The stranger I've known

for this week's prompt in suncayscribblings, stranger
and I'm not worried about my bad English :D

***

The second our eyes met, time stopped. And I saw thousands fireworks sparkling, becoming an amazing background to a wonderful sight, as he walked to my direction in a slow motion. “Hi, I am Yusril’, he raised his hand to me.

“Kia”, I gave my hand to welcome his.

In my hart, I was still grumbling to the man who has sent me to this time and place. A Training for Health Database Management.

“But Sir, this is about health” I said.

“Yes, it is about working on health database. But what is required here is ability in using computer. That’s all.”, Mr. Heru tried to convince me.

“I don’t understand computer that much. All I can do is operating some programs”

“Oh that’s fine. We don’t need programmers. The program’s been built. This training is for trainer to work on the programs, which is about health data base management”

Mr. Heru isn’t my direct boss. He is the chief from the next room department, who has asked permission from my boss, to let me join this training, on his advice. Unfortunately, (or fortunately?) my boss said ‘yes’. “I like to see my kids improve themselves,” he said. O yeah, of course.

“Ratna said she wanted to go,” I still tried to find a reason for me not to go. Five days. If only the training would be held in one or two days, I’ll be glad to. But I never left my daughter Tiara, that long.

“O , I knew it. If I asked her, I’m sure she’ll say yes right then. But I prefer you to go. This training is a national level. We bring our institution’s name. There’s no way I will send Ratna”

“What is wrong with Ratna anyway?”

Ah, no need to answer, I already knew. She would be too busy hunting for men than concentrating on the training.

Now look at what’s happening here. This is a training for health database management. But aren’t we supposed to understand the components of the data? The first sessions was to generalize the perceptions of those. Mother’s mortality, baby’s mortality, K1, K4, preg-mom…

The training participants are doctors, nurses, midwives, masters in society health… I’m the only engineer. Along the session, I kept in silence.

“Kia, say something. Come on, what are you thinking?” the moderator of my discussion group tried to dig something from me.

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m trying to figure out some thing. These problems are much too complicated for me. My knowledge about this is just too shallow. This shallow”, I made a space of an inch with my thumb and my point finger, “What is K1? I don’t know what K1, K4 are. What I know is K-225. That’s a concrete mix with the pressure capacity of 225 kilograms per square centimeters”.

No body could hold them selves not to laugh. And they made a nickname for me: K1 engineer.

***

Day two lunch. Yusril was having the dessert for this meal time.

“Why are you using your left hand to eat?” I asked.

The answer sounded like an echo to words in my head.

“I think I am basically left handed. But old people were right hand oriented. The said left hand wasn’t right. So it’s kind of something I was pushed to. I finally write with my right hand, so badly. But I play badminton with my left hand. I do hard things such is hammering, sawing, with left hand too”

“I don’t mind to do thing with left hand, but I think you still should eat using your right hand”

“When there are spoon and fork, I’d hold the spoon with my right hand. But if there only a spoon, it will end up like this”, he showed me a little spoon he was holding.

You don’t have to explain, I already knew.

***

Third day, after visiting the people in the village, which was so tiring because we needed to walk to reach the house of the pregmoms (finally I understood the meaning: pregnant mom), we had to go right back to our class to work on the data we took. So we turned on our notebooks.

I peaked a little to Yusril’s wallpaper. A family photo. Him, a beautiful lady carrying a baby like 10 months old, and a boy of 7 years old who was so proudly showing his plane toy.

“Your family?”

Yusril nodded. I felt strange. I don’t know about this. I waited for a moment, may be some visions of Yusril family will come. But it didn’t happen.

***

Dinner.

I knew he would get some shrimp. ”my favorite”, He showed me the biggest one.

“I know”

“How do you know?”

Ya, how do I know? I just knew it. I knew you like shrimp. And I knew you don’t like football. I knew your shoulder was once wounded when you were playing badminton, that made you had to stop doing that sport. But I don’t know how I knew it all. I knew it, that’s all. I knew everything about you, except your name, which I knew because you mentioned it in our first met.

