The Partition

The Taste Blinks

Two

“Who wants to do delivery?  I have Go-cash points on my Go-jack account.” He cheered on.

“It is a boring day, isn’t it?” agreed Mia.

“What do you think, Caylee?” my father asked.

“Sounds good to me,” I answered joyfully.

In the meantime, Mia looked at the clock and saw that it is 5am in the night time.  She grabbed her coat and walked straight to the kitchen, made peanut butter bread, munched on them, swallowed the bread.  She glanced at the clock and it showed 5.45am. 

“It is time to pick him at the airport,” she reminded herself.

Caylee counted the number of cars who were speeding next to Mia’s car.  She noticed the same branded cars, and then she saw people putting luggage into the taxi cabs and cars and some are taking the bus.  The airport in Indonesia is humid in its weather and I flapped my hands to whisk some fresh, cool air up my face.  It is almost night time.  I already was introduced by my father to his girlfriend.  I saw the bumps in her stomach. She looks beautiful, I thought, and nice too to me.

But I don’t like, something’s missing, I thought again.  I scratched my head a bit, tilt up into the brown skies turning dark blue and darker each moment.  The skies are pretty high, I thought.  It wasn’t this way up in California.

            My father’s girlfriend talked so fast with the chauffeur who drove her car and I tried to understand and keep with the translation but got lost again.

I need to learn that language, I thought again. 

“The people are so kind here, Dadah!” I broke the silence.

“Thank you, dear Caylee,” cheered Mia.

Adam woke up.  He was unable to get a good rest and his mind troubled him.  Where is Caylee?” he asked to himself, who did not remain on her seat.

“Morning, do you have any idea where my daughter is?”

The flight attendant kindly told him that his daughter is in the bathroom.  At the moment, he saw her walking down the airplane aisle, and back to her seat.

 “Yes?” asked the whisperer to Mia.

“What was that you were saying, Mia?” asked Adam to Mia overlooking that she was talking to herself.

“I jack lagged.  Is she too??” I asked aloud as she ran around the house.

“No…no..No,” Mia brushed up her hair behind her ears.

 “You okay, dear?”

“Yes.   I just couldn’t sleep well.  I got too late to pick you up at the airport that I can’t sleep well.”

“Np,” he calmed Mia and kissed her on the forehead.

“Thank you,” he wished the delivery man as he gave him the food wrapped in a black plastic bag.  He then closed the door while overseeing the man left the scene.  Then all of the family had the meals.

The smell of the delivery food is very aromatic that he munched the food almost done.

“How do you like the ayam geprek, Caylee?”

“The chili’s so spicy.  It is burning me out,” I gasped and wave my hand around my mouth.

“Just leave the chili.  Eat the rice too.”

“You’ve got that,” I replied.

They went through a horror of unsettlements as Caylee’s sister went missing in the forest while with her mother, Lydia, together camping.  They still think that she is alive somewhere and would not accept the fact that she was perhaps dead falling into a river or killed by a bear.  She stayed behind with her grandparents.  Her father suffered the pain the most as Caylee’s sister was the first daughter of the family.  Mia was friends with Caylee’s mom, and took Adam’s heart by one fine day.  She and Mia were eating at the mall cafeteria when she wanted to wash her hands.  The wedding ring on her finger slipped out and fell to the ground.  Mia who was standing near grabbed the ring and excitedly asked her if she could try wearing it.  She quickly placed the ring unto her finger, looked at the beautiful rainbow colors of the diamond ring up high, and then returned it back to Lydia.

Her face pales.  She smells a jasmine flower odor across the air and asked Mia.

“You didn’t happen to use jasmine deodorant, do you?”

Mia gasped and smiled, “No, of course not.  Must be the chinese food you’re eating, Lydia.  That’s why you smell like garlic.”

Caylee’s mom could  have sworn it is isn’t garlic.  She murmured to herself, “Well, you know the saying, Chinese people smell like garlic and Indonesians smell like terasi.”

She laughed to herself, not realizing that the door to divorce is beginning to open slightly for Mia to take the lead instead of her.

            Mia still put on her earrings every time she goes to bed.  And she did not remove her accessories.  She experiences these different states on her mind.  Sometime later, she began to hear voices on her head. 

She works as the designer for the hologram food industry and fashion as well.  She does job as an author part time.

After dinner, Mia took time to type her book again.  She held a can of beer besides the computer desk.  She sipped into it often.  She went to her computer desk, clicked on the monitors and CPU, logged in and went to Microsoft Word.  Her computer is not updated but she likes it that way.  She started typing.

After dinner, I played my video games again on the tablet that my father gave me.  The “Fortune Teller” seemed like a better choice for the day because I felt uneasy and want to find out my luck for the day.  Meanwhile, my father is busy with his cigars smoking on the front porch overlooking the beach.

When the menu comes on the game screen, I typed in my zodiac star and birth date as usual.  I also typed in the button “Social circle”.  I did not understand what social circle meant, so I want to find out about it more.

The screen on my tablet was in process, and then I read what it said: You will come across an unforgettable event in the near future and meet a new circle of friends in the neighborhood.  Be watchful who your petty friends are.

I got confused on what this answer meant on what kind of event or what friends will I meet in the future, so I pondered on it a while and become more in my thoughts again.

