Gifts and Curses

I tried writing amateurish stories in English. It’s hard. Tenses and all. This story is still under construction.

1 Cool under Fire

“That’s it! I’m gonna change my name after all this.”

This boy speaking before me, whose hands were scratching his head with his back against the jammed door, is my classmate, Bejo Sasongko. He and I were currently being imprisoned in the school’s sports equipment storage house (or should I say the confiscated sports equipment storage house; as most of the stuff here belonged to students who ‘unlawfully’ brought their own ‘playthings’ to school). As to why he’s ranting about his name instead of shouting out curses or asking for a solution, I had no idea.

I have got to admit that in my adolescent fantasies I have imagined being stuck in a closed space like this. Though in those fantasies, I would be stuck in a romantic situation with a female schoolmate or a hot female teacher. Being stuck here alone with one other boy for standing up to bullying sophomores was never a part of my imagination.

“Seriously? You’re gonna be talking about your name instead of screaming for help?” I said. That was no sarcasm; that was pure question. I really was getting impatient with him. Today’s a hot day. It’s like there’s a crack in the fiery pits of hell and the heat was leaking to earth. This room has no air conditioner; not even a fan.

“We’re stuck inside the farthest storage house from the school ground when everybody else are either already home or hanging out at the noodle kiosk! All because at lunchtime I got to stand behind that damned gorilla, Dado! All these unluckiness is my name’s fault. I keep running into some unlucky shit my whole life because of my name. I’m telling you, it’s a jinx to name someone ‘Bejo’, man!” He irrationally ranted about his somewhat old-fashioned name, which actually contains the wonderful meaning of ‘fortunate’ in Javanese, the language of his ancestors.

“Any child’s name is a blessing and well-meant prayer from their parents, Jo. Besides, you need to quit being hysterical, dimwit.Why don’t you haul your ass over behind those racks and help me look for a window or a door.”

Except there was no other door. None. Nada. This storage house wasn’t so big that they would need to build more than one entry point. Of course, I was only saying that to get him away from the door. It’s just that I knew a way to get that door open; I just can’t let anyone see me doing it.

Bejo started to move in between racks, searching for openings that aren’t there. At the same time, I was examining the jammed door. Those sophomores locked us here about two hours ago; for another twenty minutes i could still hear them laughing outside. Then those laughing voices were gone; which means Bejo’s right about them leaving us. Good, then I can use my ability without anyone witnessing.

I put my hand on the doorknob. Focusing my mind on the object, I began to absorb its heat. Slowly, my hands started to heat up. The heat was leaving the cooling steel. The locking mechanism began to freeze. I only needed to freeze it until it’s brittle enough to break easily without leaving wet traces of ice. Finding debris covered in cold water and crystal in this city during summertime would invoke another alien-slash-magician-slash-government conspiracy theories.

I didn’t want to do this. My uncle warned me of the consequences of using this ability. But I had no choice. It’s not like this wasn’t an emergency. I had to get out, I didn’t wanna spend my fifteenth birthday being held hostage.

“Dude, there’s like nothing to escape through from here!”

“Keep looking!” I shouted back at Bejo to keep him back. I needed a few more seconds.

“I’m telling ya! There’s no way out! I can’t believe my phone battery would go dead at a time like this!” He’s already behind me. Fortunately I was done. My palm felt hot. It’s like I was holding a cup of hot chocolate drink or something. Pardon that chocolate expression, it was the first thing that popped in my mind. Maybe I’ll make one as soon as I get home.

“Hey, maybe we should just kick the door open.” I suggested.

“We tried that before, Kel, didn’t you remember? We weren’t strong eno—“

BRAKK!

–ugh?”

I kicked the door open, the locking mechanism was shattered. It was enough, and  ice-free too.

“W-whoa… you did it, Kel!”

“I’ve broken some Dragon ironpipes with my feet before, Jo. This door’s just a little harder. Now let’s skedaddle before those second-years come back.” I said as I grabbed our bag. We then fled the schoolyard, quietly and quickly. Thankfully we didn’t encounter any lingering bullies.

I prayed that no one saw what just happened. Men in Black and kildare agents (to use my uncle’s terminology) would come knocking on our school’s rolling door if they so much as heard about a magic-related activity took place in school ground.

That said, I was never a mage, though. I don’t do spells or cook frog eggs and lizard brains in a cauldron. I’m more like a mutant from them X-men comics. That thing I just performed are more of an idiosyncratic ability that I possess since I don’t know when.

2 Deceptive Images

That night was an unnaturally cold night.

