I HAVE NEVER CUT MY ARMS FOR UTIK

I really wanted to give an arm for Utik. Might be, I was taking a pity on her, a little girl with handicap, and her age was not yet five years old. Utik was born without arms. She was an orphan, but not really an orphan. Her parents were whereabouts unknown. I assumed that her parents left her in the street after they found out that their daughter born incomplete physically. She was born without arms. It was ibu Irah who found her laid on the pavement covered with sarong. Since then, Ibu Irah took care of her. Ibu Irah sold pecel in her own small and very modest booth across my house. Ibu Irah who had taken care of her with love gave her name, Utik. Ibu Irah could accept Utik sincerely even she has physical abnormality. I really wanted to give my arms for Utik, but I was confused how. I am one year older than Utik, and I am a boy. I considered giving my left arm for her for I always use my right hand to do my activities. So, my left arm would fit for her. Every time I played with her, I always attached my arms to her left armless. I always stood behind her, laughed, and extended my left arm to her. When she turned her head and saw my left arm, her face changed glimmered. Her eyes brightly changed. And I like doing this to her again and again. The more I often did that to her, the happier and brighter she became. I was sure that she wanted to have arms and hands like other normal children. Ah, I really wanted to give my left arms, but how? By touching her left armless part with my left arms that I did wittingly from behind, I gained my guilty feeling for being fake to her. And I became more embarrassed. I couldn’t keep doing this. Somehow, I was worried to hurt her one day. Sometimes, Utik pushed me to do that but I couldn’t bear it. Utik looks really enjoy imagining to have two arms. Her smile is so cheerful. Her laugh expressed her happiness. Weirdly, I always felt happy if I could make her smile happily even last for few minutes. One day, I felt there was something different, even though I did what I did with her from behind. Utik was more excited. She asked me to clench my fists like a boxer, which I thought her request was so weird but I did it for her anyway. In a minute, I imagined the fists clench of Mike Tyson, Oscar De Lahoya, or Julio Cesar Chavez. Ah, Chris John’s fists clench seemed right to me. Chris John is an Indonesian boxer champion that successfully maintains his title for ten times in a row. I am very proud of him. Then, I clenched my fists tightly like Chris John does. ”I wanted to boxing like Muhammad Ali,” Utik said. I was stunned. But her eyes were looked pitiful. Then, I acted like a pro boxer. Jab. Uppercut. Jab again, uppercut again. I felt so weird boxing like Muhammad Ali, his style that we always saw in pirated VCD. My father said, the actor who acted as the legendary boxing icon was not the real Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali has been old and is suffering from Parkinson. Anyway, it was not important. The most important thing was to make her happy, laugh. That’s all. Thus, I pretended boxing like Muhammad Ali. Utik laugh out loud until her tears pooled at the edge. ”Oh, she must be imagining if she had complete hands,” I talked to myself. Utik was so cheerful. Her foots moved to the front and back, left and right. I followed her moves by making various boxing styles. Jab-uppercut-jab-hook-jab-hook-uppercut-jab. Utik was so happy. She cried happily. Finally, I was so exhausted. I stopped boxing. I was wet by the sweat, my breath seemed to end. I lost my stamina. ”If you are tired, take a break,”said Utik. ”But, please clap your hands,” she asked again. And I clapped my hand enthusiastically. Utik cried happily. I could feel the happiness she expressed through her laugh. It seemed it was her who did boxing and clapping. There was an energy that entered and filled my soul. “What Energy? I don’t know.” And my willpower and desire became greater to give her my left arm. I didn’t mind losing my left hand for her. ”I still have my right arm,” I talked to myself. *** “TIK, I am going to give my arm for you,” I told her when were sitting on the grass at the back side of my house. Utik was shocked. “Are you sure?” I nodded. Assuring her. ”But.., how are you going