MADHATTER

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. ~ Charles Bukowski (1920 - 1994)


A year passed since the first time he said he wanted to meet my parents. I dreaded his meeting my siblings, I had looked at him hard when he casually said he wanted to drop by my house and meet my sisters and nephew and niece, but I had let him. I let him come to my house, once, twice, three times, then almost routinely twice or three times a week --- on all occassions my parents were not home. They were not even in Jakarta.

When my parents moved back to Jakarta, his visits stopped. We went out for dinners or movies or lunches, one time we watched dvd's at my house - when my parents weren't home. We didn't say anything about it: it was simply understood. I once saw a madman sat in an abandoned bus stop, and I admired how he could sit silently, comfortably, for what seemed like days, without saying a word, just staring into blankness. Now everytime I look at us I am reminded of him, our silence is not unlike that madman's, there are so much we don't say. So many things we hope to be just understood.

To make life even more complicated, there was a time when he needed to go to his parents' house and I gave him a lift. Parked in front of his gate, my body simply refused to move, we were silent for a few minutes, until he finally said that it was okay if I didn't want to come inside and meet his parents.

As for why I kept him so long from meeting my parents, it would be another long posting, but trust me that I have a very good reason for that and I couldn't afford to do otherwise. Much as I long to be, I am not crazy, never crazy enough to bear witnessing how my parents will joyfully rip him into the smallest of pieces.

Last May, he told me that it was mandatory for him to have met them by June, but considering our position (quite literally) I thought he was delirious. Considering that his next sentence was that by July he wanted to ask my parents to let him marry me, I was even more convinced about this deliriousness.

Last Saturday I met him at a mall to see a movie, and whereas usually I walked home and he caught a bus home afterwards, that day he followed me home. Oh three minutes into the walk I screeched whether he wanted to go to his place or to his parents' house, and he said he wanted to come to my house, and whether I wanted to walk or take the bus. Lunacy, I thought, pure lunacy.

You would be correct to guess that we walked side by side mostly in silence. During that 40 minutes walk I kept asking him without words, whether he was sure about what he was doing. I asked myself whether I was sure about what I was doing. For both I got no answer.

I was just more and more convinced that he was crazy. He was that madman in the abandoned bus stop.

Hours later when he was back to his own place, he told me thru text: I am relieved to finally meet them. I didn't reply for another six hours, partly because I knew he'd have understood my silence better than my words, and partly because - I had felt myself plunged headlong into a deep well of craziness.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)