My scooter looked disgusting from where I was sitting. Mud stains and water spots were all over its body, as if they were actually parts of the paintwork. The former were everywhere around the lower parts, while the latter were gradually taking the stage as it went closer to the seat. The parts which seemed like they were free from the two were almost certainly bearing some amount of road dust on it. November, which had been doing its job of bringing countless puddles on my way to and from school to life too well, had made the idea of washing it every week or so straight up pointless.
As I was chewing on my second soy bar, I recalled one of my first conversations with Anastasia. It was over a year ago, in the middle of the break from our daily speech rehearsal, for which we were allowed to leave the classroom earlier and pick out any spot on the school premises we deemed most comfortable to carry out our practices. We picked the cafeteria that day. Being almost empty, we were able to keep our voices fairly low.
"Look at the sky, Pram," Anastasia ended the silence of our eating. "It's so bright, right? And clear. And the sun is scorching hot I had to put my hair in a ponytail since the second break time," she pointed at the dangling hair of hers that would otherwise be rubbing her back freely. "But mark my words, in two hours' time, everything will look as if the current state of the weather had never existed. The appearance of the sky, the temperature, the air that makes contact with our skin as we walk, or run, or riding our bike as we go home. Everything."
"Yes, I saw it in the forecast this morning," I said as I finished my last meatball and began reaching for my iced tea.
"What!? No, that's not what I meant." Now straightened up, she clutched her strawberry milk and drank from the straw, as if being reminded of its existence by my action. "I'm talking about the change—the pace at which those changes can happen. And the unexpectedness nature of them."
"Go ahead," I said.
"At this point, it is as if everything is already settled. The sun looks so gallant not a single cloud appears brave enough to butt in. People who didn't bother to check on the forecast—which I bet means everyone in here apart from the two of us—are now going about their day without the slightest thought of such changes in mind. They talk, joke around, and make plans for the after-school time with their cliques, putting their trust in the illusion of the fine weather. Everything they do is done in an attitude of 'everything will play out as planned'. But then, bam! Before anyone knows it, those rain clouds are now hanging overhead, transforming not only the looks of the sky, but also of their faces. And as a result, the way they dress, the worries they carry, and even the prayers they say, none of them will be the same from what they are like now." She put the carton box back on the table. The thing must have been emptied out right now, judging from the sound it emitted a moment before that. "All in just a hundred and twenty minutes."
An uncomfortable silence followed for a while. The thought of disappointing her with my answer prevented me from responding right away. I wasn't so certain about what she was wanting to say, so I thought it'd be best to ask her just that. "What are you trying to say?"
"I've been thinking about this for a while, you know. About how gullible we humans can be—how gullible we are. Give someone a brain that'd make them shine throughout their entire twelve years in school, and they'd think a marvellous future is in their hands. Give someone a caring friend or a clique comprising the popular kids, and they'd see loneliness and betrayal as little more than a fairy tale. The same goes for pretty much anything you could think of: wealthy parents, a high social status, things like that. It's not like I belittle the power that such privileges can give you. No, of course I do not. It's just that…"
"We tend to downplay the unexpected?" I broke in.
"Exactly," Anastasia said, smiling. God only knew how relieved I was to be finally able to decipher her mind.
Resting her arms on the table, and then her cheek on her hand, she continued, "What I just mentioned are only some examples of the best of deceivers none of us are immune from their swindles: securities. I mean, what's a bigger crime than telling us to constantly lower our guards in a world where evil and misfortunes have thousands of faces and millions of dwellings? Don't you think so?"
I nodded. Her eyes might be wandering around all along, but noticing an edge in her voice, I couldn't help but think that she was being reflective rather than cynical. I stood up and walked away to come back with two boxes of milk. I handed the strawberry one to her and kept the plain one for me. We stayed there until the bell rang, went to Ms. Santi to report our progress, and then went home. It did turn out to be raining in the afternoon.
That wasn't the last time Anastasia came out with a random topic or two amid our conversations, nor was it the last afternoon we spent together in the cafeteria—even after those speech rehearsals were no more. Ranging from once to twice a week, we would have what many people thought as a date. I didn't see it as such, although in retrospect, I understand why they did. Most often, it was on Tuesdays, because school hours were always shorter that day. And since we were never in the same class, Anastasia would send me a WhatsApp and would always turn up first. For a while, I thought she was just being sorry—either for my mother, my cancelled participation in the contest, or perhaps just both of them. But the first non-rehearsal meet-up quickly turned into the third, the third into the seventh, the seventh into the twelfth, and just like that until I had finally lost count.
There was never an itinerary for our 'dates'. It could be a lunch, in which it'd almost always be a bowl of bakso for me and nasi goreng for her; an afternoon-tea-time, where she'd bring over all kinds of cakes she was learning to bake, and in exchange, I'd pay for the two cups of the vending-machine-made tea; or a book discussion, in which she'd never forget to joke about me using Kindle—and being so proud of it. On some occasions, we could check more than one boxes, while on others we'd just tear up the list and do nothing meaningful until one of us would give up and say, "Let's call it a day," much like a chicken game. And the funniest part was, as if we were robots already being programmed, those meetups always ended with one of us getting drinks for each other—even when it ended up as a chicken game. Sometimes it was me, sometimes it was her. No questions were asked. Not even a "thanks" was ever said. We'd just gratefully receive our treat, lift up our backpacks from the chairs, and head over to the school gate, where Anastasia would call it a stop and wait for her family's chauffeur to pick her up, while I'd continue my way to the parking lot for my scooter. It was a vast swath of land, barely even paved, that the school had rented out for the students' bikes. They had no more room for one inside the premises, and charging each student a couple of thousand rupiahs for a parking had proven to be a sustainable way of making a mint. Being just across the gate, I couldn't avoid having to pass by her and lightly honk the horn, to which she'd always reply with a smile and a wave.
The chime of the convenience store doorbell brought me back from my spacing out. I could hear a Sheila on 7 flowing from the other side of the door when an old woman in a bright green gamis came in. As she had come back to the outside world, though, what I was able to faintly hear was the iconic jingle of the convenience store. I reached into my front trouser pocket to get my phone. The clock said 5.25 PM.
On a finer day, the sky would've been flexing its finest form right now. But what would otherwise be one of the reasons for me to cling on this chair until the sun had set was now urging me to go home, above all else. The clapping of the thunders had become clearer, their intervals subtler. I was the only person on this porch, but as soon as it started raining, this relatively narrow rectangular space would immediately be packed with dozens of motorcyclists who were seeking shelter. There was no doubt about that. And I wanted to avoid that at all costs. I collected my garbage from the table, threw them into the trash bin next to a column bookending the porch, and took my way down the deck stairs and then towards the parking lot. I could already feel some microscopic drops of rain poking the back of my neck as I opened my scooter trunk to take out my raincoat from there. I put on the top before the bottom. Having a thick extra layer of polyester enveloping my body, the picking wind didn't feel as intense on my skin as it was a second ago.
My key was already in the ignition waiting to be switched. I wanted to move my hand, but something held me back. It was the sight of a cat climbing up the deck stairs. Stretching to its full height with the help of its hind legs, it sniffed through the front hole of the bin, then after a weird movement that struck me as an attempt to knock the bin down, which it failed to do, it proceeded to roam around all the four tables, then hopped onto what was my table after firstly hopping onto one of its chairs to shorten the distance. All was to find itself some leftover food, and all was to no avail.