Usually when I dream, I could recall everything happened vividly to the emotion I had when I was in it. Most of them were lucid dreams where I could lead the plot where I want it according to my desire. But last night I had a normal dream where I went with the flow, unable to alter the story. A lot more like a spectator than a director and the main character. I watched everything that happened in front of me. And when woke up, I couldn’t remember details about my dream. It is something new to me. Only the after taste and confusion remained. If I’m going to have this kind of dream from now on, I need to adjust things. Maybe I need to stop trying to recall my dream. Or maybe it is only because I slept at ease last night, that I didn’t pay attention to my dream.

It is exactly nine when I look at the digital clock next to my bed. Somehow my body system that had been trained for years refuses to work today. I didn’t put my alarm on because of that. Ever since I got my first job, I trained myself to get up at eight everyday. I turned on the alarm at first and keep doing it until I realized that I always got up seconds before the alarm. It was a year after my first day of working at my first job when I stopped turning on my alarm. If you are wondering, I am at my second job now after two years working at the previous company. I decided that I wouldn’t go anywhere in that office, so I looked for a better offer and found this one. Moved to the next, I keep my body’s internal alarm with me. Never for once it failed me until today. But even an hour late I am still early for work. So I get up from my bed, feeling every inch of my body waking up with me. I take my time thinking what thing I should cut today since I’ve lost an hour for an extra sleep.

So I go to the kitchen, make my coffee while thinking what I should remove from my morning ritual. Today is the firsy day after I met Rose. I feel fresh today. Ever since I met her, I get to control my emotion better, and learn to calm myself. It is a good thing.

Although I feel better since I got back from Rose, I didn’t go to work yesterday. I told my boss that I am still sick. He was about to visit me when I said I was hospitalized, but I told him the doctor wouldn’t let any visitation. I said I had a massive fever that my girlfriend had to take me to the hospital. He dropped it and hoped I get better.

I was kind of lucky that I finished all of my work and there won’t be any meeting until next week. That’s what I like from working in a monthly magazine. The workload is a lot, but we got a month to finish it. Now, I am not the kind to postpone my work unlike my colleagues. They do their articles by the second week of the month. Not that it is wrong. It is their way of living. They get their job done, and nobody’s fussing about it. When they work on their thing, mine would be finished and I would spend my days on books without being troubled by work. Well, not always. Only occasionally I get an extra article to work on, or a little revision to what I’ve written.

The coffee machine makes a long beep and my coffee is done. I take it and sit on the couch in the living room. I decided not to turn on the TV for the morning news. I just wanna think over about everything that had happened. One morning without news wouldn’t kill me anyway. As I sip my coffee, I think about nothing and listen to the world. I hear birds chirping outside. I stand up, open the curtain to let the sunlight comes in. I open the veranda’s sliding door too for fresh air. What a great morning. I stay there a bit to enjoy the sun on my skin, the clear air fill my lungs, then thinking I should at least have a music to accompany me. So I walk inside to the my vinyl records collection rack, turn on my turntable while looking for something to play. Somehow I feel like listening to Duke Ellington and His Orchestra’s Mood Indigo. So I take the record out of its jacket, check for scratches and dust then when it’s okay, I put it on. It’s a manual electric turntable. The only thing it does automatically is to stop when there is no groove left to scratch. I have to lift the tone arm myself and carefully put the needle on the record to start. I like to do it that way. So I have no intention to buy the automatic one like my friend suggested. Once it all set, it turns, with a little noise to indicate the first song is coming to play. I wait until it starts singing.

Mood Indigo plays on the first track. I get back to the couch sipping my coffee with nothing in my mind. I don’t feel like thinking now. I feel relaxed. I lean back, close my eyes and listen to the song. Can I keep today for everyday from now? “You ain’t never been blue, no, no, no,” she sings.

Slowly I could hear another sound disturbs the music. Gradually, after focusing to hear the sound while my eyes remain shut, I could hear the sound of an alarm somewhere far. It’s faint that you need to focus on it. It sounds like mine but in a higher pitch, distorted somehow. It doesn’t seem like stopping. I open my eyes and go to my bed, check on my clock just to be sure. It is not mine. Who would turn on the alarm on 9.17 o’clock in the morning? It is an odd time to get up. But hey, it is not my life and my timing, I shouldn’t be bothered with it, right? My mom once told me that control what’s in you because it is not your job to manage other’s business.

So I let go on focusing on the alarm that might come from my neighbor next door and get back to Duke. Now Duke is playing Limehouse Blues. With its cheerful tune, it sets my mood back at where I left it. I am back to my couch and drink the rest of my coffee. After this one song, I will take shower and go to work.

As The Mooche is starting, I gulp down the rest of my coffee and go to the kitchen to wash the cup. Then I take a shower. This time, it is only a ten minutes shower for me, since I don’t have the leisure to take my time. I get out the shower when I made sure I had a proper wash and look in the mirror as I dry myself. The record has stopped playing. No Duke to accompany me. It is clear to me that I look pale and sick. I also notice that I lost weight in the past months. My mental state is great now, but I have to take care of my body to balance it out. As I look in the mirror, I am beginning to plan a lot of stuff to fix my life. I have to keep this positivity for a better things ahead of me. I believe that. One step at a time. For now, I have to focus on today. Once I made up my mind and concentration is building up, something else shifts along inside me. I can’t tell what exactly had been moved inside me, but I feel different. Probably the alarm I heard from somewhere far starting to affect me. I am just guessing of course, without any solid proof. I may also made it up because I still haven’t gotten use to the new me. It could also because I am too positive, then when some disturbance comes, it hits me hard? Or maybe I look at myself too long in the mirror? I am not quite sure.

