it wills, but the imagination inside my mind stalls it, not letting it thrive. My imagination tolls its wheels with slimy globs of dysfunctions as I let its energy into the action of writing.

 

The words flows with toxicity but I channel through it because the tractor keeps running and its recalcitrance ignores my optimism. The fantastical being inside my blood bulldozes the tractor with a steel ball of imagination, as it skirts around my frontal cortex about its neurons and flees through my cerebellum. The cowardice of the tractor of defeat haunts me as it jogs memories of the past and itches my scalp. The tractor drives and drives forever if I let it. Yet, my inherited craft drains its fuel because it connotes talent from my soul. 

 

The tractor dies slowly, as it still desires my whole mind-set journey. I will not give up, even with the living tractor inside my mind. Death to the tractor of defeat, and long live my victorious life. 

 

Just write.

"Sifu! I have great news!" I yelled at the top of my lungs on a path in the middle of a still garden. 

Sifu jumped out of his meditation with his legs criss-crossed and his palms on his knees. He wiped his eyes and looked towards me, running to approach him.

 

I sat in front of him with my legs crossed as I calmed myself down, and placed my hands palm to palm and bowed to him.

 

"I was falling asleep anyway," Sifu said. He breathed in and smiled. "What brings you here today?"

 

"I thought I was going to die today, but I did not," I told him, smiling.

 

With his head askewed, Sifu said, "Stop thinking about how you were going to die. Think about what you want to do when you live forever, because you do have life everlasting."

 

"I just thought about the smallest beautiful details and enjoyed the smallest moments in my life," I told Sifu. His presence gave me a grounding spirit that filled me with a soft and loving gentleness to my soul. His words felt like a warm hug on a cold day.

 

"You should give yourself some credit for being alive. Violence is not a small matter to overcome. It is a triumph that you're still here, Diana. Don't let those enemies occupy your thoughts, because they've hurt you and they would always be a negative in anyone's life, if the world only knew of how they hurt someone so dear to God," said Sifu. He breathed in peace and exhaled in calm prayers in silence as he closed his eyes. "Go about your life as if those who hurt you have gone to purgatory to pay their debts. They will be there in a short while, and you have that satisfaction."

 

"Sifu, you are right. They were sociopaths," I replied. "They thought I would give up my life early on."

 

"In every day, honor yourself with something good, because you are alive. Those who hurt you wanted death, correct?" Sifu said, as he opened his eyes and touched my shoulder. "They've lost. So you have to keep winning and keep loving yourself."

 

"Thank you, Sifu," I said with a smile that went deep inside my soul, because I knew my life came to a new birth.

 

Just write.

Sifu sat on the boardwalk jutting out to the ocean with his feet dangling over the water. I walked behind him, and sat on the boardwalk next to him, this time, his beard was braided in four strands.

 

"Sifu, they called me Buddha," I told him.

 

"Why?" he asked. "There was only one Buddha."

 

"The haters felt I was a conduit. That if they hurt me, they will be rewarded," I said, my eyes looking out to the open skies with tears in my eyes.

 

"They say "Buddha bless you?" Sifu asked.

 

"Yes, and they say I'm a conduit," I told him the truth. "A lot of people think I can give them favors from God."

 

"They have no faith. They're insane," Sifu said, shaking his head. "They would do anything to feel powerful."

 

"I was robbed," I said, this time the tears just poured out in streams of sorrows over my cheeks. At times, even Sifu might be overwhelmed.

 

"You have to stay strong, always pray," Sifu said, his beads around his neck were the colors of dark chocolate.

 

"Somedays, it is too great for me to bear," I said, wiping the tears with my hands. The clouds over us this early morning sheltered us from the heat of Summer. "I've made too many mistakes too."

 

Sifu counted his beads and closed his eyes, and chanted something that felt familiar. "Bless you, my child," he softly whispers.

 

"Was that meant for me?" I asked him, with my face looking into his. His long silver hair and braided beards gently whisp in the wind.

 

"And the wind blows," he said, counting his beads and whispering blessings over me. "Buddha bless you."

 

"I cannot see the wind. And, why do you immitate them?" I asked, with my face facing forward with indignance.

