"She’s always like that," my husband said, talking about our friend who he often sees smiling to herself while riding her motorcycle. He thinks it’s funny and usually tells the story in a half-mocking tone. At first, I laughed along, then I went quiet and thought.
“Aren’t we all like that?” I mumbled.
“What do you mean?” my husband asked.
“Well, when you ride a motorcycle alone, with no one else — what do you do during the trip? Don’t you talk to yourself?”
My husband lifted his right eyebrow. “I usually sing, or think about what to eat later, or about work.”
“Seems like she’s the same — daydreaming.”
“Then why’s she smiling like that?” he teased.
“Because we women are more expressive, duh!” I said proudly, then took another bite of rice.
Tonight we ate outside — well, on the terrace. My kids, who had finished eating, were playing in the family room. My younger one was busy with toy cars, sometimes bothering my eldest, who was drawing. My husband cleaned the bits of rice off the bamboo mat, took the plates to the kitchen, and left me with the question: “What do you do when you ride alone?”
What do I usually do? I usually karaoke — every song on my list, or one song that gets stuck on repeat for the whole thirty-minute ride.
On the road, I ask questions. I question everything that seems odd to me: my husband’s thoughts, my parents’ choices, Bali’s government policies, even the president of Indonesia, recent statements from the UN, or why the sky is so blue, don't they want to be green sometimes? Often I praise things too — Pablo Neruda’s soneta, Leo Tolstoy’s writing, and Andrea Hirata’s books. I admire how well and beautifully they write, and I get lost in each word until the red light turns green.
Once, a lion came into my neighborhood, and I had to save my kids. We’d been at the little shop near our house when people started running because a lion had wandered into the housing complex. I ran, holding Gandhi’s hand and carrying Ganatha. I ran crying. Gandhi ran determinedly but kept glancing back to make sure the lion was still behind us. The lion wasn’t only after us — it chased anything it saw. I shouted at Gandhi to keep running and not look back, then his foot caught and he fell. His knee was bleeding, and he was screaming, and our house was already close. I tried to carry Gandhi and Ganatha at the same time, but my body couldn’t handle it. The lion was near; I could hear it roar, like it was cheering that it had found prey for lunch. My hands trembled and my breath hitched. My soul wanted to run, but my body froze. Just as the lion was about to pounce, I reached the parking lot by my workplace.
Sometimes my parents come back to life. We’d have lunch together with Gandhi and Ganatha, who had never met them. Once we went on a family vacation to Singapore or Thailand, or anywhere my dad wanted, without worrying about money. Because In every imagination, money wasn’t a problem. I replay past scenes a lot: dinner at the table in the house I grew up in, jokes I never knew who to tell because they wouldn’t get them, and stories I couldn’t relate to anyone but my family. Then my tears fall all the way home.
One day, I go back to the past, trying to change the choices life gave me. If I hadn’t been the way I was, what would my life look like? I try to save my old life, even though I might make the same choices if I went back. I argue with myself about what I should have done and regret the things I didn’t say. It’s crazy. I’ve made many mistakes. Judging my past self is stupid. I feel sorry for myself, then scold myself, then praise myself, and get upset with myself again — over and over until the traffic clears.
Sometimes I kill someone. I picture scenarios that never happened. It was six in the morning. My husband leaves for work at five — his office is only five minutes away. Gandhi is awake but still half asleep, trying to pull himself together in bed. Sometimes he keeps his eyes closed; when I call from the kitchen, he startles awake, yawns, then shuts his eyes again. A thief sneaks into our house through the garage. Every morning he sees my husband leave and hopes no one’s home, because the house feels quiet. I’m making breakfast and the kids’ lunch boxes in the kitchen. Ganatha is still sound asleep. I haven’t turned on the living room light, waiting for sunlight to slowly fill the room. Gandhi sits on the sofa right by the door. When the thief opens the door and peeks inside, his eyes accidentally meet Gandhi’s sleepy eyes. The thief’s unfamiliar face looks scary in the dim light, and Gandhi screams. I rush into the living room with a kitchen knife. The scene plays out and I reflexively attack that unlucky thief — until he’s dead.
Then my husband comes back. “So?”“So what do you mean?”
“What do you do when you ride alone?”
I smiled, proud, and said, “I fight — and I win.”
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