sunday, bloody sunday!

Today everything had that half-toned look of desolation as though viewed through a smoked glass… like an eclipse.

My bus lurched to a sudden stop and everything hung suspended for a moment as red ticked to green in a silent countdown (5… 2… 4… 3… 1). The crossroads of immense lanes were eerily empty except for a solitary woman sluggishly crossing the street. Why is everything so still? Where is everybody? For the first time since I’ve ridden a Transjakarta bus, there were only two passengers on board: myself and another woman in Muslim garb, slumped down the farthest corner seat, looking alternately mad and bored (if it was possible to do that!).

Wait! I pulled off my earpieces and looked around in alarm. Am I even in the right dimension? Weirdly, I had the feeling of being in a George Romero screamer. All the sinister elements were certainly there--right down to the single newspaper page being blown across the deserted streets! I almost expected torn-fleshed zombies to suddenly fling themselves against the glass window! But right then the lethargic traffic lights snapped green, my bus shot forward unchallenged, and the starving, decomposing, bloody undeads peeled themselves off my In-Head TV screen.

"Ahhhh… so this is how it’s going to be today!” I thought and sat back in gleeful anticipation of the Stephen-Kingish/George-Romeroish joy-ride that this Silent Surreal Sunday and my horror-genre In-Head TV could come up with in this road trip. By golly! The driver might just turn to me yet with a bottomless evil grin and with only the whites in his eyes showing! Darn. I almost poked the guy just to hasten things up a bit!

And then he made a wrong turn and we were suddenly back amidst the normal, bustling Jakarta brouhaha. Oh, he did turn to me, grinned a feral grin, and said in Bahasa Indonesia: Miss, go buy another ticket if you want to ride the next route. This is the end of the trip.

Sadly, we never did find the bleak crossroads again. I had to content myself with watching real, everyday drama unfolding along the streets of this old-new city in a suddenly normal Sunday. And so, 3 hours and 5 bus changes gave me:

*my longed-for evil grin—this time from a fellow passenger who kept giving me The Eye. This old, gnarled guy was forever baring his sharp, over-sized liverish teeth at me in a possibly friendly manner. I slowly edged my leg away from his lest he take the nearness as a sign that we could have a future together! You never know with these liver-colored-toothed men!

*one pretty bus woman, looking cool and laid back as she maneuvered her way along the roads, waving at other Transjakarta women drivers in the opposite lanes. They were all amazingly cute with the kind of cheery smiles that give senior citizens hope and people like me a toothache.

*one grouch behind-the-wheel provoked by a crazy motorist. We almost hit this car which appeared out of nowhere. Grouch hit the brakes like mad, burning 2 inches of Transjakarta rubber … and making me wish heartily for a seat-belt! (Since I was hunkered just behind the driver, my In-Head TV flashed a vision of me hurtling through the windshield. I quickly switched it off, not caring for that kind of horror altogether. It’s too messy!) In road-rage, our driver hurled an orange down at the speeder. I wish Grouch weren’t so wimpy... instead of losing his lunch, he could have run over that car! Weeehhhh!

*a magnificent roaring downpour which conveniently happened just as I was about to go down on my last stop. It made all the vehicles turn on their beams and light up the dark and drenched Jakarta streets like a giant fallen Christmas tree. My trusty IHTV instantly panned to a shot of a Johnny Depp look-alike running in the rain with me, protecting me with his trench coat! (This B-movie remake was obviously destined to flop since nobody wore trench coats in Indonesia! Ahehehehehe!)

Soaked and starving, I went home marveling at How My Silent Surreal Sunday Turned Into HBO Reruns. Still, that unplanned road trip of drama classics, feel-good episodes and B movies reinforced this one faith which I have kept to heart like a mad refrain: such stuff as excitement, boredom, fear, love and adventure? It’s all in the mind, baby… it’s all in the mind… most times….