Nirbita: A Short Story
“Congratulations!”
“Congrats!”
Various greetings were heard coming over to all the graduates who were on the campus yard. Happy faces can be seen from parents who congratulate their children, lovers who congratulate their loved ones, or friends who congratulate their friends. Everyone looks delighted, except for one person. Nothing crowded around her. Only one greeting she received, a short congratulations on the greeting card in a bouquet of white roses that she brought.
Congraduation. Well done, Wina.
“Okay, now what’s next?” she muttered while reading the sentence she had written herself.
Feeling no use seeing all the smiles and hearing all the congratulatory voices of others, she walked away from the area. She used every step of her foot to remember everything she had gone through in her life. She was certainly well aware that there have been many changes in herself. The changes can be seen clearly in her body. Previously shining cheerful eyes turned shining with sorrow. Her body has turned underweight.
A flash of memory emerged of how she first met Dr. Nan with the wet wound on her hand. Exactly 6 months ago, Wina had the courage to meet Dr. Nan. Nan Vihokratana is a psychiatrist at Bumrungrad International Hospital who finally diagnosed Wina with Bipolar Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
“Bipolar cannot be completely cured, you have to live side by side with these pills.” Dr. Nan explained.
She swallowed the bitter reality as bitter as the pills she brought home from the hospital. She got a fixed diagnosa just a few months before her graduation. Either feeling relieved after getting through so many tests or feeling sad because of her severe mental problems, she felt numb instead.
Memory after memory, the sequence of events after which she had been trying to erase appeared again. Wina Nirbita was born into a Javanese businessman family, the Atmadja. Wina was a spoiled only child of Agung Atmadja. Privileged since birth, Wina Nirbita was well-groomed. Wina Nirbita has a typical Javanese woman appearance with an oval face, black eyes, black hair, and warm skin tone. Everything was fine. She was dating the son of a Chinese-Indonesian conglomerate. Her boyfriend, Kevin Widjaja, was the son of her father’s business partner. Initially, the two of them were arranged in a relationship to strengthen the business of the two families. Apparently, both of them developed mutual feelings and fell in love with each other. She was literally a real life princess where her life is everyone else’s goals. Moreover, she could have everything in this world with just one swipe of the black card. Her heavenly life where everything was perfect did not last long.
“We are attending a birthday party tonight, would you come?” Wina’s father opened the conversation.
“Whose birthday party?”
“Arum’s. At 8 pm.”
“She asked you to come, will you?” Wina’s mother persuaded her.
“I would rather do anything else than see her.” Wina just didn’t get along with that lady.
“Badness should not be repaid with bad. Repay bad with kindness.” Her father’s words that she remembered very well before she finally entered her bedroom on the fourth floor. She did not come out of her room approximately 8 hours after the conversation with her parents earlier. She was forced to leave her room because one of her maids screamed when she picked up the phone.
“Non… JIH…” Before the maid finished explaining, she immediately rushed into the car to the place mentioned. All the bad scenarios in her head were correct. Her father and mother were declared dead even before arriving at Jogja International Hospital. The initial suspicion was food poisoning. All the guests vomited, but only Agung Atmadja and Dianti Siswanto died.
“Stay strong, Wina. This is part of Allah’s plan.” Arum tries to comfort Wina on the day of her parents’ funeral.
“The best actress award goes to you!” She wanted so badly to answer, but she barely managed to talk because of the constant crying that tears wouldn’t come out anymore.
It hasn’t been a month yet, there were already discussions about the acquisition of a company owned by Wina’s late grandfather, Prapto Atmadja, which was in the hands of Agung Atmadja. Who else is trying to acquire the company other than Agung’s only sibling, Arum Atmadja. No, not Arum who will take the company, but her husband. In the distribution of inheritance, it is believed by the Javanese and Muslims, boys get a larger share of inheritance than girls. In the Atmadja case, Arum inherited less than Wina’s father. Meanwhile, Arum’s husband came from the lower classes. The two of them with their four children lived a very extravagant life. They often go back and forth to Las Vegas just for the casino. Much of their inherited land has been sold for its glamorous life. Wina was increasingly convinced that the death of her parents was rooted from a war of inheritance and wealth. How could she not have thought so, the autopsy of her late parents yielded the results that arsenic was the cause of their death. How can arsenic be in food?
