GREY MARNI
Undecided

...Without saying goodbye, the fire burns the leaves...

...Innocent flowers participate in the blazing flames...

...That night was lit by a fire...

...Darkened by a longing...

...The human heart becomes ashes along with wounds that continue to burn blood vessels...

...His blood was boiling, his bones were whimpering...

...His eyes were puffed up by the heat of the fire...

...----------------...

"Rud, you're off tomorrow, right?" Ask Andin from a small phone.

"Yes, what's wrong?"

"What if we get out of town?"

"Where?"

"Without a destination, just take a walk?"

"All right"

Rudi's short answer was accompanied by a refreshing guitar that afternoon. Andin does not take heart with how the attitude of Rudi answers questions as well as his desire to get out of town. After all, every answer Rudi gave was a piece of the song he was singing.

Andin talked a lot at that time, Rudi listened carefully from behind a small mobile phone that he put on the table right next to his ear.

"Tomorrow the afternoon I go there, you must be ready when I get there."

"He'em"

"What time's afternoon?" Added Rudi after a short reply.

"Fifth hour I'm there, maybe half a six has arrived"

"All right"

Their phones were on for a long time. From four o'clock to adzan maghrib. Andin hasn't hung up on him yet and Rudi is still playing his guitar.

Song by song is conveyed in strands of feelings that suppress sadness. Rudi still remembered how his eyes and Marni's eyes faced each other even though some days had been too.

His memory carried his guitar to an abyss of sadness. The song he was carrying slowly perched in a cage of sadness and Andin noticed it.

"Are you sad?" Ask Andin.

"No"

"Your doubts are changed, I hear a sadness in every temple"

"That's just your feeling"

Rudi started the song again with a different and more cheerful verse. It makes Andin more convinced that his lover is being hit by a dilemma that there is no one happiness between the two.

After half an hour after the Maghrib prayer, Andin hung up his phone and Rudi lit a cigarette that he had left lying on the ground.

He sucked deeply, the smoke coming out of his nose and mouth as if carrying some sadness.

Rudi put down his guitar, straightened his legs, looked at the ceiling and imagined the smile and gaze of a woman named Marni.

It was as if the world was telling him to put his heart on another woman, other than Andin. Rudi was struck by a nervousness in his heart. He really admired the beauty of Marni who was covered in cloth.

The man who was bare-chested dissolved deep and deepened until someone knocked on the door of his room.

"Rude! Are you inside?"

Laura's voice ended her dreamy daydream.

"Yes a minute Ra"

Rudi put on a shirt and opened the door for Laura. Laura who was wearing a negligee with a face full of masks made Rudi surprised while looking at her.

"What's the matter Ra?"

"There's nothing. Are you busy?"

"No, I'm just relaxing for a moment"

"You're talking in front of my house, aren't you?"

"Now?"

"Yes, could. But I haven't had a shower"

"Have a shower first"

"All right"

"I'm waiting in front of the house"

Rudi hurriedly went to the bathroom and Laura went towards her house.

...----------------...

one cup of black coffee, one glass of warm milk and one pack of doughnut bread on the table accompanied their conversation.

"Rud, have you ever not started to doubt someone in the middle of a relationship you've been in for a long time?"

"Once, what's wrong?"

"What did you do then?"

"Waiting"

"What are you waiting for?"

"A thing that will determine what I need to do and decide."

"just that? What was your decision at the time?"

"Eitherway. You're leavening your relationship with Erlang?"

"No! Not that, I was just thinking about that time. What if that time comes."

"Ohh, I guess"

"Erlang is a good man. Besides he was a man who managed to rise from a slump of broken household relations."

"Hahaha, it's as beautiful as Erlang in your eyes."

"What do you think of him?"

"Hahaha, crazy and joking"

"Hahaha, that's why I agree too"

They laughed for a while after their serious chatter was over. Erlang's behavior is always a memory that will entertain.

I drank coffee that was getting cold. Andin dipped the bread in his warm milk. The two of them enjoyed a night that had begun to be quiet and silent together.

Amidst the excitement that began to grow, Laura suddenly asked a question that made Rudi choked by the coffee he had just drank without having time to swallow.

"Who is the better fit for you? Marni or Andin?" Laura asked without guilt.

Laura saw how Rudi choked on coffee and she just acted as if what happened to Rudi was not the question.

Rudi rubbed his mouth, then he put his coffee on the table again. He prepared to answer Laura's selfless question.

"I've chosen"

"Emmm, sure?"

"Concure yourself!"

Laura smiled then turned her face from before Rudi and looked straight ahead. Rudi was still staring at the look on Laura's face which seemed to be thinking about something.

There was a moment of silence after Laura turned her face away. Not a single word came out of their mouths.

"I met Marni again yesterday, on the bus." Rudi.

Laura turned towards Rudi with a serious face. He just stared and waited for Rudi to continue his story.

Rudi also told me everything except when he and Marni looked at each other. It would be completely contrary to what he said before.

Rudi tells how Marni fished herself with some questions that she seemed to have prepared. Rudi also recounted Marni's last question which he did not answer until she left Marni.

Laura just kept quiet and examined Rudi's words. The woman just listened and nodded her head as if she understood something.

"It seems you really don't have any feelings for this Marni."

"It's like I said before"

"Ahhhhh... I'm actually very curious about this Marni. How pretty is this woman, how smart is this woman. Sometimes I can't sleep just because I think about why this woman is so mysterious and arguably weird."

"Hahaha, so it's more creepy"

"Hahaha, yes"

Somehow that night became so cold that it made small feathers that were not covered in clothes stand up.

Rudi gave her coffee and then said goodbye to Laura to go to her room.

"Yes, I want to sleep" said Rudi.

"Yes, I'm also very sleepy. Moreover, the air tonight is very cold."

"I feel that way too."

Rudi walked over the fence of Laura's house and went to her room.

Inside Rudi's room lit a cigarette. He looked at the ceiling of his room and said something.

"Wouldn't I be the most despicable man when I change my heart just because of an attraction that even I'm still leavened by that attraction."

Rudi tried to calm himself as well as his mind. He tried to rethink some of Andin's beauty that he remembered most easily.

Rudi thought about when Andin finished the bath and just put on her towel. At that time Andin looked very beautiful and sexy.

Suddenly he remembered the towel that had been used by Andin. Rudi moved from her bed to the bathroom. He took the towel and then hugged it to sleep.