"Bastard," Lotte said, taking my attention from the document I was reading. I had been sitting in a chair in the living room full of knives - Martha's house-, reading through one letter after another from this or that governor. It usually contained empty platitude and sometimes a request for money which the current governor was putting into steadily growing rejection stack. As for Lotte, she was still working even while she talked, writing on whatever parchment was in front of her.
"Yes, my dear?"
"What have you learned?" At her question, I glanced at the stack of letters and ship routes.
"His fellow countrymen like to give greetings," I said, "just so you can remember they exist."
"Obviously, but what else?"
I shrugged, "the more contact you have with someone, the more chances that you will hit a target."
"Target?"
"Yeah, the one who will fall after this was done" I mumbled.
"Do not take this lightly, though. After the commotion back home, we should proceed carefully; this VOC guys are though because they can exist more than hundred years," Lotte admonished me, "we definitely should read these documents thoroughly"
"I know. I'm still reading as we speak here, my dear Lotte. Anyway, anything that you find noteworthy?"
"These people focusing not on trade anymore, they wish to paint this native people in their colors. All of this church building are just an excuse for them to build a fort next to it."
"Colonialism. It is what it is. Selling unique stuff along with people who makes them"
"That is why we're here. This rebellion would be a justice for them too, something that we should do sooner."
"I know. People should understand that business should not infringe other people rights as a human being. That is why these VOC guys tried to build church as a scapegoat, so people can accumulate faith and the clergymen can get money," I said.
"Anyway, should we wait for the nutmeg ship before we smuggled this stuff?"
"No, it is better if we just keep these records for Martha to read. She's smart"
"Really?" she stared at me incredulously.
Suddenly a knife hit the left side of Lotte's head. If she didn't slightly leaned right that is.
"You should cease your earlier thoughts about me, we are after all a friend at this point."
Lotte just hmmphed. Eh, whatever. They would be close soon enough. They both have the same temper after all.
"Whatever you think about us, Alfonso, it wouldn't happen"
"As if"
Thud. Another knife missed my head just like what happened to Lotte. But this time Lotte was the one who throw it.
"Understood"
"Whatever, we should just continue in the morning"
Martha nodded then disappeared somewhere.
--
Anyway morning come.
Martha & me was walking around the village checking the authenticity of the info.
"Let's just eat here," I said to Martha, "It'll save us time rather than having to walk to the village."
"Oh, but aren't you going to eat with the your friend?"
I waved my hand, dismissing Martha's worry. "Lotte go for the ship for maintenance" I told her. Imagining the hole on the ship made me chuckle.
"Hmm" is that awe in her voice? "You're really close to her"
I blinked. "Well, uh, I guess? We are in the same ship… and we do our respective tasks there from time to time so I guess it's normally for me to pick these things up, right?"
Martha shakes her head. "No, I think it's more than that." This is the first time Martha speak a long sentence. "Even with the fellow villagers, whom I can I say I have a fairly close connection with, we don't usually talk or meet much less eat lunch during break together like you and your friend does occasionally. We're… like strangers. Close, but strangers."
As I opened my lunch which are yams, I couldn't help but snort in amusement. "Aren't we all strangers? Friends… brother… sister… mom… dad… these terms are words that we use to classify people that aren't, well, us. They're close, yes, but the only one closest to us is ourselves."
Hm, I probably shouldn't have been so philosophical there… Martha's gone quiet now. I was gonna keep my mouth shut and let the atmosphere do its work in breaking the silence, but a small set of chuckle from Martha's mouth surprises me. Because yesterday I vividly remember her trying to kill me.
"You're not being honest."
?
Pulling out her own lunch, Martha is undoubtedly ignoring my shocked expression. She opens the wrapping gracefully, still ignorant of my expression.
"If we aren't close to them then, we wouldn't have even bothered creating a specific term for those people you consider 'strangers', right?" Martha smiles, but somehow, some ways I can't quite explain, her smile is… not like a smile. Empty. Not abyss level of empty but… dare I say, it's more worrying. "We give name to the things we consider significant, I think we learn this during one of my father's extra lessons', but that doesn't mean we ignore the things we don't consider important either."
I paused, I'm seriously contemplating right now.
"Still," I started. "We have less attachment or we consider unimportant things as less significant when compared to the things we actually consider important." Hell, they're synonyms for god's sake. "At the end of the day, what's more important is us alone… because if we don't care about ourselves then… how could we care about others?"
"That's exactly it." Martha said.
"Huh?"
"We care about ourselves because we care about the people around us." Martha says with a hint of disdain. "It's funny how it works, huh?"
We care about ourselves… because we care about those around us…
…huh…? That… actually makes sense.
We care about how we look because people judge us based on them.
We care about our odor because people pick up on it and comment on it.
We care about our goal because people want to compare ours with theirs.
It's a full circle.
…right?
Then what happens if we stop caring? Does that mean we stop caring entirely or is it some sort of one way deal? If we stop caring about ourselves, then does that mean we've stopped caring about others? If we stop caring about others then does that mean we no longer care about their assessment of us?
I noticed my own state of quietness, completely drowned in the noisy and mundane chattering of a workers during break. Martha has dug into her food, contently munching on yams. My own lunch remains, untouched, abandoned…
Then, I snapped back to my full senses.
Regaining my bearings, I picked up my yam and bite it hard.
Well, so much for not being philosophical… but as far as working for information's go, I guess this'll be a breeze.