The East Side

With headphones still hanging on my ears, I can't remember how many times I've repeated the song 'Anchor' by Novo Amor. I thought songs like this would inspire me to write. But I'm stuck, I need a new refreshment. I take off my glasses and wipe my worn-out eyes, searching for colorful scenery. My mind says repeatedly: you have a paper due two days from now! Or is it tomorrow? I can't remember. Frustration fills me up every day, a lot different from the first week of January. I stand up and walk across the room, to the big rectangular glass window showing the east side of my campus.

I turn my gaze to the clear blue sky. No clouds, just a clear blue sky, and the trees. They are waving at me as if we haven't met in a long, long time. Panning down, I look across the lawn. From this distance, all I see is green. Such green grass, patted by the rays. With my mind still, on that damn paper, I thought I needed a distraction. Perhaps a short fifteen-minute walk would help. So I walk outside and realize that one-third of the clear green grass is filled with yellow-ish rotten forage, dying and dehydrated.

I stared long enough at the yellow strands, imagining how they would feel that their happy nourished green life quickly turned to yellow, a fraud one. If they could talk, they would question The Creator on how fast life was for them. They would scream and curse the land they grew on and lament to God for His unfairness. It's not fair to see the green from a distance when one-third fades to yellow, dying. But fairness was never balanced and unpredicted, just like the wind here.

Oh, the weather. Back home, across the globe and more to the east, winter was summer, and summer was double the heat. It was a hot, comforting, sweet feeling how I miss my country and its simplicity. But for the most part, I miss home and the beauty of it.

There was another place I called Beauty. Not far away from home and the crowd, the pink beach. The place I always bring up to people who've been to my homeland is, "Have you ever heard of the pink beach?" As if I'm questioning a lost sister. Desperately waited for one to reply "Oh my word, yes! It's so beautiful," but most just gave me a puzzled look and slowly shift the conversation to the famous, well-known land of Bali, what they said as 'the last paradise on earth.' Admired by the world, Bali owns white beaches and parties, but the pink beach is quiet and mostly, pink.

I remember the scene. Blue waves were dancing, high and low. One by one and on repeat, sending love letters to the pink shore. Wish I could stay a little longer, to watch the sun stepping down the stage succeeding in its beautiful act, and to hear the waves singing their night lullaby. But it was time for me to leave, shifting the dawn to eve, to the big crowded city. The pink and blue color of the beach faded to gray. The sound of the waves turned to the sound of metals shuddering and cars honking. Now I see a clearer picture. Weak saturation, lowering exposure. I am shifted to the big city, the very famous Jakarta.

The busyness, or should I say, the bleak beauty of Jakarta with its loud streets and skyscrapers, hot humid air, mid-sunset, blue and orange painted skies at the background of the gray-ish towers. I remember seeing it from a small squared window inside the twenty-story apartment, facing the low sun. I looked down the streets. I saw cars, black and white suits, frowning faces, and frustrated notions. On the other side of the road, a clumsy teenager looked down timidly. Next to the boy, a middle-aged woman, holding her baby, looking down on her unsold merchandise. Next to the woman, an old man in torn clothes looking down, his right palm facing up, praying for an angel to relieve his starvation. I look up at the clouds again, now it's just orange and a little brush of pink.

It was beautiful, but for a moment, I wished that the sky could wait a little longer. I wished that it could wait for an angel to come and give that poor old man a piece of bread. I wanted it to drag the shadow of people to the middle-aged lady's merchandise. I wished it could walk the timid teenager back to his so-called home. Where was I? Asking to myself, clearing my mind. The east side of my campus, or was I on the east side of the world?