my dad is the moon

It was in the middle of the night when I realize he was no longer in this world.

He was a cold corpse which probably sent for several injection before wrapped by a huge plastic, and putted in a coffin. He was no longer human who needed an airplane ticket. He was a mere object putted in a luggage, when my mom paid the delivery fee to the airline.

He was an object when the ambulance came after his cold body from the airport, hurried to the uncompromised Jakarta traffic, race against the time --Moslem always want a dead body to be buried as soon as possible.

He might be part of the land at this time, eaten by maggots, eaten by the serenity. Each crumb of his body would nurture some nameless patch of grass with no story to tell. 

The grasses, or the little yellow flowers which burst in between, might photosynthesize while I'm breathing. I might touch and interact with the flowers --which nurture by the residue of his body-- but I would never see him alive again. To the flow of nature, this horribly unfair.

To stared at his body as an object gave me a hollow. I avoided look at his coffin for half an hour. I looked above, below, right, and left; I didn't want to see it.

All the noise was sucked, I was alone in the midst of mourn. 

All these creatures spend their time explaining the horrible lost they felt. I hardly shared a single tear when a neighbor came, cried and screamed the loudest while the youngest of my family watched the neighbor with horror.

I felt my youngest sister's horror. When I was seven, I had serial dreams about my dead brother. I was scared and ran through an endless stairs when he chased me. I woke up shivered and sweat all over.

When my sister ran to the coffin, my eyes searched my dad's mistress in the crowd. My sisters and brothers met her in his house several time --his mistress might around the house when he evict my mom. I never met her, I couldn't made any judgment which one was her. She might not came, or she might around, I still have no idea until now. Well, I couldn't pushed myself to be more concern about her anyway.

In the universe name, why was it important to think all the things together at this certain situation. For the first time I was disturbed at being alone with my reasoning. I would like to told someone what was happening to me, how the coffin as an object disturbed me.

As Sartre said, object should not touch because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them: they are useful, nothing more.

But the coffin unbearable touched myself. It was alive, touched me, absorbed my energy.

I was scared of being in contact with it as if it penetrated to my blood vessels. Sartre was wrong, this object, nobody really use them until they warm body turn cold, you can't put them back in place, because you have no idea where their places are. Also you don’t live either among coffins or dead body.

I have no idea where a coffin or a soul should belong. His dead body, as an object, as a Muslim object, belong to the soil, where the people buried it with colorful assorted flowers. Formed by the soil, back to the soil, as the Muslim believe.

It was almost dusk when the corpse completely buried, and the people were too tired for excessive cry. Silver moon was rising in the corner of the sky, and I still have no idea where the coffins belong, since Muslim buried the body alone, let the coffin useless.

But I guess I know where the soul belongs.

The soul belongs to the serene silver moon.

My dad is the moon, he's there, staring at me. He's always there even without my acknowledgment. He's affecting me as the moon affecting the ocean. And he's not perfect, just like the moon.