A Prasetya Modana’s
Ramadan Ini
Ramadan ini aku jatuh hati
Pada senyum setipis embun pagi
Pada sapa sehangat matahari
Dan pada kata-kata bagai air mengalir pergi
Ramadan ini aku tak lagi merasa sendiri
Bersama air mata yang menetes sunyi
Bersama malam yang terdiam sepi
Atau bulan yang malu-malu menepi
Ramadan ini aku sedang bermimpi…
(a very short fiction story)
Karolina opened the door quietly so that it wouldn’t make any sound. She came home late today because she had to practice for her piano concert next week. She didn’t want to wake her father up from his sleep. He often had trouble to sleep at night, so if he had slept, it had always been better to keep him that way. His brother, Ernesto, had gone for almost 2 months now. Last month was his last call. He said he was at Cusco. God only knows what he had been doing all this time – but she bet that he climbed the Andes. Tonight, she was accompanied by Alberto, who would play the violin.
“Come on in, Alberto… But watch your step, alrite?” she said, almost like a whisper.
“Should I? I mean, i dont have to!” he was still standing in front of the door.
“Dont be ridiculous, Al. You drove me home! At least you cant miss a cup of coffee. My father always have the best coffee”
“Just for the coffee, okay? And it should be bold, no sugar”
“That would be great…”
But as they walked through the hallway, the heard a sound of the piano. Karolina hissed, she knew her father wasn’t asleep then, but she didn’t want to disturb his playing too. It was Chopin’s Nocturne op. 9 no. 2. The piece that her father always played, ah, he could only play this one.
“Let sit here first” Karolina said to Alberto. They sat on the floor. Karolina lighted up a cigarrette.
Their house was a small but pretty house. And nothing extraordinary in that house, except a big paintings of Bob Dylan in one side of his father library’s wall. But, her father put the piano in a special place. It’s in the middle of the house,so where when somebody played it, the the sound could be heared all over the house, perfectly. He loved the piano, especially when her mother played it. Her father always wanted to hear her mother played, wherever he was. It looked to her as if the house was build for the piano – that old-black Steinway piano.
“Your father playing this?”
“He is”
“I thought you said he couldn’t play any music! But this is great… i could feel the emotion”, he laughed quietly, “he plays even better than you!”
“He started to learn this piece 5 years ago. I tought him this, you know…”, she took a deep breath, “but you can still see the flaws here and there. I can play this better. But like you said, no one plays with this kind of feeling”
“Yeah? Well, that’s brilliant. I mean, with his age…”
“Yeah…”
“So, what made him learning this?”
“Ah that…”, she paused. She closed her eyes as he father played the last part of the song. Alberto knew he couldn’t push her now, so he too closed his eyes and enjoy the music. Yes, there are flaws, he thought. And when the sound stopped, Karolina heard his father walked down to his room and closed the door. They opened their eyes.
“So?”, Alberto asked.
“That was my mother’s death…”