After throwing the tablet across the sofa, I came over Mia’s desk, jumped and jumped trying to reach the monitor, play with the cellphone that belonged to her.  I then asked her what she was doing typing words.  Knox, the dog was making faces on its eyes.  It started l*****g the wooden side of the walls.

“Maybe Oz lacked some iron, Mia?”

“Could be, my dear…” she started typing again while taking a short look at Knox.  The dog looked at Mia and then on me.

“Oh, sorry, Oz.  Did not mean it to be that way.  Go on, keep licking.”

I can’t find my father.  He did not passed away and move to the other life.  He did something wrong with his deeds while he is still alive.  My father did not go to heaven.  He must have been in the third skies trying to survive the flames.  I did sense him still that he tries to protect me.  “Where is he?” I pondered.

Mia wrote on the computer: She often told him how much she likes him and loves him.  The moment both he and she first saw each other, they like each other.

She is willing to become a Catholic just for him.  It took her two semesters of Catholic study years in order to become one.  She has a dark past.  The idea of becoming a Catholic frightened her.  There are also a lot of statues of Mother Mary and Jesus.  Even through hard work of religious Catholic study, she could not keep up.  She often missed Catholic sessions of classes and her Catholic coordinators and priests keep urging her and encouraging her at the same time until she finally got baptized.  Unfortunately, the day after the baptism, she got an ugly cough for a month long.  She didn’t keep her Rosaries and Catholic books and bible away.

Becoming a Catholic and participating in the blood of Christ made her feel odd and hungry for blood.  One of her tooth got broken and the taste of the Communion felt dark and hollow and full of secrets.  Her body could not keep up with all the blood of Christ that is killing her within.  She depended on the communion blood to stay fit as she has a blood disorder.  But the power she received and feels from the blood!  She knew from folklores that those who participated in the Mass was drinking His blood and prays for His soul to return so that the power in the communion is present.  Mia stopped typing.

“I am going to soak in the ocean first before the dark comes about,” said Mia to him.

Mia left.

“Dadah, don’t you remember back in Hawaii that those locals soak in the ocean every evenings too?” I reminded my father.

“Yes of course, Dadah” remembered Caylee.  “Don’t swim in the ocean before evening or after evening because the sharks are near the coastlines.

            Caylee and her father lived with his girlfriend at Pangandaran beach.  They like the sea very much and visited most of them including Pelabuhan Ratu, popular for the sea witch legend stories in them.  She planned to go to Raja Ampat and she asked her father, but he would not allow her.

            As Mia enters the sandy path that catches her slippers as she stepped into the sand, she lifted up her head to see the fishermen still catching their nets on the side of the ocean patch.  She turned her eyes left and then to her right and sat down on the beach, astonished at the sight of the skies painted reddish and purple hay with the moon slightly peeping over the clouds.  The presence of the black pearl pendant that her boyfriend gave Mia, made her hold it closely and touched the tip of her lips.  The sound of the waves whooshes and washes the shores calmly.

“I should get back to the house.  It is almost Maghrib, but let me feel and touch and soak my feet first in the sea,” Mia thought to herself.  The hour after Maghrib has not allowed females to be outside of the house or the goblins will disturb them.

            The whisperer shrieked louder and louder and hiss back into Mia’s ears.

“Stop it! Stop it!” she cried hysterically.

Mia covered both of her ears and ran wandering to the cliff.  She saw the edge of the rocks and the sea. 

Meanwhile, Caylee were just about to do her homework and asked her father why Mia had not came back yet.“That’s weird…” he questioned.

“I will call the police.”

About fifteen minutes later, the police came and search and rescue with the help of dogs unto the neighborhood area.

After a day after, they found the corpse of Mia at the entrance of the rocks near the caves upon the seashores.

“Oh, no, what happened?” after the police informed Adam of his girlfriend’s believed to be suicide.

“Why would she commit suicide, dadah?” I asked him.

“I am unsure….”

            Mia Panjaitan was the only daughter of his father.  He is apt to go overseas as the captain boy of a Dutch and Mia hardly seen his father for quite some time.  It has been 19 years and she had no idea what happened or where his father is of present day.  Mia never felt a father’s love and protection since her teen years.  Her mother does not love her too much and every morning, Mia woke up scared, lonely and cold.  When Mia was small, she likes to walk along the railroad tracks with her step brother.  They went to the plains together and take a swim in the ocean for a while.  As Mia went home, she overhears the swirling waves of the ocean calling her softly.

            Before her death, Caylee was circumcised and went along on the Javanese ritual to have her hair cut a bit to have protection, safety, and prosperity in the future means.  Somehow though, months later after the circumcision, she started acting odd than usual as if she is being possessed through the rituals.  A common example is that she acted more mature in her personality and other times, Caylee would be more alert and scared of other people.

            Mia has another agenda.  The first time she saw her boyfriend’s daughter, she has a dislike on her.  She seemed like the perfect baby girl in his eyes and not Mia.  She would like to diss her away but the more she gets to know Caylee, the more she hates the little girl.  She strugglde with it a lot but Mia could not understand whether it was the pearl pendant that puts the bad luck in her and influencing the way she moods.

            Before Mia went to the beach, she was seen by her boyfriend combing her luscious hair, as she stared at the Partition behind her mirror cosmetic table and decided to take a short fifteen minute nap.  She gave a little thought about the partition that her father bought at the auction 15 years ago.  Slipping into her death, she fell into the arms of Hades, who happens to be the judgment world and gate ruler between heaven, hell and earth.