Yellow Mask (Part I)
1061 Words
Section 1
The Last Bottle
~ Radhitya Hermansyah
His head was heavy.
Not a simple hangover—more like a hammer pounding from inside the skull. He forced his eyes open, squinting against the pale-yellow light slipping through the curtains. Thick fabric, but morning always knew how to trespass. 07:28.
The hotel room reeked of bodies. Cheap soap mixed with sweat, tangled with alcohol. The AC hummed, a mosquito that would not die. The carpet absorbed everything—sound, traces, pieces of himself.
He turned. Silence. Just him, and the room. At the far end, beneath the mounted TV, three whiskey bottles stood on the glass table. Two were upright and empty, like men wrung dry. One still held half its amber glow. They stood like witnesses, statues of truth.
Not decoration. A demand.
Three bottles—always his condition with a client. An offering. Not for celebration, not for style. A drug. Without it, the engine of desire refused to start. Without it, his body rebelled. With it—he could perform. He could take a stranger’s money, take his body, without feeling a thing.
Whiskey turned him into an object.
And objects are always for sale.
He stared at the bottles too long. Disgust rose like bile. Disgust at glass. At himself. At the fact: last night a man in his forties walked away grinning, spent, satisfied—filth. While Radhit felt nothing but hollow, mechanical, wired. All of it fueled by whiskey.
He rubbed his face. Cold palm. Then stood, slow steps toward the table. Behind the half bottle, a white envelope.
The client’s farewell.
Inside—red bills. More than the agreed price. A tip.
A letter of humiliation. Proof the client wasn’t only satisfied, but over-satisfied. Proof Radhit had succeeded—killing himself, becoming the perfect machine.
He dropped onto the sofa. The envelope slipped from his hand. His right hand twisted open the bottle. A small “click.” Handcuffs locking again.
He drank. Fire down his throat, flooding his chest. Not for joy. Not for high. For silence—the only medicine against the riot in his head, the curses in his heart.
The bottle dangled from his hand.
His left palm pressed against his face.
Words broke free, raw and ragged.
“I’m like this… because of you, Lukman.”
“Bastard.”
Stillness.
The drone of the AC, the pounding inside his skull.
“You dragged me into this world… damn you.”
His jaw clenched. His face burned red. Eyes still shut.
The bottle rose again. A gulp. Whiskey spilled at the corner of his mouth, ran down his chin.
Tears followed. At first quiet, then flowing.
Not weeping. Not soft. Tears ripped out, hot, by a body that betrayed the ego. He hated it. He wanted to stay iron. But his eyes leaked—the poison that never healed.
“I didn’t know this feeling before…”
His breath cracked.
“You opened the road, Luk.”
His words splintered.
“s**t!”
The bottle pressed to his forehead, cold branding his skin.
“I thought it was love. I gave you everything. Everything, damn it. My heart was yours—”
His voice rose sharp, breaking.
“And what did you give back? What did you give!”
His head dropped. Tears pattered dark into the fabric.
“You left—right when I had given it all.”
Shoulders shook. Breath short.
“Bastard. I really am a fool.”
Silence again.
The whiskey shimmered in the half bottle. His grip trembled but did not let go.
Eight years ago surged back.
Lukman’s face. Eyes he thought were warm. A smile he thought was home. Fingers that first made him alive. All of it burned back into him.
Radhit slammed the bottle against the table. Glass barked. Whiskey sprayed. The bottle did not break.
His chest heaved. His eyes emptied.
He lifted the bottle and drained it. Fire as punishment.
“You taught me love. But it was poison. Bastard.”
Short. Bloody. Final.
His back slumped. The bottle slid from his hand, thudding onto the carpet. Amber seeped into the fibers, leaving a black-gold stain.
He closed his eyes. Still wet, but no longer shaking. His head a storm, but beneath it one fact: Lukman remained inside, leading a parade of demons.
Time stretched. His breathing slowed.
His face reset—cold, rigid.
He wiped his tears away, brutal, as if erasing history.
The bottle stayed. The envelope stayed. Everything left as witness.
He rose. Walked to the bathroom.
Door swung open. Water roared. Steam filled the air. The shower devoured what remained.
Water hammered his skull, his back. Scalding skin. Cold inside. Last night clung—groans, foreign hands, the grin of that forty-year-old man. The water tried to wash, but filth stuck fast.
One sentence echoed: This isn’t about money. This is proof—I can still make men kneel. Bitter. More bitter than whiskey.
His eyes opened to the marble wall. Jaw clenched. Let the water carry the stink away. Inside, it remained.
Clean skin. Damp hair. Hard jaw, red eyes shadowed by his brow. He pulled on dark jeans, a black shirt, leather jacket half-zipped.
Chin raised. Posture rigid. As if he had never fallen.
He slung on his bag. His eyes flicked at the bottles, the envelope. One glance. No pause.
Done. He turned for the door.
In the mirror: neat, sharp. Chin raised. Perfect.
Except the eyes.
Red. Wet. A line of truth no light could erase. Staring back, cold, hollow, holding secrets he’d never speak.
He exhaled, short and sharp. Dropped his gaze for a beat. Chin lifted again.
The door opened. Silence answered.
Radhit stepped out.
Behind him, the room kept everything: bottles, tears, envelope. Silent witnesses.
He walked down the corridor. Tall. Breath steady.
As if the morning was ordinary. As if the sofa, the rage, the tears—the poison—had never been.
But the mark remained. Settled deep.
Bastard.
__________
The corridor muffled his steps, while outside the city beat its own rhythm.
Elsewhere, far from that hallway, a plane had just landed. Wheels struck asphalt with a heavy shudder.
Two men. Two orbits.
One dragging the stench of last night.
One stepping off a plane.
Both heading toward a collision neither yet saw.
__________
- Writer