I used the word “unnatural” rather correctly. As naturally I would have no problem with weather, any weather.  Temperature manipulation (for lack of better terms) was something of a specialty to me. To put it in my uncle’s word, that was my “idiosyncrasy”. Battling cold winds should have been as simple as absorbing the heat from my surrounding air and ground to me.

And yet, there I was, in the middle of the darker part of the shopping district. Among buildings that sells drinks to people who are at least 2 years older than me; buildings that sell hopes of winning big; and buildings  that serves people of.. *ahem… adult tastes . Don’t get any ideas. Allegedly somewhere around here exists a bookstore that sells rare stuff. That particular store only opens after sundown since the owner allegedly goes to the university in daytime, which explains why I was there at seven o’clock on a school day, really. Any suspicion that I was there to do something illegal is false and thus will be frowned upon.

Back to the initial topic. Absorbing a little bit of heat from my surroundings should easily kept my body warm, and in a sense it did. So why did my arms and jaw tremble like I was playing water polo atop the Mahameru? Based on experience, it’s hunches. Hunches that something bad was about to occur. I didn’t have the kind of sixth sense that could draw the future correctly. Having one would make me popular among my schoolmate as a human horoscope prediction machine like a certain someone who will not be named here. And yet I do get hunches from time-to-time. It helped me to stay aware.

So I did what I always did when I get such hunches; I walked closer to the wall; My right hand was inside my jacket-pocket with its thumb readied to send the readily drafted SMS to my uncle stating my last whereabouts just in case someone smothers me without giving me a chance to fight; My left hand was holding a fistful of hard coins (if you don’t have any weapon, a fistful of coins could be a life-saver). That bookstore was not far, hopefully I could make it there before anything happens.

Nothing special happened during the next 50 steps. I was beginning to feel that my hunch was just another false alarm, which was good. However on my 51^st step I saw something unusual. Snap. Before me stood a girl about my age. She wasn’t very tall. In fact she’s kind of small. A thug-faced lad stood in front of her gesturing his head towards an alleyway. Behind her stood another thug-faced lad in a denim jacket, his hands that were inside his kidney-pockets looks quite big that it drew an outline on the surface of the jacket. His right index finger stuck out to the front, or rather, that seems more like a revolver barrel than a finger.

The three of them moved into the alley, the girl didn’t seem to be as amused as the three lads. Normally, being suspicious of a pack that consists of a good-looking girl and a (or two) lad (or lads) would only invite laughter among peers (or scolding from a politically correct friend). However, seeing this kind of situation in an alleyway within a questionable district really got my curiosity going. So I followed them.

A few meters inside the alley they stopped. It’s kind of dark here, so I thought they won’t notice a tagalong hiding behind the trash can.

“This is far enough! Jeez, What’s wrong with paying in the main street anyway?” said the girl as she pulled out an envelope.

“Gimme that, sweetcheeks.” The lad in the brown t-shirt grabbed the envelope and took a peek inside.

“That’s enough, innit? I’m going now.” The girl turned towards me. Wait no, towards the main street.

“Not so fast, Cit.” The denim-jacket-guy grabbed her wrist. However, as if guided by Max Mercury, the zen master of speed, ‘Cit’ quickly turned around and pushed the guy’s shoulder onto the wall with her fist. The guy proceeded to pull out his gun, but Cit quickly grabbed the iron wand and pointed its barrel at her assailants. It looked like she won’t be needing my help after all.

“Eeeaasy, girl. Give that back before somebody gets hurt.”

“D’ya think I’m afraid to pull the trigger, boy? DO YA?”

The denim guy held his two palms up. The other one just stood there.

“Already gave you the money. That should cover your “protection” fee and your friend’s nose. Now let me go!”

“That won’t be enough, Babe. Blek’s pretty pissed ‘bout you messin up his brother’s nose and such, Now he wants more from you.”

“Yeah, This dough’s enough for your grampa’s store this month, yet not enough to cool down Blek’s anger, see. When the man’s angry, he just gotta have what he wants.” As  Brown-shirt said that, about six other thugs came from another alley behind them. One of them now stood between Cit and Denim Guy, the others started circling around them. That first guy, who I recon was ‘Blek’, quickly grabbed the gun. Cit only stood there dumbfounded, though not for long.

“He’s right, Citra. You got quite some balls for a chick, breaking my brotha’s face like that. Now it gonna took’im awhile before he could score another chick.”

“Your brother only got what he deserved for thrashing my store and touching me like that, Blek. I owe nothing. Neither to you nor to him.”

“Looks like I’m just gonna have to rough ya up a bit, bitch.” Blek looks around to his friends. “Don’t worry guys, y’all’ll get your share tonight.”

