An honest smile are pointed in the heat of the sun that afternoon. A rumpled hat perched on his head. The hat was always same everyday with hair that almost all of it turned into white. Sober clothes, deep wrinkles on face, and a backless white sandal held to the foot by a dark red thong between the big toe and the second toe. I didn’t know why everytime I saw him I felt amazed. Honestly, when laziness took over my frail body, I started to come here, a minimarket at a crossroads, and then I saw him deeply without he knew. A sequence of prayers suddenly arrived,
Dear God, please gave me his little spirit, made me feel ashamed, and if necessary, made me feel very very ashamed when the words: bored, tired, lazy, no longer in the mood attacked me.
“There is no money, Miss, you can transfer, but you can’t withdraw money in that Automated Teller Machine (ATM)”, an old man reminded me.
“Oh really, sir? Thanks before,” I said to him while gave him two thousand rupiah as parking charge, “well.. this is for you, sir.”
“Oh, you don’t have to, Miss. You didn’t even go inside, did you?”
I smiled to myself thinking of what happened three days ago when my coin was refused by an old man who was familiar with me. But today was empty, the old man wasn’t here. My eyes swept around in all directions, but I couldn’t find his smiley face.
Where was he?
Either he would take my money or not, I finally decided to put that coin, two thousand rupiah above the small chair where the old man usually sat.
And then I told myself, “This is the parking charge, sir.”