based on the private experience

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AN UNTOLD MEMORY
By: Berty Subagyo
Vivi just didn’t understand what juncture of life it was. When someday, she
decided to end her single life, there were more complicated troubles splashed her.
Along her lifetime. She just didn’t want to know, hear, and see.
Vivi sat on the cold white marble floor, in the large family room of hers. The
jasmine flower picture in her inbox of the face book account reminded her to
someone she had acquaintance to. Yes, his name was still alive in her heart, but just
as a good friend, since he had also married with another woman there. Vivi just
couldn’t stand not regretting the whole episodes of her life. Until that time.
She was still a High School student in her small town, Purworejo, which was
well known as a retired town ever since. In this quiet town Vivi met her first
impressing figure. He was a poet, who always wrote the romantic poems himself. He
often sent her the beautiful poems, even though, Vivi knew that all the poems were
not specified for herself, but also for all listeners of the Dahlia FM, the famous radio
station in Purworejo.
Vivi felt only the peaceful situation when he was near her. Not other things.
She’s still too innocent to conclude what kind of feeling alive in her heart. But, this
happened after the moment of Poetry Reading Contest in Bubutan, a small village on
the southern area of her town. After all activities of the contest, he asked her if Vivi
would go back home to her own village, as along the time studying in Purworejo, she
had been living in a boarding house.
“Vi, do you go home to village now?” he asked her immediately. Soon, Vivi
awakened that the young poet had seen her for along moment. Her cheeks
reddened.
“Of course. This is Saturday afternoon and as usual, I take my turn to meet
my family”, replied Vivi.
“I will go somewhere that has some direction with yours. Would you mind if we
go together, and you wait me bit a moment, my dear friend?”

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“No problem.”
After a while he appeared with something hidden, held in his hand.
“Let’s go!”, without caring about her curiosity, he held her hand and stopped
an orange public transportation. He didn’t talk too much along the way. He just
simply hid his cheerful face and still touched her hand.
The small vehicle ran along the main street of the town.
Suddenly…..
“Stop here, please. I’ve arrived.”
It was the location that Vivi usually passed to round the traditional market
before she took her real stop area on the eastern side of the market.
“Vivi, thanks for this finest moment. I’ll always remember this time with you.
Here is something I’ve picked from the small garden behind the contest area.”
Slipping a little soft thing, he opened the car’s door and whispered, “I’ve paid
this transport for you. Thank you”
Vivi’s heartbeat’s quickened. But he quickly disappeared among the crowded.
He didn’t really go somewhere. He just followed Vivi’s going home. The little soft
jasmine said that. Its fragrance spread, fulfilled Vivi’s heart so that she almost forgot
where she should stop and change another public transportation.
Vivi didn’t meet the young poet for a long period. The time between the last
gatherings of them, Vivi often reminded herself that that moment was only a wind
whispering in her wet heart, that he was not really saying his feeling through the
small fragrant flower, that that white flower was not meant to express his white
feeling to her. It passed until Vivi graduated her High School.
Wet morning……..
Vivi still filled in the form register in the only one Islamic University in her town,
she would continue her study there, when a soft touch patted her shoulder. Vivi’s
head turned around, and….

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He was standing there, smiling and showing his eyes just like his long before.
Vivi’s heartbeat’s again, quickened….
“Vivi, I’m glad to see you again. I always hoped to be like this.”
“Me, too.” , whispered Vivi, still unsure of his coming back, while Vivi tried
hard to lessen the strange feeling herself.
“Me, too…….”, repeated Vivi.
“Are you shocked?” , again…. His soft voice awoke Vivi.
“Not really. But, honestly, this is an unprepared moment of mine. You’ve gone
for a long time since……since……..” , Vivi’s voice disappeared.
“Since the last time I gave you the white jasmine flower…?”
Vivi’s eyes brightened wet.
“I’m sorry. I’m very sorry, for I didn’t brave to tell you the truth, for my fool not
saying that I had such a special feeling at that time. I simply worried you feeling
angry because I had to go out of this city after saying that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not a matter in fact. Since you never told me about that I should not have
thought about anything uncertain. You had no mistake.”
“Yes, it is. And now I’ve come to you. I come to you to pay all my threats I’ve
done to you. And now I promise not to leave you any uncertain words. Now I swear
for………..”
Suddenly he stopped talking as her fingers touched his lips. He smiled. In the
end……..
Breaking dawn in Parangtritis……
The camp site was still empty. The participants were still busy tightening their
blankets, or dreaming in their sleeping bags. Vivi’s splashing her nude feet to the
water, enjoying the cold wind, seeing the fishermen collecting the fish they had
caught along the night. She loved the scene of the rising sun in the sea. The yellow

