I made this story as a final assignment for Creative Writing Class. Sorry for some mistakes in grammar and spelling. I do not make a certain purpose for this story because I just wanna share my perspectives about life and religion (June 2013)
The Bus
Crowded and noisy place cannot set me free from this
madness. I don’t know where to start my new life, it seems neither too easy nor
too hard. The bus is coming, the bus that will bring me back home. Whose home
did I go? I do not have a house to go. I
do not have anything except my life and this breath. A ticket in my hand shows
my destination, Nothing Hill, what a strange name same as what I have now,
nothing. A place near the foot of the Barak Mountain, I’ve heard that this
place is quiet, peaceful and beautiful, so I think it is suitable for me to be
there. Then I get into the bus and take a seat in the corner, what a blessing
day if I can feel this time forever. Being alone and seeing beautiful scenery
during the trip. I have to use this quality time as well as possible. I don’t
want to make a wrong decision anymore. I will stop it by myself and not let
anyone to influence me and this self-pitied attitude should be removed from my
life.
So, what will I tell you about myself? Nothing special from
me that I can share to you. Well, it is so complicated that I do not know where
to start. I am a foster child from a small village and my biological parents
are so poor. They have five children, four girls and one boy, and I am the
fifth. I had malnutrition during I was a baby because my parents cannot give me
food and milk to supply my need of nutrition. When I was 18 month and tried to
walk, I fell to a sewer because I was too thin. Suddenly, a beautiful and rich
lady saw that and she was sorry for me. So, she decided to lift me as her
daughter. As a baby I do not know anything and just live with a thought that
she and her husband is my real parents. However, they told me the truth when my
biological father was died. I do not know what I felt for I cannot receive the
truth and my love as a daughter is for them not for my real parents.
Indeed, the situation is OK until I have to be separated
from my parents for their broken marriage and try to stand on my own foot, not
believe anyone, regret for my birth and keep bitterness in my heart. I learn
how to take care of myself since on junior high school and I study alone
without my Mom’s ( I mean my foster Mom) guidance as what I felt before. But I
am so thankful that they teach me to be strong though I always cry when I remember
them. They also teach me to not leave my faith, that faith which I question
now. It’s not about religion but more in searching for identity. Too many
changes I have since two years ago since I broke my promise to make them happy.
Yeah, I did everything that I want without any consideration and of course, it
makes them disappointed.
In my loneliness, I look so fragile and there’s no chance
except I make a breakthrough in my life. After I graduated from college with
bachelor degree, I work at Indonesian embassy in England and I have a lot of
money, but it still can’t fill the emptiness inside me. I am depressed for
being too independent. Huffst… perhaps you have confused with my story, but
wait, it almost end… end… end… Uhmm… I am so sleepy now, I can’t continue my
story…
Brakkk!!! A big sound shocks me and I wake up with a dizzy
in my head. There is a strange atmosphere surrounding me and give me taste of
freaking smell. I slouch to comfort myself and close my eyes and have no
attention to what happened now. The bus goes slowly but.. what’s that? Is it
just my dream? I open my eyes again. Uhmm.. who is beside me? I thought there’s
no passenger beside me or perhaps I am too insensitive until I don’t realize a
person that will become my “friend” during this trip.
“Hi, what’s your name?” I ask her while
giving my best smile so she can understand my goodwill.
“Hi too, I’m Magda, and you?” she said
“I’m Nada, nice to meet you.” I answer
and we shake hands but her hands… so cold, it’s freaking me.
This woman and the atmosphere scares
me, I want to go out from this bus but I cannot do anything. I stick at my seat
and my body is stiff. I close my eyes, gosh! I see her eyes and I can read her
mind, her life and her future. The woman is forty-three years old and she is
alone, just like me. She is separated from her family because of a poverty. She
lives like a beggar, but with her beauty she can seduce men to give her what
she wants. She has everything except her life itself. She is tired with her sins
and emptiness in her heart. Actually, this situation is not what she wishes
because she just misses someone or family that can understand him. However, it
is hard for her to stop walking in the wrong paths until one day an accident
happened in her life. She becomes paralyzed and just stays at home. In this
situation, her money means nothing for her because it, slowly but sure, runs
out. At the hospital, someone tells her about the goodness of the God she has
left since she was young. Now, she finds her life and hope in faith that along
her life she never had it. Nothing. There’s nothing she wants except to share
the goodness she received and it makes her life means for others until her
death. She joins in social activities about woman and marries a good man that
can accept her past life and love her as she is. They have no children, but
they are happy. She stands secure in the rest of her life.
“Magda,
where are you?” I wake up. Confused with all that happened. She is not
here, even the bus even left yet.
“Excuse
me, Miss, would you mind showing your ticket?” The bus attendant approaches
me.
“Uhmm… sorry, I feel asleep.”
I search for my ticket and see what is written there, the destination is so
different from what I mean.
“Sorry
Sir, I think I bought wrong ticket because I wanna go to Nothing Hill in Barak
Mountain,. Please tell me where can I get the ticket for that destination?”
I’m little panic because this bus almost go.
“Miss,
there’s no place named that. Perhaps you may go to Notting Hill in London. Are
you sure, Miss?” The bus attendant seems confused and also I. However, I
still continue to describe a place where I go, especially about the view and
Barak Mountain. The bus attendant still do not know where the place is, so I go
out of from the bus and ask some people. They still do not know. How can I be
so sure of an advertisement in a newspapers before check it first. Am I crazy?
Am I dreaming?
Two days later…
A calling from my boss starting my new
day after that strange event. He tells me that I have to go to office because
there is a farewell due to his movement to another country. He invites all of
his staff to say goodbye plus to introduce my new boss. I dress perfectly and put some make-up so
people won’t know my confusion in a few days. I regret all my decisions and
thoughts about doubting God and willing to die. I mean that, there are many
people who has harder life than me, but still struggling and finally find the
ways to be happy. I also learn from Magda’s life, whoever she is, that there is
still hope no matter how dirty you are as long as we go through and forget the
past.
I pray and give thank to God for this
experience and promise to myself to still believe Him and make my life means
for others. I enter my office with smile and greet everybody I meet. Then, my
boss calls me to introduce my new boss.
“Nada, let me introduce Mrs. Magdalena
Pieters, your new boss. She is from Indonesia, same like you. I assume you two
will be match and can be a good teamwork” My boss says.
The woman smiles to me and it’s
frightened me because I thought she was paralyzed and died.
“I am Nada. Nice to meet you. Uhhm… by the
way, Mrs. Magda, have we ever met
before?’’ I ask her and shake her hand.
“ Nice
to meet you too. I thought I saw you in my dream, but I am not so sure about
that.” She smiles and shakes my hand, it is not cold and I feel the warm of
human life. This experience like a paradoxical time that I never felt before.
The place, the woman, the telepathy ability. Since that day, I don’t feel a
kind of strange situation like that anymore. What I know Mrs. Magda, my boss,
has some similarities with Mrs. Magda that I met at the bus. For example, she
had been paralyzed and she has no children. However, I don’t ask further about
her life because it is not impolite.
Life, I have an answer for all
questions you gave to me. There are hopes and mean in you.
Maria Kristina Pingkan-1021150015
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