***

It was almost midnight. I was still watching television in my hotel room. National programs. This hotel doesn’t have Cable TV, I can not watch CNN, AXN, HBO, Cartoon Network…

I grabbed the remote controller and turned it off. I laid down and tried to get some sleep. I was so tired but could not close my eyes. I kept thinking about Yusril. No, its not Yusril I was thinking of. But me, how suddenly I knew everything about him. I really didn’t understand. I was so sure I never met him before.

My cell phone rang. Sindhu.

“Hi honey, still awake?”

“I’m trying to sleep. What about you?”

“Soon. I’m still watching a film. How was the day? Tired?”

“Quite. We did a field trip today”

“Take a rest. I don’t want you to be sick”

“OK”

“Good night Kia, Love you”

“Good night, Sindhu, love you too”

I usually called Sindhu. I didn’t know why I forgot to. The day was so crowded. And my head was full of my can-not –understood thought about Yusril…

***

Last day. A tour. Beach. Nothing I like more than beaches. I love beaches. Especially the clean ones. So I could walk barefoot along the sandy shore. And felt the waves came over and splashed on me. And the cool wind blew my hair. Some times it was too strong I had to struggle to stay standing.

But this time we sat. Afar from the water, under the palm tree. Yusril was sitting beside me, holding a cola can he bought from an old lady who didn’t stop following us

“Kia, I wanted to asked you some questions. But I apologize if it made you feel uncomfortable”

“What is it?”

“Have we ever met?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

He took a breath, and went on.

“Where did you spend your childhood?”

“Malang, you?”

“Bandung”, of course, the answer was just another echo in my head.

“So we’re not childhood friends”

“No”

“But why do I feel I’ve known you?”

I looked at him. I looked into his eyes and found confusions as I was feeling.

“Oh really? Why are you feeling that way?”

“Suddenly I know everything about you. I know what you like and what you don’t. I know your habits. I know everything. This kind of… bothering”

I could not say a word.

“Kia, forgive me, but can I see your back?”

“Yus, you know it’s indecent”

“Ya, ya, I know. I’m sorry. Just tell me then. Do you have a scar, there, cut with a knive by your sister when you both were playing cooking?”

Oh my God. What’s happening to us? I drooped. I felt like I’ve known this guy all my life. A stranger I met few days ago.

“Kia. Answer me”

“Do I have to? I believe you already knew it, though I don’t know how”

“Are you experiencing this strange feeling too?”

“Ya”

For a while we didn’t say a thing. Drown in our own thought. Trapped and mixed up in confusions

“Kia”

“Ya?”

“I wanted to tell you this, but I was afraid I might upset you”

“Just say it. I think whatever you wanted to say, is already stick in my head”

“I don’t know why I feel I’ve known you, to the details. And this is so confusing. I mean, we really never met before, did we?”

“I don’t thing you know me to all details”

“What do you mean?”

“I know your knowledge about me stop at a point of time. You don’t know anything about my husband, my daughter, my marriage. You know nothing about my life after I got married”

“Is that what you…” he didn’t continue his sentence, he didn’t need to.

“What’s happening, Yus?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. What confused me most, and made me so not comfortable at the same time, is, the feeling that, I don’t know when, some time in our past, you are… my wife”

I stared at him. I never thought he would be able to say that.

“I only got married once. With Sindhu, my present husband”

“I know. I also got married once, with Dewi, my present wife. I just don’t understand. I… I….”

Suddenly my tears fell down my face. I didn’t know what tears were those. A huge happiness filled my heart. A happiness cause I felt like I’ve found some one I’ve been waiting for, for hundred years. Hundred years…. Oh I’m 27 and I felt a longing paid off after hundred years! But at the same time I felt pain. This guy was surely nobody. He was just a guy who came to me few days ago, raised his hand and said his name.

I laid my head on his chest. Closed my eyes. But I didn’t sleep. I could feel him kissing my hair. May be he thought I was sleeping. Or he knew I wasn’t so he did that? I didn’t care. I only wanted to stay in that moment, a moment I didn’t know if I will ever have a chance to find again or not.

I’ll go home and back to Sindhu tomorrow, and may be I’ll just forget all this weirdness. Or I'll keep thousands questions stay in my head.