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ball was slowly rising up, sending its bright light to the earth, making her heart
warmer, too.
She didn’t know how long she sat, saw the sunrise across there. Unaware,
she lied herself on the smooth white sand…… she closed her eyes………
Feeling something unusual for the land beneath her, she opened her eyes
and,…….
She found herself lying on the muscular chest; her eyes met a pair of his…….
“Die,….” , she said in the whispering sound. Mentioning his name made her
could not imagine anything. How could he find her here?
“You’ve been sitting here for almost two hours. Now, the campers are ready
having breakfast. Don’t you feel hungry?”
They walked side by side along the seashore, enjoyed the moment they
seldom felt to each other, as after that they were busy with the jobs they had to do in
different parts of the campsite.
Since the crucial moment they had had, they began making another dating,
making collaboration poetry reading on one occasion of friend’s wedding ceremony.
And the last time, they performed their most romantic poem on the stage which was
lasted by heart.
That’s that Vivi never understood. All body languages of his expressed almost
full attention of his to her. But one thing Vivi needed was a word. A word to show that
all those had represented his true feeling to her. A word to show that that crucial
thing for all had happened was a way to a special companionship between them. A
word that that adoring man would come to her parents to ask for their permission to
live together in a peace marriage life. A word that Vivi had had deep in her heart as
long as their close togetherness, but never braved to conclude that that word was
really the final destination of his.
No agreement, no engagement, no marriage……….
At last………

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……………………………..
Die,….. I don’t know whether it is my best decision or not. I don’t know
whether this letter can represent my heart or not. I don’t know…………………
But, this is something very important to me, that the conclusion of our
relationship seems so far to reach, that the moments we have had just make my
heart flowering, full of many wishes that you even never say, but expressed through
all your threats to me, I feel uncertain about your intention to make all these be a
serious thing.
Die, …. I can call your name only in the form of this letter, except when I was
unaware lying on your chest at that time, I think that you never know that mentioning
your name just make me live in an unimagined world. It has a very high sensation of
mine to feel the moment like in heaven. I don’t know why…..
Die,… I’m enjoying calling your name in my heart. And if I continuously do
such a thing like this I’ll be crazier and crazier. So, I must finish this.
If you read this letter I have left this small town for the time I don’t know how
long it is. I’m running away for my unsure keep closer to you all the time. I don’t have
any specific reason why I did this action. I simply don’t want to be broken heart
because of you, so I decided to break it myself. I’m here, looking for myself and
continuing my study for a better future, not waiting for the empty wishes of all sweet
moments we had had long before this to come true. I’m feeling dull of all this.
Perhaps, I can never find anyone like you that could fulfill all corners of my
heart. That could bloom all flowers in my heart. That could give me the high spirits
which I never know what those are.
With all my tears falling down these cheeks, I must do this hard decision. I
can’t only hope, I can’t only wait the long period that had passed by in almost half of
my life. I have to decide and I have.
I’m very sorry for this inconvenient situation for you. For wishing you’re not
hurt it is impossible. For hoping you keep waiting for me after this decision of mine, I
don’t dare. But, one thing the most important you must know is: I do love you, and I
do wish you to end our sweet periods with a glory thing that maybe you never wish.

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My only wish is that you can find your true love, marry her with all intention
and soul. God bless you….. Forever.
With love,
Your Vivi
Letter had been sent and Vivi didn’t dare to imagine what happened, then.
Until fifteen years later, Vivi opened her inbox of her face book account, she
found a mysterious message, which threw her back to the moments that they both
had had. She didn’t know really who the sender of the message was, since the
sender didn’t include the name. But she felt very certain that that adoring man had
come again in her life, even though she felt certain, too, that he was not single
anymore.
The cold white marble was still around her. Something frozen touched her
heart, she just kept sitting, feeling the memorable periods for the time she had not
understood and never told about, yet.
Bekasi, the end of September 2013