Then it cross my mind to try what Rose did. Maybe I have been talking to my egos without realizing it. So I look myself in the eyes through the mirror and ask myself why I am always pissed as if it’s my default mood. Then I heard myself saying, “it is because of you”. I heard it loud and clear. It is me. But I didn’t move my mouth or I heard it with my ears. It is from within me. One of my ego spoke to me. And I am guessing it’s the angry one.

“You pissed me big time,” as he says that, I could see my facial expression changes. “You’re pathetic,” he continues.

“Why?” I ask him.

“Look, how many times you broke your promises? Not the one you said to others,” I can feel he is raging inside me and carries on, “but the one you said to yourself. To us! How many times you’ve failed yourself? You think I would just let them slip without feeling a shit? Keep on dreaming, boy!”

“You may be good at hiding your disappointment from the world, but not us inside you.” None of us say a thing after that. I can see myself full of rage inside the mirror. Do I make that scary expression when I was shouting to her? I hope not, but it has a slim chance from the opposite. I feel bad to her. How could I did such horrible thing to the person I say I love the most? I hate myself even more.

“Now stop doing it,” another me comes in. “Don’t hate yourself more than you already are. It is true that you have done a lot of horrible things to her and to yourself. You’ve hurt yourself every time she got hurt, right?” He pauses. My face becomes calmer.

“That’s enough damage you took there. And I hate to see you go further than this point. You might reach the point where no one could save you. Not even us could help you by then. All you did was unintentionally. That is forgivable,” by now I know that this is the wise one talking. “But it is all depend on the person,” he carries on, “would she be able to forgive you after all things you did? Why don’t you ask her rather than speculate things in your head?”

“Oh I doubt she would,” I say to him and starting to feel sad. Probably sadness is hugging me inside. He maybe isn’t letting go this time because I feel an intense sadness now, I start to accept that. I deserve this sadness.

“Yeah right! Forgiveness for unintentional fault,” the mad one starts to speak now. “What if you accidentally kill someone? It wouldn’t be that easy to forgive eh?”

He got a point there. I smile in the mirror. Not sure from which. I am guessing it is from the mad one because he said something obvious and I agree with him. That thing happens everywhere, people seek revenge when they’ve lost someone, they got pissed and hoped the killer got killed too whether it is an unintentional act or not.

“Sure it wouldn’t be easy,” my smile remains. So the smile comes from the wise one. He says some more, “I never said about hard or easy. That’s why forgiveness is rarely seen, right? Because it is hard to do. It is about a person’s choice that makes it count. If she couldn’t forgive you, it is fine. It is her choice. You can’t do a thing about it and accept the consequence from the things you’ve done. Both sides lost. She lost to her anger like you usually did, and probably holding a grudge, which is not a pretty way to live. And on the other side, you lost her from losing your temper.” The wise one got a point too. Now it’s hard for me to choose which voice should I listen, but I know one thing for sure. I don’t want to lose her.

“But I keep hurting her,” I tell them what I’m feeling, “I hate to see her getting hurt. I want to stop hurting her and start to make her happy.”

“That is because you are a fool,” the mad one is fast to make his move on making me feel bad. It is his specialty.

“Yes, I have to admit that,” the wise one talks. I feel worse. No one is on my side now. I can sense that the mad one is grinning, full of victory. “You are a fool to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. But you are not stupid. I believe that. You need to learn from your mistake, that attitude made a lot of winners.”

“But I tried my best. You guys saw me trying right?” I begin to feel hopeless because nothing else I could do. I am starting to think that I won’t go to Rose anymore.

“Sure, we saw you trying,” the wise one talks again, “but it wasn’t your best. We know that you could do better than everything you’ve done. Even she could see that. That is why she’s still here with you after all those wrong doings you did to her. Because she believe that you haven’t given your best.”

“What if I’m doing my best, but I still couldn’t make her happy?” I am afraid now.

“Now, you have to differentiate stupidity and anger. She is angry now, but not stupid. She would see your effort. She might refuse to accept your work, because she is angry. But that is not the reason for you to stop. Keep doing it until she forgives you. That is the price you have to pay for all the pain she suffered.” Now I am starting to listen to the wise one’s voice and the weight of his words. It is true. She is a stubborn one. When she was mad, everything I did barely made her happy. That was when I gave up because she couldn’t see what I was doing. I got tired for not having my recognition.

“That’s where you are wrong,” as if he reads my thought – maybe he did, since he is inside me – the wise one says, “she saw what you did, but it wasn’t enough for her to forgive you. That is all I believe. What if she forgives you? You’re going to stop? Please, I hope not. Because this is a thing you should be doing forever. Do it for her. You said you want to make her the happiest girl alive? Then prove it to her. Make her the happiest. That is your best effort. And it won’t stop until you die.”

None of us say a word for a while. I am deep in my thought thinking it all over. Rose said I am an OWL. I would observe, wait and listen when I am facing a new information or in a new environment. I have to admit that she is right. That what I was been doing, even when I stretch it to my primary school. So now I am thinking about a lot of stuff. The wise one and the mad one seem to have gone to their own corner, leaving me thinking alone by myself while still standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom.

Gradually the sense of time is starting to get me. My legs are tired from standing too long. I get out of the bathroom and check the clock next to my bed. I am shock to see the time. I have been inside the bathroom for almost an hour. I am too late for work.

So I get my phone, text my boss telling him that I am still feeling sick that I won’t be coming. I press send and throw my phone on the bed. I sit there for the longest time, with a lot in my head.

How would I survive this?

—