The poetic thing that happens last week was that I lost my shoes. A pair of black canvas oxfords. Poetic, I thought, because it has been repaired three times before someone took them. What kind of desperate person stole an old, beaten pair of shoes from a sketchy kost residence? It also made me think about adulthood, how losing that pair of shoes means that I have to find another one. A new pair I can wear everywhere anytime at any occasion, which is kind of why I chose a pair of black oxfords. I’m a practical person, and I want people to know that I want to be a poet by looking at my shoes. I have to spend my salary on a pair of cool, durable shoes. But I have to change my glasses too, this one gave me headaches, the lens are cheap, scratched and dirty. But buying both in the same month is not something I can do. So this is adulthood, filled with needs and limitations, you can reach everything and be anything you want, you can work until you can’t feel your hands, in the end you just have to deal with what you need and what you want. Keeping them under the dome of “something you’re capable of doing”.
I was so full of myself, thinking about my shoes, glasses, salary, work, my sketchy kost that I want to move out of, and a pang of loneliness still hangs on the ceiling of my room refusing to go unnoticed. I remember I still have to go to the office regardless of what I wear under my feet, so I put on my least favorite shoes on, they gave me blisters. It’s all I got now, telling myself to not lose this one. Still with my eyes red and puffy I tried to find an ojek. Telling him where I am to pick me up. He’s nice in the chatroom asking for directions, then I noticed his name: Kim Hyeon.
Is he Korean? He then came and he’s got this asian-mongolian face. A Korean descendant perhaps, but here? In Jakarta? Why? He’s quirky, he refused to wear a helmet, and he took me to the small alleyways, he knows them like the back of his hand. He often says hi to the people who live in the area, he lives here, I thought and I grew curious. I wanted to ask how he ended up here, I figured that he was married when the locals he said hi to asked where his wife is, he said she’s at home.
I wish I had the gut to ask him about himself, I wish he’s also as talky as other drivers who talk about everything. Mr. Kim is the friendly korean neighbour who keeps his Korean name and convert to Islam, I can imagine him going to the mosque at dawn and would put on his baju koko on fridays. I wonder if his wife is also Korean. Maybe they’re immigrants from the Korean War seeking refuge here, and his father wants him to remember his Korean background by giving him a Korean name. I wonder what he named his kids.
All it takes was Mr. Kim to make everything feel better. Soon I forgot about my missing shoes and I get out of my head. All it takes was Mr. Kim, and I can see this city in yellow grainy filter again.
