Losing Us
Photographs

Arsenio woke up in the most miserable state in the past few months. His head was dizzy, his throat felt dry, and his stomach felt like it was being stirred up to cause unbearable nausea.

From the opening of the curtains, Arsenio could see that the sun was already shining high enough. His warmth was like hugging his limp body lying on a mattress without a blanket for an entire night. While on the nightstand, he found a tray filled with a glass of water and a bowl of porridge that was still puffing smoke.

“Akh!” Arsenio grimaced when she felt her head like it had just been hit with a sledgehammer while trying to get up. Dizziness creeps everywhere, making the world around feel like it's spinning.

In order to reduce the pain, Arsenio returned to silence in a lying position. His gaze was thrown at the clean ceiling of the room. While her memory is spinning for hours before this, she takes the foolish decision to down a bottle of red wine alone in a quiet kitchen area.

From the faintly emerging memories, Arsenio only obtained a few parts that she could believe to be true. Among them is the presence of Anara when her consciousness has begun to diminish.

Arsenio recalled asking the girl to sit down and offer a drink together, but Anara refused and simply accompanied herself to a drink without saying anything. Arsenio also remembered, Anara had resigned herself before the bottle of red wine was empty and she asked the girl to wait a little longer.

The rest, Arsenio did not remember anymore. She did not even know how Anara could carry her body that was much larger than the body of the girl herself up to the room, so that she could lie on the bed.

“I'm not evilin Olin. I'm not that low, Arsenio.”

Faintly, Anara's voice sounded softly in her ears. Shortly after, the silky shadow of the girl's face appeared to be real in the eyes. Arsenio's head was still dizzy, his consciousness had not fully recovered either, so he could not confirm whether the memory that had just been present was true or just a mere hallucination.

Arsenio wanted to remember everything that happened last night, but her increasingly contorted throat made her inevitably move up from a collapsed position even with extra effort so that her head did not feel dizzy again.

After struggling to sit down, Arsenio grabbed a glass and drank the water in it greedily. Drop by drop the water flowed through the throat, slowly eroding the thirst that came in a force that was not approximate.

After putting the glass down, Arsenio returned the thing to the tray. He then glued for a moment to the bowl of porridge. It looks tempting, but since his stomach is still churned up unpleasant, Arsenio isn't sure she can eat it now. To that end, he ignored the existence of the porridge, and preferred to get down from the top of the mattress in a slow motion.

Just like the blind man who had just seen the world for the first time, Arsenio staggered. Guerrilla on the wall to get extra power to just get to the bathroom. And when he got there, Arsenio was sitting limp on the closet with a breath that did not bother.

During the minutes that followed, Arsenio still did nothing. Just sitting around daydreaming like someone who lost half his soul. Until at the end, when his consciousness began to gather little by little, Arsenio got up and walked to the sink. My taps are on. The running water he let was wasted as he picked up his toothbrush and applied enough toothpaste on the soft bristles that had started to bloom—the sign that the toothbrush was time to be replaced.

“You're right, Arsenio. I may have been mean to others, so God punished me by taking both my parents at once. But, for God's sake, I've never had any intention of evilin Olin.”

Again, Anara's voice was buzzing in between the activities of Arsenio brushing her teeth. He tried hard to ignore it, because he was still not sure that it was a real memory. It could have been that he brought a false memory considering the reason for drinking last night was indeed because of guilt to Anara for the inappropriate words that he said the other day.

Beres brushing his teeth, Arsenio washes his face. His face was washed with cold water cupped with both hands. Many times he did so until he felt the rest of the drunkenness had been completely wiped out.

“Better.” Arsenio said as she looked straight at the mirror in front of the sink. There, his reflection looks better than before. Much fresher and sane.

The coldness that arose after the encounter of skin with water made Arsenio reluctant to linger in the bathroom. Without first wiping his face with a towel, Arsenio rushed out.

Instead of returning to bed, Arsenio swung a step towards the door. Handle he grabbed, then turned slowly and then he darted out of the room with the aim to the kitchen. The water that Anara provided was still not enough to make Arsenio satisfied. He still wants a drink.