Those thugs looked serious, some of them drew out their switchblades. Switchblades? What the heck, where in tarnation were these guys from? Some Rebel Without a Cause fan-club? Did I woke up in the 1950s this evening?

“Give it up Cit! The more you fight the rougher we’ll be, bitch.”

“I ain’t your bitch, you disrespectful sewer-rats! I don’t bow to you! It is you who will lower your head before me.” Saying her badass boast, ‘Citra’ jump kicks one of the thug’s in the face. But she then got pushed by another in mid-air and fell to the ground. The other thugs started to close down on her, one was pulling her pants down while the other are giving her face a beating. They seemed like a flurry of shadow movements, I can’t make out which is which.

I know I followed them to the alley to help her just in case something bad happened. But when it came down to this, I couldn’t move from my hiding place. I got scared of the 5 thugs. A girl’s about to get violated in front of you dammit! Move your legs!

I pulled my self to move, one leg at a time, but I was stopped when the thug that was pulling her pants off suddenly screamed. The other pulled their fist back and observed the body on the ground.

It was Blek, their boss.

“Boss!”

“What the f—“

Citra stood before them, unharmed and remarks: “Whaddya know, you just did ya own boss. Seriously guys, stop thinking with your gonads.” The other thugs tried to silence her laughter by lunging at her. This alley was dark enough that I could only see them as a blur of 5 figures awkwardly beating each other up. But in about 3 minutes the standing silhouettes are reduced to two: One of a girl holding a revolver. one of a guy horrified of the situation he’s in.

“Wha-! How-! When-!?”

“When you’re busy beating off your comrades, genius.” Citra smiles as she pushed the gun barrel onto his mouth. The thug was trembling. The victorious girl then closed in on his ear and whispered something. I heard a small explosion. The man then fell down.

“You, the one watching from behind the trash-can. What it is you want?!” She asked again, pointing the gun at my direction.” I’m so dead.

“Okay, okay. Don’t shoot, I’m not one of them.” I came out of my hiding place; arms up in the somewhat warmer night sky.

“You think we was some kind of movie or something boy? I don’t appreciate voyeuristic guys who like to watch a girl get beat.” She said, still pointing the revolver at me. I gotta tell you, It’s not like I have never been in fights. I just never got into a fight with guns. These steel wands scared me, especially when I could see down their barrel like this. From the gun’s point of view this must look like one of them James Bond cold openings. Except I wasn’t wearing a tux or carrying a Walther PPK.

“I meant no harm… I just wanted to help. Okay, maybe it turns out I’m not courageous enough. But really, I was just worried about you.” The girl’s bright brown eyes observed me from beyond the gun and her arm.

“Thanks, Kel. But as you can see. I can take care of myself.” Citra lowered the gun. I found myself breathe a sigh of relief.

“It seems so…. Wait, how did you know my name?” I realized that the girl just called me by my first name.

“Kelvin Wijayakusuma. 1^st grade, class D. Registered as member of the visual arts club yet was only present on the first day. Skipped school on a weekly basis.”

“… Seriously, how did you know all that?”

“I am a member of said club, dumbass. I have seen you before.” Citra laughed. She really was kind of pretty. Pity she had a real foul mouth. But then again, I was kind of dumbass for not noticing this girl during my first (and only) presence in the club.

“Citra Nabukudracara, 1^st grade, Class F. Now we had a proper introduction.” She switched her gun-holding hand and shook my hand. Gun. My mind raced back to the explosion I heard before. I glanced at the guy that I believed she had shot. He was still lying in the ground… but I don’t smell any burning flesh or see any blood flowing.

What the hell just happened?

Citra followed my glance and stared at the body. She realized what I was dumbfounded about.

“Relax, look at this” she emptied the revolver, and I saw six bullets fell down to the cold asphalt. Whole bullets, not just shells. Wait… six?

“I never fired the gun, the guy’s alive.”

“But how!? I clearly heard explosion then!”

“Only because I want everyone in this alley to hear said explosions, Mr. Wijayakusuma.” She said, from behind me… What?

The other Citra tapped her fingers on my shoulder. I glanced back and forth from the girl behind me to the girl in front of me. They’re both the same girl. Not twins. They were identical down to the scars above their left eyebrows.

In a moment, the one in front of me disappears. The one behind me now looked identical to me. Same hair, same face, same clothing, same dirty shoes. It’s like looking at a mirror, except I wasn’t. Then the other me said, in my voice:

“This ain’t no dream, Kel. This is me, this is real.” So I see, this girl was another idiosyncratic human. Another surprise I got. I wasn’t sure if I’ll ever be able to forget that day, my fifteenth birthday.