《Sliding into DMs (BigJigglyPanda)》Thirteen

Advertisement

LINE BREAK LINE BREAK LINE BREAK LINE BREAK LINE BREAK LINE BREAK

Anthony stared at his desktop, showing Facebook search, a site he never knew would have logged in again. On his phone, showed an instagram feed, scrolled down to past posts. Anthony wanted to find answers. And since he couldn't put it into words, he relied so much on the internet.

So few days before, he saw an instagram post of Mami, that started it all. It was a painting of Balinese couple with traditional make up and all, like wedding tradition. On her caption said, 'a bond of two love, always together and forever' - after translation of course. At first, Anthony thought the bride was her, which didn't make any sense considering he knew damn well she was single and she had never told him anything. So his second thought was one of her brothers' wedding. But then again she never told him anything about wedding plan. So he decided that it was one of Mami's painting that she made - she did post it on Valentine's day anyway.

That was until he decided to translate the comments, then he realized something like being hit by a ton of brick. He realized that he knew nothing about Mami's parents. And according to the comments, they were already dead.

That led to some series of questions.

1) What happened to them? And when?

2) After months of talking and bickering with each other, why she never told him about it?

3) After months of talking and bickering with each other, why the hell he never realized? And never asked?

He could ask now, it would totally a sensible thing to do. But of course, Anthony decided to make it harder for himself and surfed the social media for information.

Advertisement

Quite frankly, it was stupid. He was stupid. This would be the 'not big of a deal' turned into some sort of mystery for him, just because he was afraid to ask straight on.

Alas, he was looking through Mami's Facebook account. Funny, she was still actively involved on Facebook posts. In fact, she just liked a friend's post not ten minutes ago. Should he send friend request? Nonono, not yet. He had other things to do. He had a theory that maybe she once posted something about their death.

But after almost fifteen minutes alone, he found none.

That led to second theory; if she hadn't post anything about them, what about her brothers? Surely they had mentioned it somewhere.

A-ha! Chandra's youtube channel.

Fortunately while Anthony was looking through Facebook's feeds of Chandra, he found a link of his Draw My Life video, celebrating one hundred thousands subscribers, which he just upload almost a year ago. Immediately he clicked and watched.

Thank God there was a full English Subtitles below.

"Before we begin, a little disclaimer, this is not me drawing. It is in fact my lovely sister Mitha," Anthony listened. "Mitha, say hello!"

"To be fair, I demand payment for this." That voice was definitely Mami, or Mitha. Mamitha?

"So, I was born prematurely, with my twin of course. You already know Cakra. So, our mother had pregnancy issue and by the time we were born, she died instantly due to complications."

That wasn't so pleasant to begin with. Anthony watched the drawings of a mother carrying her two bundle of babies by her arms, as the mother was erased slowly. That meant, growning up Mami and her boys never had a mother to hold on to.

Anthony then listened to how Chandra grew up to be this lazy kid at school, while Cakra made their names proud by getting good grades and all. And then came a story when the family noved to Java Island from Bali to a province of West Java, wherever that was.

Advertisement

Fast forward to the time Chandra was just starting senior high school, meaning Mami was about to enter college, when the father was mentioned.

"I remembered going home, eagerly to tell my father that I got into the basketball club, when I received a phonecall from my uncle. He said, 'Stay with Cakra, don't leave the school. Uncle is going there to take you two home' he also joked, 'also while you're waiting, buy me some telur gulung'"

In parenthesis it mentioned something about Indonesian snack. On the screen, Mami actually drew a portion of telur gulung on the side. But the images was erased again and changed to a scene at a hospital room.

"It was about seven months after my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer," Chandra voice-over continued. "And within those seven months was the hardest thing ever happened to my life. To our lives. The very ambitious Cakra went really cold. My sister Mitha had to postpone her enrollment to university to save money. I, I didn't know what to do. That was when I start Youtube."

The next sentences went blurry, and so was Anthony's eyes. He didn't realize that what he thought she had a perfect path of life, started of with an unsteady steps. All this time, he complained about his miserable, it was incomparable to what she had been through. To live without any parental suport whatsoever, let alone to raise two other person. A lot of times Anthony listened to her rambling about overtime work, paying bills, shopping with the brothers, and cooking family dinner during weekends, and bunch of other role in the family; only because she worked as a father, a mother, and a sister. That was why Mami was so strong and ambitious, yet so genuine qnd compassionate.

"So anyway, after that seven months of suffering, we finally said goodbye to my father, exactly at February 14th 2006. Which was good, since he didn't have to suffer anymore." a final draw of a man laying on a bed, with his three children surrounding him, before the bed was changed to a casket, and soon enough was erased from the board.

Afterwards, Chandra began ranting about his Youtube career more, earning money, meeting girlfriend, and so much positive stuff. He also mentioned a little bit about Cakra's university progress as well as Mami's graduation and later worklife.

At the end of the video, Chandra then showcased a picture; the very same art of a Balinese couple that Mami posted few days ago.

Ayah, bunda

Kami sayang kalian

LINE BREAK LINE BREAK LINE BREAK LINE BREAK LINE BREAK LINE BREAK

    people are reading<Sliding into DMs (BigJigglyPanda)>
      Close message
      Advertisement
      You may like
      You can access <East Tale> through any of the following apps you have installed
      5800Coins for Signup,580 Coins daily.
      Update the hottest novels in time! Subscribe to push to read! Accurate recommendation from massive library!
      2 Then Click【Add To Home Screen】
      1Click