#*karakterisasi

I have never been able to believe that human affairs were serious matters. I have no idea where the serious might lie, except that it was not in all this I saw around me—which seemed to me merely an amusing game, or tiresome. There are really efforts and convictions I have never been able to understand. I always looked with amazement, and a certain suspicion, on those strange creatures who died for money, fell into despair over the loss of a “position”, or sacrificed themselves with a high and mighty manner for the prosperity of their family ... To be sure, I occasionally pretended to take life seriously. But very soon the frivolity of seriousness struck me and I merely went on playing my role as well as I could. I played at being efficient, intelligent, virtuous, civic-minded, shocked, indulgent, fellow-spirited, edifying ... I was absent at the moment when I took up the most space.

The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you. Even better, I provoke you into judging yourself, and this relieves me of that much of the burden.  Ah, mon cher, we are odd, wretched creatures, and if we merely look back over our lives, there’s no lack of occassions to amaze and horrify ourselves. Just try. I shall listen, you maybe sure, to your own confession with a great feeling of fraternity

I still have trouble discerning between loneliness and solitude, and Sundays, and Schubert’s sonatas. I’m still dismally unfunny; restless when I sit on grass; too much of a daughter to forget about the dead. Even though I own none, I still love the size of LP records. Their square, tactile bigness. And I still believe that people who buy them and collect them aren’t snobs at all, but true blues. A record sleeve is unwieldy. To hold one is to sometimes appear like you’re hugging one.

All my life I have wanted to do miracles. I have wanted to be holy. I suppose it was ambition or pride or some other unworthy thing.  It was not enough for me to conquer the world — I wanted to conquer heaven too. I was so grasping that it was not enough to be the strongest knight — I had to be the best as well. That is the worst of making day-dreams. It is why I tried to keep away from you. I knew that if I was not pure, I could never do miracles. 

Yes, that much was certain. The question that arises is this: had Father hated the people on the ship ... ? No ... hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary. This is the obscenity of war: the intimacy of mutually shed blood, the lascivious proximity of two soldiers who, eye to eye, bayonet each other. Agnes was sure: it was precisely this kind of intimacy that Father found repugnant. The melee on the ship filled him with such disgust that he preferred to drown. The physical contact with people who struck and trampled and killed one another seemed far worse to him than a solitary death in the purity of the waters.

I could feel Georgie's stiffness. She seemed with it almost a marionette. She was stiff as a piece of wood with her anxiety to be accurate, to be truthful, to be precise, and to express no emotion whatsoever. In the face of Antonio's dewy radiance, she was utterly closed and cold.

Beds. Two-by-two meters of heaven and hell, where so many promises are made and broken. A tumultuous ocean of ups and downs, yeses and nos. Fouad was our bed's iceberg and I was its Titanic. Which one of us sank the other? ... Don't say sex. Sex is just a cover up. A cover up for that desperate search of oneness, that longing to forget our intrinsic loneliness. If Fouad was a thoughtful lover, would I have still cheated on him?

Ia berdiri, martirku berdiri, aku melihat punggungnya menjauh. Punggungnya seluas sabana, mungkin ada bekas luka lain di sana, panjang seperti ilalang (aku ingin menyusuri garis ungu itu dengan jariku, dengan bibirku). Pria terluka kembali. Ia berjalan dengan langkah pelan di antara umat manusia, seakan waktu telah dibuangnya, tak ada lagi, tanpa benam matahari bulan purnama. Ia duduk bersandar (seperti lelah), menyulut sebatang rokok. Pemantik menyala sejenak memperlihatkan pipinya biru ungu, rerumputan tundra di rahang dan dagunya, kerut gelombang laut di dahinya. Helai-helai rambut jatuh di gelombang laut dahinya, bagai layar-layar tipis hitam, ia tanpa angin tanpa kapal tanpa pelabuhan tanpa utara tanpa lentera (seperti lelah, ia ingin menepi).