Selamat(,) Tinggal(?)

Selamat : adj. Congratulations; Safe

Tinggal : adj. Stay; Left(behind)

When you put the two together, the meaning transforms in a literal manner to a way of saying “Good Bye.”

But, honestly, is there ever a good in any bye(s)?

The sun is scorching hot. Some would probably say Bali is a heaven of a destination, and that might probably be true in a lot of sense. But for you who’s been living there for your entire life, you would probably argue that any other place is a better place than the one you’re at.

Heat makes you stupid. Literally. It slows down your brain. Hinders your bodily functions. Which are not the things you would exactly prefer when you’re doing the work of at least five men today.

As a pig farmer, you’re not really expected to work in cool places anyway. Farms are hot, stuffy, and really just borderline uncomfortable. But you endured. To be fair, you can be called lucky for having this job. The economy has been on a steady downfall for the past few years now. The slump from COVID, and the absolute shite of this new regime of government in Indonesia, have only been doing bad things towards the workers class. 

Again, you’re lucky to be able to work at all. The unemployment rate is at an all time high. Prices are skyrocketing. Wages on the other hand, is at a steady decrease. That being said, it doesn’t mean that you can’t complain about having such a shitty day at your job today.

Shitty day. Pigs eat trash. Literal trash. It doesn't mean that farmers would deliberately give them trash for their meal every day, it’s just that these animals' appetites are so bottomless that they would eat everything they can set their eyes upon. Normally, your job is only to count things. Yes, as a bachelor of Economy, you’re tasked to manage the financial aspect of the whole farm. But most business owners in the country are the type who want maximum profit for minimum cost, which means doubling jobs is a common occurrence here. The farm owner you work for isn’t an exception. Today, your job is quadrupling.

The one in charge of cleaning the site, feeding the pigs, and managing the meatstock are usually different people. Somehow, someway, in this very miraculously unsuspicious manner, they are all absent for the day. Needless to say, your job today is to handle all of those, on top of your own.

“I never fucking signed up for this,” you wipe the beads of sweat off your forehead. You’ve been cleaning the farm for almost an hour now. Which you now know, is not the wisest thing to do at literal noon. If you weren’t already conditioned to the smell of a pig farm, you would probably have fainted since the first time you entered the place.

“Rude 이랬다저랬다, no rule 꽤나 뻔뻔한 attitude (I'm not bad) You can't make me act right Rude I don't care, 이게 나라구 아무렇게나 추는 춤 (따라 해) You can't make me act right”

The energetic beat of this newly released song from Hearts2Hearts, titled RUDE!, is blasting off your SONY WF-1000XM6 Wireless Noise Cancelling Earbuds.

You smile a bitter smile. The voice is crisp, clear, and oh so harmonious to your ears. No, it’s not because you’re wearing the state of the art earbuds(even though you are), rather it’s because you heard a familiar voice. A voice that belongs to a woman you knew, an acquaintance, you would probably go as far as saying she’s a friend. It’s the voice of Carmen. She sounds as powerful as she ever was in this song. A tear slowly forms on the corner of your eyes.

The whole discography of Hearts2Hearts played out in a heartbeat. They’re a new group, so there really isn’t that much song as of now. But, of all the songs that they do have, it all sounds good. At least for you that is. You don’t even know if they actually are that good, or is it just your particular feelings towards Carmen that makes their song sounds amazing.

You knew Carmen back when you’re still in high school. She’s a fleeting passage. A presence so mystifying that you’re not entirely sure whether she was actually real or not. She enrolled in the same school as yours for only the first year before dropping out and going radio silent. To be fair, the time when this happened was in the middle of the pandemic. So you wouldn’t know much about people of your age in there anyway. But, Carmen was not just any person.

The first time you ever heard her name was when the class was doing its first ever roll call. Her student’s ID is right above yours, so naturally you got to know something about her—albeit only her name at the time. On that same day, you decided to chat with her. If you were to be asked why? You’re not sure. You just felt that you and her would have a good chemistry in some way.

hi, carmen is it?
hiii, Who is this?im the person right next to your students ID. Teacher called my name in first period, you happen to be right before me so..., nice to meet you..? Save my number pls?ahhh, okok!

It started off like that. If you went back to the past to tell this little guy in his first year of high school that this friend of his would become one of the biggest rising stars in the K-Pop world, that little guy would probably laugh it off and call you delusional.