 

"They mean nothing to Buddha, and there are more blessings for you, my dear daughter," said Sifu. He raised himself up, with his grey robe and brown beads, readying to leave. "Have faith, my daughter. It is invisible as the wind. It is something they wished they had, and you have plenty of. It has brought you great rewards."

"Thank you, Sifu," I said, touching his feet.

 

He stooped down to me, crouching on the boardwalk. "Keep writing. It will bring wonders to the world. I shall bless you, forever more."

 

Just write.

"How come everyone believes Giuseppe Baptiste?" asked Rambo. "There is nothing special about him. He blinks, that's all he does."

 

"I'm not sure why even his blinks works!" I agreed. "I believe Karina when she talked about Soul Privileges."

 

My wrist phone rang and my hologram came up with my Father's face in frantic. "I have to talk. No one is here and there are patients with illnesses but we can't do any tests. The lights are not on, and the back up generator is what we're on, but I hope you took the solar cells from the street lights," said my Father. His eyebrows arched high and his lips pursed tight, his usual face when stressed. 

 

"Do you need them for the hospital? We can walk it there, it's not far," I told him.

 

"Karina and the babies are fine, but she told me that one of the men wore a cross on his neck, a sort of crucifix made of iron," my Father said. "Check when Giuseppe's men will visit the Post building. They allow crowds and that's when Giuseppe will come and do a speech over looking the lawn."

 

"But, what do I do now?" I asked him. 

 

"Mr. O'Connor, ask Karina why the Giuseppe Baptiste has so much powers over the people," Rambo said.

 

My Father turned to the other side of the patient's room, and Karina was sitting next to the babies, who were both on the examination table. "Karina, explain what it means to have a leader with a Soul Privilege," my Father asked.

 

"He just has the power to control the hearts of the people. But, it has been centuries of false leaders, and that's what happened to The White Plaque. The whole Earth was almost wiped out because an American President committed a crime against an innocent woman, and all of heaven revolted." said Karina. "He got away with it. But, everyone loved him for it. The woman was hurt permanently, and she was harmed by others."

 

"Which President?" Rambo asked.

 

"Leo Hartsfield. The 99th President of the United States," Karina said. "He had help, much like Giuseppe Baptiste."

 

"Karina, are we going to face another pandemic?" I asked.

 

"I don't know, but if the heaven chose every soul to birth in this planet, inside each family, then the Soul Privilege of that person shouldn't be harmed. Instead, embraced, and loved. Actually, each soul has a privilege, as a matter of birth. This is America, and every life is equal, but as a last of the Ting Dynasty, my soul do possess certain qualities that heaven loves," Karina said. 

 

"So we're going to face uncertain deaths, because the government is abusing their powers to control the vulnerables. There are going to be more homeless people, and we're going to face another pandemic!" Rambo yelled out, fumed with anger, and angry at the system. "What people in their right mind would hurt a child?!"

 

"I think it was done so they could keep controlling the people, to have some magical powers, but it is not magic. It is violence, and they've committed a crime," my Father said. "Karina, how is your mental health?"

 

Karina had tears in her eyes, as she walked towards my Father. She hugged my Father, and took his wrist, and asked me and Rambo, "May I be your sister? I feel safer with you all here with me. I'm smart. Please believe me."

 

There was a moment of silence, as Rambo looked away and cried to himself. I spoke into the hologram, "I am always your brother. I think Rambo is too." I looked to Rambo, and he nodded. 

 

"Never had a family before," Rambo said. 

 

My Father took Karina into his arm and told her, "You can stay with us. I don't mind having a daughter. I don't know what to do, yet. But, we will have to work this out for the time being."

 

I could tell Karina was happy as she immediately hugged my Father around his neck and kissed his forehead. She ran to her babies, and sat next to them. "I'm mentally sane," she said.

 

My Father smiled. "Get the visit times, and I'll get Dana to plan everything. Don't lose those solar cells," my Father said.

 

Just write.

His silver hair was long and tied in a half-ponytail with his greying moustache and beard merged at the side of his face. He stroked his long white beard as if combing it with his fingers. I sat near his feet in sobs from the trauma infused inside the cells in my body, exploding throughout the day.

