Aurora Oiperis

Ada seorang, di sebuah taman duduk melihat bintang. Tentu saja waktu itu malam. Ditengah kepungan pohon. Diselimuti gelap temaram, seorang menikmati hidangan dingin campuran madu dan hijaunya teh dalam sebotol plastik. Menarik nafas dalam menghirup udara malam. Menikmati beberapa tegukan, melirik ke teratai mekar, air kolam hitam gelap, lalu berdiri dan beranjak pergi.

Setelah penuh lewati kolam, melirik kecil ke arah kolam. Ada seorang lain duduk dengan sebuah kantong plastik putih disamping, duduk menunggu pancing disapa ikan-ikan kolam yang belum mau pergi ke mimpi – bila ikan pernah ingin bermimpi.

Hati seorang sesaat trenyuh. Akankah seorang lain belum makan hari ini dan dia menunggu ikan untuk disantap malam ini dalam satu ayunan pancing? Seorang bisa merasakan betapa, ah sudahlah.

Seorang terus berjalan meninggalkan dalam kesendirian seorang lain yang masih menunggu seekor ikan berjalan dan menyantap umpan. Semoga beruntung.

Ketika sendiri ingatlah Allah di hati
tak peduli betapa kesunyian mencekam.
Ketika bersama ingatlah Allah betapa
tak peduli tawa yang keraskan hati.
Ketika tak ada
adalah Dia yang begitu dekat.
Ketika ada
adalah Dia yang tak pernah lupa.
Betapa….
Betapa…..
Betapa……
Niscaya!

Kesendirian adalah suatu kemutlakan.
Kita…pada akhirnya pasti akan mengalaminya.
Sekarang, dulu ataupun nanti.
Tak peduli apa yang sedang kau rasa.
Tak peduli apa yang sedang kau kira.
Tak peduli betapa kau cinta.
Semuanya akan berakhir pada kesendirian.
Dalam beberapa saat yang gelap….
Dalam beberapa saat yang senyap…
Dalam beberapa kala kau lenyap….
Hilang menembus bayangmu….
Ingatlah saat kau bersama.
Seseorang, sahabat, keluarga, saudara, gurumu, muridmu, siapamu…
Apakah bahagia bersama mereka?
Jika tidak, ingatlah sendirimu.
Bila belum, pernahkah kau sendirian?
Bila sendiri begitu menyiksamu lalu kenapa bersama membuatmu kehilangan senyuman?
Kesendirian adalah temanku, seberapapun bencimu pada kesendirian, dia temanku yang setia.
Menemani kemana aku pergi.
Dalam bersama, dalam ramai suasana, di mana saja.
Dan aku selalu bisa menikmati kesendirian.
Di bantu sedikit dorongan untuk memberi, aku telah merenungkan semuanya,
mimpi-mimpiku, jalan hidupku, itikadku, keinginanku, diriku yang mana kupilih, banyak sekali.
Kesendirian memberiku jalan menujuNya.
Dalam terang sinar cahaya yang entah ke mana menuju.
Kadang aku tersesat…
tapi, selalu bisa kembali selama Dia ada di hati.
Begitulah.
Kesendirian telah menjadi bagian hidupku secara sempurna.

It is in the hot lands that the sun burns, sure enough! there the people become quite a mahogany brown, ay, and in the hottest lands they are burnt to Negroes. But now it was only to the hot lands that a learned man had come from the cold; there he thought that he could run about just as when at home, but he soon found out his mistake.

He, and all sensible folks, were obliged to stay within doors–the window-shutters and doors were closed the whole day; it looked as if the whole house slept, or there was no one at home.

The narrow street with the high houses, was built so that the sunshine must fall there from morning till evening–it was really not to be borne.

The learned man from the cold lands–he was a young man, and seemed to be a clever man–sat in a glowing oven; it took effect on him, he became quite meagre–even his shadow shrunk in, for the sun had also an effect on it. It was first towards evening when the sun was down, that they began to freshen up again.

(more…)

One evening in winter as Alice, a dear little girl whom everybody loved, pushed aside the curtains of her bedroom window, she saw the moon half hidden by great banks of clouds, and only a few stars peeping out here and there. Below, the earth lay dark, and cold. The trees looked like great shadows.