“I cannot focus on anything but you, baby I cannot focus on anything but you 초점 뒤의 흐릿한 반투명한 my view, baby I cannot focus on anything, on anyone, but you”

You whistle to the melody. Being lost in their songs is a good way to forget the fact that you are currently scraping off pig’s manure from the flooring of the farm.

“Wait a damn minute,” you raise your head and pinch your eyes in order to remember something.

“I cannot focus-”

“SHIT!” you shout, unironically standing beside a pile of shit.

“IT’S HARVESTING DAY TOMORROW!” you hurry to the main office of the farm. “How can I fucking forget that its already November whatthefuck,” you mumble as you open the sales logbook.

Harvesting day for a pig farm really means to sell pigs that are deemed ready to supply the market’s demands. The larger a farm is, the more often the sales become, since pigs are generally marketable in every age they’re in. The farm you’re working with is, however, not that big of a farm, so you really only have to account for pigs that are ready for slaughter—6-8 months old, weighing around 100-130kg. 

Despite the farm being only adequately sized, the nature of the Balinese people to have so many holidays in a year makes it so that the sales of the pigs are still frequent enough to be called ‘busy’. The busiest day is still the same as it is anywhere else internationally. That is, during Christmas and New Year.

You jot down the number of the pigs that are available for December. There’s quite a lot of them currently, even you are amazed by the number of possible sales in the coming month.

“Alright, phew, now to send it to J-mon, my favorite boss. Man that guy must be stoked to see this number,” you say before reporting the numbers in the book to the owner of the farm. You’re honestly expecting a hefty bonus for this amount of pigs.

thats nice. We’re selling a lot this year. I know right? Meaning, a lot of bonus too, ya?haha. No.

You laugh behind the screen. You know your boss is joking, he’s that kind of guy. He’s actually pretty chill, but the best thing about him is that he’s a fair person. Always compensates his workers as much as they have worked. You’d put him in a higher regard if only he knew the limit of a human body–which apparently, he doesn’t.

Then you close the chatbox. 

By sheer accident, your hand slides across the archived message that you’ve kept hidden for the last three years. You accidentally open that chat again.

I’ll be going for god knows how long. Probably wont return to school.

Good bye

.

.

.

You take a good five seconds fixating on her messages. It is the last remnant of her trace in your life. After that message, She was never seen, heard, or really showed anything at all. Radio silence, for approximately three years. It was a scary experience to suddenly have her disappear from the face of the earth. You thought something bad happened. You couldn’t get any clearance on her. Not even her family knew what was going on. Until suddenly, last year, her face emerged once again. Carmen, a Balinese girl, a girl you befriended in highschool, a member of Hearts2Hearts, a K-Pop idol.

Good bye.

What the fuck is good about this?

You almost threw your phone into the bucket of pigs feed, but your self control got in the way. You can only smile in defeat. Your whole body feels weak—completely separate from the fact that you just did four men's work for half the day—so weak that you feel like you’re about to pass out in that farm’s office.

You try to be reasonable. Reason to yourself. Try to understand the things she must have gone through, for her to become an idol. It doesn’t happen overnight. Three long years in the making. Presumably, three long years of complete suffering and isolation. She must have had her own reason(s). But then again, so do you.

You miss her. Is that not reason enough?

December has come sooner than later. Your body gets more and more beat up these past few weeks. As it turns out, two of the workers in the farm have resigned without doing so much of a notice. J-mon couldn’t find a replacement soon enough for the year, so the remaining workers have to put up with the amount of extra work they have until the new year. That is, double the amount for every-single-day.

“Fuck! I’m beat,” you slump on the floor in the farm’s office. The sun is almost set, you just finished your day’s work.

“Tell me about it man, good God,” the man stretching his limbs beside you is the other remaining worker, Azel. He’s your senior. A bit of a strict person, but he’s still a cool guy to hang around with.

“So tell me, how is it even possible to finish bachelor’s degree in only two years? Isn’t Economy like, one of the hardest majors? How?” he asks.

You giggle, still lying on the floor. “This again? Seriously? I told you many times that you just have to completely dedicate yourself into studying, everything else will follow.”

“Yeah, well, you always give that same answer as well.”

“Cuz that’s how I did it!” you laugh, he smirks in appreciation.