Arsenio's leg movement stopped in the barrier area when she found Anara was seen busy in the area near the storage cabinet. The girl appears to put some things in a white goodie bag with a brown teddy bear screen printing. And from the many items Anara had put in there, Arsenio realized that it was ammunition for someone who was intending to seclude himself.

Seeing Anara do everything in a hurry makes Arsenio again feel guilty. Anara must have been like that out of fear that Arsenio would wake up before she finished, and she was forced to interact with Arsenio in a time when she was so reluctant to do so.

Self-conscious, Arsenio refused to interrupt. Moments before Anara was done with her activities, she deliberately withdrew. He walks towards the back door, hiding himself until Anara passes with ammunition to avoid him for the whole day.

There was no need to hear the answer directly from Anara's lips, because everything was clear. No matter what, Anara is human. It was only natural that he felt hurt and then became reluctant to meet with Arsenio after what happened. Moreover, Arsenio had absolutely no good faith to apologize to him. Arsenio would not blame Anara. Because if he was in Anara's position, Arsenio would probably do more.

“Losers.” Arsenio smiled wryly to herself. In order to protect Olin, he had transformed himself into an alien human being with an apology. Depressing.

...🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀...

The porridge that Anara prepared this morning succeeded Arsenio to release after the condition of his stomach became better. It happened about 4 hours ago, and now, his stomach was back in rumbling.

“Iya, patience.” Arsenio muttered while rubbing the stomach that just sounded again.

Then, he snatched the phone from the top of the mattress, using it to open the online food ordering app he used to use. Various menus are plastered there, appearing so beautiful and appetizing with different charms. From home-cooked meals to fast-food menus, everything is available. Making Arsenio a bit confused to make a choice because everything looks interesting and delicious. Until finally, after spending time thinking, he decided to order a menu from one of the fast food restaurants.

“Chicken rice, burger, potato, coke, ice cream, apple pie.” Arsenio put the item she mentioned earlier into the basket, two servings each. After feeling that there was nothing to add, he immediately placed an order and paid, then waited for his order to be processed while sitting casually on the edge of the bed.

To ward off boredom, Arsenio ventured into her personal Instagram account. This one is a special account that he uses for a photography hobby that he secretly wrestles with. There is one more account that is intended for the general public, where on that one account, Arsenio more uploads daily—including her relationship with Olin.

A few posts from the account that Arsenio followed her gave her a like sign, then she switched to browsing the timeline to find more interesting things out there.

Because there is a filter feature that makes it easy to filter what content is interesting, the content in the Arsenio timeline is not far from things like photography. Starting from photos of natural scenery, historical buildings, people, to simple photos taken in everyday life.

Of the many photo uploads that appear on the timeline—, most of which come from abroad,—, Arsenio's attention is easily stolen just because of a upload that shows a portrait of the twilight sky, in the midst of the city's traffic jam. It was a normal photo, but because the angle of the photo was quite expert when compared to amateurs, he was interested in clicking on the uploader's profile.

The photo was uploaded by an account with the username @__an. And Arsenio's decision to venture there turned out to bring herself to a serenity that was hard to pin down.

In addition to the twilight photo he first saw, Arsenio also found more other pretty photos on the account. The sea, mountains, high-rise office buildings, Flamboyant trees with reddish flowers that began to bloom, the sky with various colors, until the tile portraits of people on the platform waiting for the train to arrive. There is no specific classification, but of all the images taken, Arsenio is sure to recognize it if one day she finds this person uploading a photo using another account.

How say? Arsenio felt that this person had his own magical power in making simple portraits look attractive.

“Great.” Praise him, full of sincerity before pressing the heart emblem on a photo showing the traffic in the Old City.

Initially, Arsenio had wanted to stop there. I think, enough for today. He will start following this account in order to continue to look forward to other uploads from him later on.

However, the existence of one upload that was accidentally seen by him when he was about to press the back button makes Arsenio actually fixated long enough.

A portrait of a woman standing on a high place, turning her back on the train tracks with a look of my face that makes Arsenio can immediately recognize her. It was the only portrait that appeared to him, hidden among many other photo uploads.

“Anara...”.

Seriate

Beautiful gini kok is colonized anyway 🤧🤧🤧 Emang bloated si Arsenio.