Dating : Faith of No Longer

There was once an ordinary day where I lived out my ordinary life. Somehow, that day begins with my spirits high and my positive vibes radiant. Normally, it wouldn’t last the whole day since I’m a hormonal young adult with chronic mood swings. As it was a rather ordinary day, I’m not surprised that it so happened. This time, what shifts my mind to negativity was not the regular youth problems. It wasn’t a cheating boyfriend, a traitor friend, a broken nail, nor a zit. Those were never really my problems, after all, since I’d rather mourn for real problems like how the ice in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting.

It was, frankly, by the act of my own blood.

I am a dreamer by day and night. I wonder for so many things as much as I strive for them. I see both reality and fantasy just as amusing, and that when combined, would create harmony. Although I have yet to determine my specific purpose, I know it was towards the greatness of not just humanity, but the entire universe, if I’m capable.

That day, I was supposed to have lunch with my friend in the city. My mother couldn’t drive me that day since she was rather busy, and I wasn’t really in the mood to drive in the constant insane gridlock, which was extremely tiring. At first I considered to get a cab, but Mother had another brilliant plan. Her brother. So I waited for my uncle to pick me up and drive me to the city.

He was a jolly fellow, my uncle. For the last few years he hadn’t had a secure job, so Mother made him help us sometimes since he had a lot of free time. The times he helped us like this time, brought me even closer to him for the fun and chatty person he is. Although he was currently in an unfortunate condition, I can still talk to him about anything with a wise and resourceful response, and his current state gives me the idea that no matter how doomed you are, the time of life is no time to waste on mourning.

The ride to the city took more than an hour from my house, so we had plenty of time to chat. There was laughing about a TV series we both liked to watch, and there was also arguing about the plan of a mega construction in a small town. No hard feelings was given, and I’m grateful that he’s aware of the environment. He didn’t forget to stop by the mini market to get snacks for our worthwhile ride. With him, I gained insights, and an ice cream.

The road became even crowded as we got closer to the city. I worry that I would be late, but my uncle did what he did best, which is to drive in a densely packed city. He slipped in between cars, took shortcuts, and then we made it to an area closer to the city in five to ten minutes, when it could have been a half hour. However, he wasn’t too familiar with the area we just came in, so I assist in navigating with the help of Google Maps. Now that’s what I’m good at.

There was a turn to the left that I noticed almost behind time. I told him to immediately take the left lane, and he managed to make it. However, as we slighted left, a policeman waved to our car as he walked out of his post in quick big steps, gesturing us to pull over. My uncle grunted, but we did nothing wrong, so we obeyed to pull over.

“You disobeyed the road surface marks. Don’t get used to cutting in line. I’m going to have to give you the ticket, and you’ll finish this business at the court.”, the policeman said through the opened window.

That’s fine, I thought. My parents could afford the penalty, or maybe even me, and we would never do such thing again. It’s not like we committed a huge crime. So I handed him the vehicle ownership card and asked for the ticket, and then we shall be on our way. If Mother was busy, I could go to the court and take care of it. But that wasn’t what happened.

My uncle, however, had different notions. He bombarded the policeman with excuses as he tried to reach for his wallet in his pocket. The excuses didn’t seem like he wanted to argue, so I tried to ease my tense a little. Yet we were there for quite a while, when I figured the policemen should’ve been looking out for actual crimes like potential kidnapping or drug and bomb smuggling that could perhaps occur on this very road. Instead, he spent his time chatting pointlessly with my uncle. There’s no need for arguing with the police when we were obviously wrong, I thought.

Then he started, “I’m sorry sir, but I really have no time to go to the court for such a minor thing. In fact, nobody really does. We were sort of in a hurry, and there won’t be a next mistake. Please, excuse us.” He handed the policeman a fifty thousand rupiah bill.

The policeman accepted it without hesitation, and stepped away from our car. We took off slowly and then accelerating to get as far from there as possible.

Such act was a common thing around us, so I’m not at all surprised, even by the response of the policeman. It seemed like the only blunt way to keep moving.

I may be just a young adult, but I despise ignorance. Police bribing is a common thing here, yet I can’t help but wonder if there was a way to end this. Shouldn’t it be, that if one person, like me, did differently, could perhaps change the perception of the society? Then gradually, the act of bribing policemen will disappear, followed by the occurring in companies and the government, resulting in a clean and prosper nation. How our lives would be better, I wonder, if we have a whole nation of kind-hearted and intelligent people.

“He should’ve just give us the damn ticket. And you should’ve just handed him the vehicle ownership card.”, I blurted out.

“Are you kidding me? Who the hell has the time to take care of that? Nobody, really, like I said. Plus, the service is very poor. You can imagine the money and time spent for all of that. I’d rather invest in something worthy, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t help but agree with him. Yet I also couldn’t help to dream of a better system.

“Then the government should give a better service. The policemen should’ve stopped accepting bribes, and the people should stop bribing. It shouldn’t be that hard to resist, I guess, since the regular people wouldn’t have power like Pablo Escobar, who would threaten the lives of you and your family if you didn’t accept the bribe. It even sounds ridiculous nowadays. One person that does differently, could impact. Imagine the harmony that could emerge. Don’t we want a change?”, I told him.

He chuckled with sarcasm. “Oh, you little thing. You fly high for so long that you forgot to put your feet back on the ground. There’s no way. That’s just the way people are, you know? There’s no changing that. The world is not the heaven, so why should you expect a pure humanity? We’re the damned demons, and we should just play along.”

I sensed rage welling up inside me.

“I understand that, I really do.”, I kept trying to argue amidst my clouded rationality. “I also understand that generating such change does not happen overnight. Yet if, I hope, if somebody really cared enough to do something about it, there could be a change, although it might take years. At least we should try.”

“You were so naive to think that money isn’t everything. We’ll see to it ten years from now. But yeah, whatever. It’s nice to give it a try.”

I spoke nothing more along the way.

Although I forgot about it while I’m with my friend, I couldn’t resist the thought of being slapped in the face for having such hopes. All my life I’ve known for a fact that my own blood would be the very foundation of my purpose. My parents, grandparents, siblings, and other relatives could have perceptions that differs from mine, but deep down, I know that they would never doubt my ambition for dreaming of prosperity, especially one that would involve themselves and a great population. Never would I ever heard them say the exact words of denial, until now.

While I was still in anger for that matter a few days later, I tried to do a little bit of research, so I could come back to him only to win that argument. I have faith that not everyone is like that, and that the amount of people who would do such thing is decreasing. Only then did I found a map of the world, showing the corruption perception index of each country in 2018. The color scale ranges from dark red, which indicates a highly corrupted country, to a bright yellow, which indicates that the country is very clean. Like most countries, my country looked mildly red on that map. My uncle was right, and I was wrong.

What I learned that day from my uncle is that I am basically still very naive, no matter how much I have learned and experienced. The part that stings the most was the very notion that my dreams were ineligible to be fulfilled.

There’s no way, he said. It kept ringing in my head.

As much as I want to believe that I could perhaps slap him back after accomplishing, the feeling of disappointment that my own blood didn’t believe in me will live in me for the rest of my life. I was upset for the time spent on learning was for nothing, not even for good grades. I was enraged for realising that my heartfelt notion was only a reflection of my innocence. Most of all, I felt like withdrawing from learning any further, for I will always be naive and ignorant in the eyes of the experienced, no matter how much I know.

I was sad and hopeless, for the dreams that were broken.

— — —

2019