Even more strange, after the 100 days recitation of the death of Wina’s parents, Arum held a meeting involving lawyers to discuss the company acquisition. Deemed incompetent to continue her father, Wina was eliminated from the company’s successor list. Automatically, the decision was skewed towards Arum and her husband. It did not stop there, the debts that had been incurred by Agung Atmadja in the past were raised. Most of Agung’s assets were forcibly sacrificed.
“Where were you on the day of my birthday?”
Wina remained silent. Dreadful woman. How could she ask that question? Did she get pissed off for not being able to take Wina’s life at her birthday party? Did her plan fail? Wina was powerless to fight against that evil woman who will sacrifice everything to get whatever she wants.
“I’ll stay by your side no matter what happens, darling.” Wina remembered the words Kevin spoke on the day of her parents’ funeral. Kevin Widjaja proposed to Wina three months after the death of her parents. Their title as a pair of fiancés did not last long.
“Wina, forgive me.” Someone said on the phone. Anything that starts with apologizing is bound to end badly. The same thing happened when the doctor declared the death of her parents.
“I’m positive… Kevin…” Proved to be true, a word of apology that successfully brought down Wina’s life for the second time. Her fiancé impregnated a woman. The one who was on the phone asking for an apology while crying was her best friend, Aisy. Clear enough, Kevin must be responsible and marry Aisy. Kevin and Wina’s relationship ended just a month after their engagement. All the closest people she loved and relied on were leaving.
“Is my existence a mistake?”
“I will stay beside you,” Wina mumbled.
“No matter what happens,” she repeated her ex-fiancé’s words.
“Repay bad with kindness,” then repeated her father’s last words.
“Bullshit!” she cried, leaving a scratch on her hand. She made grief arts with a small cutter. Not that deep, yet fresh blood came out from the scratch. It was her new habit since moving to Bangkok alone by herself. She would do that whenever her thoughts were buzzing. Her scratches made her satisfied when she was at the lowest point of life. As a risk, she always wore long-sleeved clothes so that the art filling her hands cannot be seen by people.
After deciding to sell what was left of her father’s assets, Wina decided to leave her homeland. She brought all the money she had to start a new life in the land of white elephants, Thailand. Low cost of living was simply the reason. Interestingly, Bangkok was the place where her mother and father met for the first time. They have counted dozens of times reminiscing about their good old days by visiting Bangkok. Not knowing what she was going to do, Wina enrolled for a Master’s Degree in Strategic Communication Management at Chulalongkorn University.
Unlike her undergraduate life at Gadjah Mada University where she was a popular and sociable student, she tended to be more silent and gloomy. She was no longer a spotlight on campus. After classes ended, she went back to the dorm. She has made no close friends other than the needs of group work. Not once or twice she experienced nausea and vomit before going out, she ended up skipping too many classes.
One day she would stay in the dorm, on another day she would be very excited doing activities. One day she would sleep like a fainted person, another day she would be awake three days straight. One day, Wina made the griefing art in her hand a little bit too deep. She was tired. She wanted to end her life. No, not today. She hasn’t graduated. Blood continued to flow. It even was reluctant to stop. Panicked. She went to Bumrungrad International Hospital on a motorbike taxi with bleeding hands.
“I want to see a psychiatrist!” she said that in the emergency room, gasping for breath.
“Calm down, let me treat the wound first,” said one of the doctors on duty.
That’s how she finally met the psychiatrist, Dr. Nan Vihokratana, suddenly without an appointment. At the first visit, Dr. Nan tried to understand Wina and her situation. Dr. Nan prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping pills at the first visit. Furthermore, Dr. Nan recommended Wina to do several tests to get a correct diagnosis. Life after being treated by a professional did not significantly improve her mental health. With her taking lots of antidepressants, anti-anxiety, mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, and sleeping pills didn’t help much. Manic and depressive episodes that she experienced were still fluctuating.
Memories kept rewinding back and forth as she contemplated where to go. She kept walking with no specific directions. Scene after scene flickered in her head. At first, it was all very clear and vivid. Slowly, it became like a broken cassette.
“Let me set myself free.”
Later, all of her belongings in the dorm were removed by the authorities. The resident who occupied the dorm room for two years of study will never return. As her name implies, Nirbita really was very brave. She was brave enough to make major, life-changing, and irrevocable decisions. 25 years old Wina Nirbita has finally reached her destination.