There was at change in her sweet face as she let fall the curtain and turned from the window.

“Poor birds!” she said.

“They are all safe,” answered her mother, smiling. “God has provided for every bird a place of rest and shelter, and each one knows where it is and how to find it. Not many stay here in the winter time, but fly away to the sunny south, where the air is warm and the trees green and fruitful.”

“God is very good,” said the innocent child. Then she knelt with folded hands, and prayed that her heavenly further would bless everybody, and let his angels take care of her while she slept. Her mother’s kiss was still warm upon her lips as she passed into the world of pleasant dreams.

(more…)

Two peasant constables — one a stubby, black-bearded individual with such exceptionally short legs that if you looked at him from behind it seemed as though his legs began much lower down than in other people; the other, long, thin, and straight as a stick, with a scanty beard of dark reddish colour — were escorting to the district town a tramp who refused to remember his name. The first waddled along, looking from side to side, chewing now a straw, now his own sleeve, slapping himself on the haunches and humming, and altogether had a careless and frivolous air; the other, in spite of his lean face and narrow shoulders, looked solid, grave, and substantial; in the lines and expression of his whole figure he was like the priests among the Old Believers, or the warriors who are painted on old-fashioned ikons. “For his wisdom God had added to his forehead” — that is, he was bald — which increased the resemblance referred to. The first was called Andrey Ptaha, the second Nikandr Sapozhnikov.

(more…)

The Erlking

Who’s riding so late through th’ endless wild?
The father ‘t is with his infant child;
He thinks the boy ’s well off in his arm,
He grasps him tightly, he keeps him warm.

My son, say why are you hiding your face ?
Oh father, the Erlking ’s coming apace,
The Erlking ’s here with his train and crown!
My son, the fog moves up and down. -

Be good, my child, come, go with me!
I know nice games, will play them with thee,
And flowers thou ‘It find near by where
I live, pretty dress my mother will give.”

Dear father, oh father, and do you not hear
What th’ Erlking whispers so close to my ear?
Be quiet, do be quiet, my son,
Through leaves the wind is rustling anon.

Do come, my darling, oh come with me!
Good care my daughters will take of thee,
My daughters will dance about thee in a ring,
Will rock thee to sleep and will prettily sing.”

Dear father, oh father, and do you not see
The Erlking’s daughters so near to me?
My son, my son, no one ’s in our way,
The willows are looking unusually gray.

I love thee, thy beauty I covet and choose,
Be willing, my darling, or force I shall use!
“Dear father, oh father, he seizes my arm!
The Erlking, father, has done me harm.

The father shudders, he darts through the wild;
With agony fill him the groans of his child.
He reached his farm with fear and dread;
The infant son in his arms was dead.

Fifth Edition

I.

WAKE! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav’n, and strikes
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light.

II.

Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
“When all the Temple is prepared within,
“Why nods the drowsy Worshiper outside?”

(more…)

Pestis eram vivus – moriens tua mors ero.

– Martin Luther

HORROR and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to this story I have to tell? Let it suffice to say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the interior of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves – that is, of their falsity, or of their probability – I say nothing. I assert, however, that much of our incredulity – as La Bruyere says of all our unhappiness – ” vient de ne pouvoir être seuls .”

But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition which were fast verging to absurdity. They – the Hungarians – differed very essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example, ” The soul ,” said the former – I give the words of an acute and intelligent Parisian – ” ne demeure qu’un seul fois dans un corps sensible: au reste – un cheval, un chien, un homme meme, n’est que la ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux. “

(more…)

In the town of Vladimir lived a young merchant named Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov. He had two shops and a house of his own.

Aksionov was a handsome, fair-haired, curly-headed fellow, full of fun, and very fond of singing. When quite a young man he had been given to drink, and was riotous when he had had too much; but after he married he gave up drinking, except now and then.

One summer Aksionov was going to the Nizhny Fair, and as he bade good-bye to his family, his wife said to him, “Ivan Dmitrich, do not start to-day; I have had a bad dream about you.”

(more…)