Mom, I Want School
11. DON'T CRY ARI

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My lips were shaking trying not to cry in front of my mother.

"You're different from your friends."

"What difference?"

Mom seemed to take a long breath and exhale slowly. He seemed to support his waist with his gaze staring in the other direction as if he refused to look at me.

"Sme!" call me who this time really asked for an answer from him.

I don't know why my mother didn't want to answer my question. Is it too difficult to answer this simple question? What's wrong if answered this little boy needs an answer, the answer to the reason for his schoollessness.

"Sme!" call me again.

Mom let out a long sigh, a breath that really sounded so heavy as if the weight of the world was on her. He who was busy pretending and busy himself to stir the vegetables stopped he supported his waist and looked down at me of course with his sharp gaze as usual.

"Emak doesn't know how she's gonna tell you about this, but later you'll also know why you're not going to school this year.*

"So Ari really doesn't go to school?"

"For ever?" it seemed like I was demanding an answer again.

Mom closed her eyes tightly and then opened them slowly making the two irises reflect the figure of me who looked so pouty there.

"Emak didn't say you didn't go to school but this year you didn't go to school. Next year maybe you'll go to school like your friends, like Angga, Cai Ririn and Ami."

"It doesn't make any difference if you go to school this year or next year, it's just a time difference if your friends ask you when you go to school and why you don't go to school this year then just tell them you're going to school next year."

"Tell them like that. You're gonna go to school and meet your friends. School next year is not a problem.

I was silent because I honestly didn't know what to answer. Mom smiled, she disappeared again with a heavy breath. Smiling as if not sincere, yes I saw it.

"School is not just about going to school and learning. School needs a fight if you want school this year then mom doesn't have the money to buy you clothes, bags, shoes and school supplies."

"But if you go to school next year you'll save up to buy you a school uniform, a nice bag and other school supplies. Do you understand?"

My expression was flat after hearing the mother's explanation so long I smiled widely and nodded with excitement. Now I understand the reason for this lack of self-school.

I know the school like the others need a school uniform bag and so forth if in a hurry like this then where mom has to take money to buy a uniform for me. Your job does not make a lot of money. Ari understands now but...

As my mother walked away from me, I looked up at the wall clock that showed at 12:00 the registration time was up, yes not only has the enrollment time been exhausted but the school expectations this year have also been exhausted.

Ari is not in school like the others but Ari hopes Ari can go to school next year hopefully studying at that school Ari can feel.

...***...

The sound of the river flow sounded as if singing a lullaby, playing the sound of one of the voices that will be heard in heaven later.

I don't know if it's true or not but I've seen it in one of the books Ami has that is, the book about heaven and hell. I saw on the colorless sheet of paper that heaven had a river and of course the sound of the stream I heard right now was also the same as the river I saw in the picture of heaven.

Ami said if you want to go to heaven, you must do good to people or others who live around you. There is no need to tell what a picture of heaven is because what I see is a beauty even though it is only a picture but I imagine a high level as if I will enter into it tomorrow.

And there's no need for me to tell you what hell is because up until now I didn't dare to look or open a sheet of paper about hell. Looking at the sheet about torture on the cover of the book alone has made me goosebumps it feels like not wanting to live and die in this world is just a thought about a child need not think but sure enough the book has been as mentally damaging as I was, a cowardly boy.

Both of my shoulders go up and down, occasionally the back of my hand rubs the bottom of my eyes that have always been moistened by tears. How much I tried to accept a reality and how much I tried to understand what the mother said to me but still I was unable to hold back this cry.

Saddened? Of course I feel sad. My only hope from the old days was that school was nothing else. Ari is okay not getting an important toy Ari school anyway Ari does not have cool toys like Ari's friends.

Still remembered the speech of the mother who said the school this year and next year there is no difference but according to Ari it has a difference. This year Ari is not school while Ari's friends are school then it means Ari's friends will first be good at reading, writing and counting while Ari can not.

Maybe this is a bit too much, but this is just hope. Day and night I wonder how beautiful school is. Get up early, take a bath by the river and then I'll go home and put on a nice school uniform and step in with my friends, yes, that's always been imagined in my mind to be a motivation for me to go to school.

Now my chest is really tight, it hurts in there. I hiccuped to the point that my head was jolted to describe how hurt this heart was.

It may be more painful than a word of heartbreak, yes I have heard the word heartbreak from TV, a soap opera that I saw on TV Ami. A heartache that is only felt when a love is not manifested away from a delusion and gives a painful reality.

I exhaled so heavily that I rubbed my chest trying to spread myself, strengthening the chest of a boy who felt so much heartache.

I looked up at the blue sky, imagining the figure of God up there staring at me who was so very sad.

"God, Ari just wants to go to school. Ari really wants to go to school."

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