For those of you who are lying down but have the brains to walk.
Archipelagotimes.com – In a city whose roads are often damaged but still confidently calls itself megapolitan, love sometimes comes in the least romantic place: the Transjakarta bus stop. There are no flowers, no poetry. Only the smell of wet asphalt, puddles mixed with oil, and old speakers echoed the announcement like a spell of exhaustion. But there, every time it rains, two people stand still like an unfinished soap opera script. He was wearing a faded denim jacket and earphones without music, and he was wearing white shoes that were always wet on the right.
For three months, the two of them witnessed each other—not as lovers, but as faint figures in the midst of a landscape too busy to pay attention to love. There was no greeting, just stealing each other’s glances when they felt safe enough from the gaze of the reply. Sometimes they come together, sometimes one waits first. Always at that stop. Always when it rains. It was as if the heavens deliberately arranged a meeting without promise.
According to a LIPI survey last year, more than 60% of urban residents admitted to feeling lonely despite living in a crowd. Perhaps that’s why the love that happens in a big city like Jakarta is no longer about a thousand poems, but about two strangers who dare to wait in the same place, at almost always the wrong hour. Love is now like a public Wi-Fi connection: it often breaks, but when it is connected, it feels like you forget your data plan.
But in the last rain in May, the sky seems to be starting to get bored as a mediator. It was raining heavily, and this time one of them—a woman with a tote bag that read “Books, not Boys”—saw her umbrella torn right at the end. The man turned his head, and for the first time, their gazes lasted for more than two seconds. “Do you want to ride?” he said, his voice hoarse hesitating like an AM radio. He nodded, and they were now under a pink tacky umbrella. Too narrow for two people, but wide enough for the beginning of the story.
They walked along the uneven sidewalk. Slow steps, occasional clashing hands, and small laughter in between complaints about water getting into shoes. It’s not a grand story, but it’s honest. It’s not love that thunders, but it quietly grows in between too routine routines.
Maybe there must be something leaked first for love to enter. Whether it’s an umbrella, a work schedule, or a pretend strong heart.