#*emosi

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The Book of Queens by Joumana Haddad

Am I the only person on the face of this earth who's more frightened to live than to die? More terrified to be happy than to be miserable? I look at the cheerful face smiling at me, and I feel desperate and alone, like a still drop of water in a running river. How can these people be cheerful? Don't they know this is a scam? That they are trying to cheat the void? My mind orders me to feel god, but my heart won't obey. Somewhere between two, the nerves has been cut, communication blocked. This heart of mine is empty, no, it's full—of corpses. They are all crammed in it like worms, eating me up, slowly chewing my organs. Nibble, nibble, nibble, there goes my left lung. Is that why I can barely breathe? How much does a heart weight? An empty heart, a non-heart, without the load of love, passion, disappointment, anticipation, affection, ache, excitement, desire, regret, doubt, anger, resentment, warmth, ambition, faith, anxiety, suspicion? Without the load of all these we have lost along the way? An old woman I've never seen before comes and kisses me. I feel a strong urge to wipe the wet sensation of her lips off my cheeks. I feel like slitting my cheeks open with my long painted nails so that they bleed away this lie. Her kiss is a brown stain of my soul, telling me what a dirty fraud I am. She says, "I hope we'll see your children soon." I do not want any children. My wombs is crammed with corpses too. No place for a baby there. The worms would eat it bit by bit. I do not want any children. Not as long as children can die.

[theturnofthephrases]

Lili Putih karya Nayrouz Qarmout (diterjemahkan oleh Sasti Gotama), dari kumpulan cerpen The Sea Cloak.

"Baba, gadis-gadis di sekolah sedang membicarakan nyamuk raksasa yang meluncurkan roket dari langit." "Tidak, tidak, Sayang," jawabnya, "tak ada hal-hal semacam itu." Gadis itu mengamati wajah ayahnya. "Kalau begitu, suara bising apa itu?" "Itu nyamuk, tetapi tidak meluncurkan roket. Yakinlah. Langit hanya mengirimi kita hujan dan bunga, bukankah begitu?" "Ya, Baba. Dan serangga juga membantu bunga-bunga tumbuh. Ya, kan? Guruku memberi tahu kami tentang itu. Ia punya istilah khusus: drone. Itu bukan nyamuk sungguhan. Ukurannya jauh lebih besar—seperti pesawat, tapi enggak ada pilotnya. Drone itu menyemprotkan pestisida dari angkasa. Kalau aku besar nanti, aku mau jadi pengendali drone. Aku ingin menyemprot tanah lapang agar bebungaan dan pepohonan bisa tumbuh dengan cepat. Bayangkan memandang hamparan hijau itu di layar komputerku! Buzzzzz, buzzz—lihat, Baba! Aku jadi nyamuk."

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The History of a Play by Tennessee Williams

For one moment ... that there are people—millions!—to say things to. We come to each other, gradually, but with love. It is the short reach of my arms that hinders, not the length and multiplicity of theirs. With love and with honesty, the embrace is inevitable. 

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Immortality by Milan Kundera (translated by Peter Kussi)

From the moment she got married Agnes lost all the pleasure of solitude: at work she spent eight hours a day in one room with the colleagues; then she returned home, to a four-room apartment. Not a single one of the rooms was hers: there was a large living room, a bedroom for the parents, a room for Brigitte, and Paul’s small study. When she complained, Paul suggested that she consider the living room her own room and he promised her (with undoubted sincerity) that neither he nor Brigitte would disturb her there. But how could she feel at home in a room with a dining table and eight chairs used only for dinner guests?

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Sampar (The Plague) oleh Albert Camus (diterjemahkan oleh NH Dini)

Menurut Grand, kelanjutan cerita amat sederhana. Seperti semua orang, mereka kawin, mereka masih saling mencinta sedikit, mereka bekerja. Lalu mereka begitu keras bekerja sehingga lupa untuk mencinta … Karena terlalu lelah, dia berangsur-angsur kehilangan perhatian, menjadi masa bodoh, makin lama semakin pendiam dan tidak menimbulkan kesan bahwa Jeanne yang muda masih dicintai. Suami yang bekerja, kemiskinan, masa depan yang perlahan-lahan tertutup, kebisuan di waktu-waktu makan bersama. Di dunia semacam itu tidak ada tempat lagi bagi cinta. 

[theturnofthephrases]

Change The Rapper’s Golden Year by Hanif Abdurraqib-Willis, from They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us

This, more than anything, is about how there is sometimes only one single clear and clean surface on which to dance, and sometimes it only fits you and no one else. This is about hope, sure, but not in the way that it is often packaged as an antithesis to that which is burning. It was an endless year that was sometimes hot and sometimes unbearable, and I sometimes threw open my windows and let music flood into the streets and I sometimes watched people glance up with a knowing smile, the way we do when a sermon calls us home, or calls us back to something better or away from somewhere worse.

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Weight by Margaret Atwood, from Wilderness Tips

Once a month I wake in the night, slippery with terror. I’m afraid, not because there’s someone in the room, in the dark, in the bed, but because there isn’t. I’m afraid of the emptiness, which lies beside me like a corpse … In the daytime, I am fine. I lead a rich full life. There is, of course, my career. I shine away at it like an antique brass. I add on to it like a stamp collection. It props me up: a career like an underwired brassiere. Some days I hate it. 

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The Lover by Marguerite Duras

Never a hello, a good evening, a happy New Year. Never a thank you. Never any talk. Never any need to talk. Everything always silent, distant. It’s a family of stone, petrified so deeply it’s impenetrable. Everyday we try to kill one another, to kill. Not only do we not talk to one another, we don’t even look at one another. When you’re being looked at you can’t look. To look is to feel curious, to be interested, to lower yourself. No one you look at is worth it. Looking is always demeaning. The word conversation is banished. I think that’s what best conveys the shame and the pride. Every sort of community, whether of the family or otherwise, is hateful to us, degrading. We’re united in a fundamental shame at having to live. It’s here we are at the heart of our common fate, the fact that all three of us are our mother’s children, the children of a candid creature murdered by society. We’re on the side of the society which has reduced her to despair. Because of what’s been done to our mother, so amiable, so trusting, we hate life, we hate ourselves.