KEPARAT COINCIDENCES

I read Dion’s short poem of coincidences and significances with great interest, and spent quite some time thinking about it. Little did I know, just a few days after that, I came across several coincidences and significances too amazing to ignore.
***

Keparat dear:
I know you use drugs, albeit only occasionally, but I know you do.
I know what you look like naked.
I know you are smart, but not quite as smart as you pretend to be.
I know what types of women you always fall easily for.
I know what you like and dislike in bed.
I know how you start a lovemaking session, how you look during it, how you end it.
I watch your every movement and word through the eyes of a liar, trying to find traces of inconsistencies. I couldn’t find one. You’ve been too consistent all these years: even a great liar like me can’t possibly make exactly zero mistakes, zero inconsistencies. So I decided that you were an honest person.
I didn’t know that you were a liar.

***

COINCIDENCE I
Around two months ago, a Friend asked me to a concert. It sounded like a good idea, so I agreed. But a few days after that, because I was a bit sick, and simply a little reluctant to have an evening out, I cancelled it. Friend said I still should go, because good music healed flu like a charm. I said no but no thanks, but I felt bad afterwards. I really felt that I shouldn’t have said yes in the first place, if I didn’t mean to.


COINCIDENCE II
Last week, Friend asked me to a similar concert. This time, I was determined to go. Through the web I knew, there was another concert at the same place, which I thought would be more interesting than the one he asked me to. He asked me to the Feb 24th event, and I was thinking about us going to the Feb 21st event instead. He said both ways are fine, and left the decision to me.


COINCIDENCE III
I decided that we should go to the Feb 24th event.


COINCIDENCE IV
I don’t know why, it might be gut feeling, animal instinct, or what-have-you, but there was a very strong inclination in me to go with him this time.
I felt like something might happen that day at the concert.
The feeling was so strong, that although for two days full before D-day I was down with a tummy ache, I decided to brave it out and still go with him.


COINCIDENCE V
Friend and I arrived early for the concert, so we sat at the courtyard chatting. Fifteen minutes before the show, the concert room was opened and people began filing into it. Friend asked whether I wanted to go inside. I said no, let us wait a few more minutes. Okay, then I’ll go to the restroom first, Friend said. I felt like I needed to go too, but decided against it.

It was then that I saw a figure that looked a lot like Keparat, walking hurriedly through the front gates of the building.

Hell, that person has the same built that he does, and he certainly walks like he does, I thought to myself, a bit unsure of myself.

Because he said he’d be back to South Pole 10 days ago. And I believed him, because I didn’t know he was a liar.
After our ugly argument, we stopped talking to each other and I assumed that he went back to South Pole without bothering to say goodbye to me.
As that figure took one more step into the courtyard, even from that distance, I knew it was him. Keparat himself. He was still in Jakarta.

COINCIDENCE VI
I looked fixated at him, thinking He is in Jakarta he is in Jakarta he is in Jakarta , not feeling angry, I was serene and peaceful, because at last I got to find out why I had a very strong gut-feeling to come to that concert.
By some unexplainable force, he looked sideways and locked eyes into mine.
We smiled knowingly at each other, waved a little wave.

***

In the car while heading home, I asked Friend whether coincidences existed.
“Of course,” he said, “Why did you ask that?”
“Because,” I said, “because at first I wanted to see the Feb 21st event, but I decided against it. Because I was a bit sick but decided to go to the concert anyway. And through the coincidences, tonight at the concert I saw somebody who wasn’t supposed to be here.”
“Did seeing that person have any significant impact on you, no matter how small?” asked Friend.
“Very much so,” I replied.
“Then it wasn’t a coincidence,” Friend concluded.
I didn’t quite get what he meant, so he gave me this explanation:
“Suppose you were strolling at a mall, and coincidentally saw somebody who wore the exact same shirt that you were wearing. If it were a coincidence, it’d stop at that point. But if you found out that person was an old friend you hadn’t met for a long time, and you ended up catching up with her, there was a significance in that. So I wouldn’t call it a coincidence.”

“You wouldn’t say it is a coincidence. So, you’d say it’s something that is meant to be?” I asked, amazed at this seemingly new theory.

“It is meant to be. Exactly. That’s what I meant,” he said.

***

I was meant to find out about your little lie, Keparat dear.
At the end of the concert tears filled up my eyes, no, not because you lied to me, but because sweet music always tends to bring tears into my eyes.