 

"Sifu, please help me," I said, touching his shin with my right hand and my chest with my left.

 

"Yes, my daughter," he said, as he touched my shoulder. "Tell me how I can help you."

 

His deep voice grounded me, as his touch gave me a presence of peace consoling my soul.

 

"I am hopeless," I told him, in sobs from heartaches and the overwhelming fears.

 

"Work. Make something out of nothing, and transform it into an achievement," Sifu said, stroking his beard, and this time, he placed his palms up on his knees. He inhaled a breath and exhaled as his eyes closed.

 

"I am a writer. I don't think I will ever make it," I told him. Inside of me was a glass ball of fragility filled with all of the magic I once possessed, as I felt it suspended in mid-air inside my chest, afraid to show my brilliance to the world.

 

"Ringworm? Frost-bite on your finger?" Sifu asked.

 

"No...," I cried to him, with my mind still in a vortex of impossibilities, negating all of my optimism into oblivion.

 

"Is your stomach okay?" Sifu asked.

 

"Yes, but I don't think I am good enough," I told him.

 

"It is a matter of skill, my daughter," Sifu said. "Become good enough to turn their subjective opinions into objective of excellence on your behalf."

 

"I am old, Sifu," I told him, as my skin felt ragged on my body, and free-radicals exploded inside of me. I would be dead by the time I knew how to marvel them, in my coffin by the time anyone would publish me, and in heaven by the time anyone would buy my novels.

 

"Writing never ages, but age could write a billion stories. It is a gift, my daughter," Sifu said. He opened his eyes, and searched inside his grey robe with a black sash tying it into place. He took out a small dagger, in the shape of the new moon with a silver blade.

 

"Do you see how small this object is?" asked Sifu.

 

"Please don't hurt me," I begged him. "I cannot handle anymore stabs to my back."

 

Sifu took the dagger and held it in his right hand, and with his left hand, he caressed my silky black hair. "This object is small, but brought anyone great fear or threat. I want you to sharpen your mind, as fierce as this dagger. Dig deep into literature."

 

Sifu took the dagger, and handed it to me. "Your mind and heart are as sharp as this dagger, and these qualities are all inside of you."

 

My burden felt light over my back, and suddenly I felt as a feather on a pen, ready to scribe another story into a million empty pages.  "Sifu, I will keep writing. Even as the enemies calls out my demise and dug my grave."

 

"Remember, only a fool hopes without action," Sifu said.

 

"Yes, Sifu. I will," I stood up from the ground, and kow-tow to him in my white robe and yellow belt.

 

"Bring something to eat for me next time," he said, closing his eyes and chanted to his own psalms of prayers.

 

Just write.

Ske kept walking.

 

Much to her dismay, her life was a proverbial cadence, with interruptions of heartaches and loneliness. The block ahead of her was planted with bushes of grenades and bullets, held for vengeance from jealous schoolmates and her past lovers. There was not a care in her walk, strolling as if the evening sun has not set. It was nearly dark and she was alone.  The pebbles underneath her sneakers clinked as she walked, yet she was great at ignoring the chronic disturbance.

 

She kept walking.

 

A man asked for her name, "Tamar," she said. But, her brother Absalom has gone great about his life, leaving an unwritten destiny in the hands of prophets who claimed to scribe on her behalf. Her beleaguered life left traces of post-traumatic-stress-disorder and depression, much to the benefit of those who wished for her death. The prayers she uttered whilst in motion flew to the heavens, only for God to hear, yet no one obeyed.

 

She kept walking.

 

The times she felt discouraged were masked with a smile left unnoticed because the wilderness in her heart matched not her demeanor. What would one call her if she was a friend? A poignant fiction? or a working progress? The evening birds sang to her as their melodies tuned in D Major, but she listened to the soft still voice inside their bellies, that sung more than melancholy. 

 

She kept walking.

 

Time left her behind, as the human race fast forwarded to an unexpected pandemic. Her only friend was her inherited art, entertaining her mind, often by herself. Vivaldi's Four Seasons serenaded her throughout her life, and left the busy walkers with a scent of grace. Perhaps this life was meant to stall, a book forever in writing, and a heart forever longing.

 

She kept on walking.

 

Just write.