to do that, Din?” “That is what I have been thinking since yesterday, Tik. How to do it? But...” ”But… why?” I silenced. ”Are you doubt?” I shook my head. ”Then, why?” ”I don’t know how to give you my arms.” “But, are you really serious to give your left arm for me?” “I am very serious, Tik!” We silenced. No talks, no sounds, but the sound from the leaves of rambutan tree that break the silence sometime. I was speechless. Utik was speechless too. We were beyond our own thoughts, the thoughts that swimmed in the ocean of our thought. Utik smiled. I smiled back to her. We looked each other and shared the new hope. I was worried, and so does Utik. ”What should I do to give and attach my left arm to Utik?” Suddenly, I got a crazy idea passing through my mind. I hold my breath. “What if I cut my arm with a seesaw?” I yelled and raised my body from my sitting position. “Haaah?” Her eyes widely opened hearing my idea. “After cutting my left arm, let me attach and stitch it to your left arm,” I said convincible. “It’s up to you, Din.” And it was not difficult to get a seesaw. I could get a seesaw only by opening toolbox in my father garage. We both back to the back yard of our home. We sat under the rambutan tree. The sun rise reflected to the edge of the seesaw. Sparkling. Dazzling. It made our eyes deprived of sight. ”It might have been so painful at the last seconds of this seesaw successfully cut the bone of my arm. It seems I could hear the sound like the sound of wood cut by it. I have no idea of the sound in my ear and the pain I could feel when it touches and cuts my bone,” I said to myself. Suddenly, I feel worried in my self. What if this seesaw is not sterilized? What if this seesaw broken in the middle of the cutting process? Then, spontaneously, I looked down, caught the light of the sun sparkled at the edge of this seesaw. I was trying to reject my doubts. This seesaw is very sharp. I am sure. I was ready to cut my arm. The first thing I did was to fasten my arm’s joint using rope to avoid massive blood torrent. Then, I started cutting my left arm. The blood torrent squirted swiftly. The smell of blood flourished in the air. I could smell fishy blood. Utik got panicked. She shut her mouth. Did nothing. Said nothing. She only stared at my arm. Her eyes opened and closed many times. She opened her eyes, then, closed them again. She kept doing that while watching me cutting my arm. And I kept cutting my arm. The eyes of the seesaw touched my arm, resulted rattling sound. I got sweat and tried to resist the pain. Finally!! CRASSSSS! My left arm finally cut. I put the seesaw in a hurry and picked my arm from the grass, then I ran to Upik to attach it to her left shoulder. I stitched it perfectly at Utik’s arm. Utik was very happy. ”Finally I succeeded,” I hissed. “Finally, I can make her smile. She smiled because I gave her my arm,” I said to myself. “Diiinnn....!” The pain I suffered from my left arm become more suffering. My arm was still dripping with blood. It kept dripping. Suddenly, my world blackened. “Diiinnn...!” I heard indistinct voice at my ear. I recognized the voice. Utik’s voice. Yes, Utik. She must be want to thank me. “Ah, it’s ok. You don’t have to thank me,” I said to her. “I helped you genuinely.” “Diiinnn....!” This time the voice became clear. Very clear. I woke up. I touched my left arm spontaneously to where I cut my arm. But..ah! My left arm is still attached to my shoulder. Then, what happened with the cutting process? What did I do with the seesaw? Utik gave me an obscure smile and stood two meter from where I laid. And her arms.. She still has no arms. No left arm from me. Utik smiled and asked me to rise. *** My lovely childhood daydream. That dream had passed for twenty-five years, but I still had it in my memory. Her picture is still in my mind; standing one meter before me. I really wanted to give her my left arm. “O, no.. no.. I am giving her a pair of arms.” After twenty-five years passed, I still asserted my self to give her a pair of arms. When I was a kid, I wanted to give my left arm. “Now, I am giving her the pair of arms. But, not my arms. It’s a pair of fake arms that I have bought for her.” I went with my driver to her house. My memory flashed back passing through the road to her house. It’s like a movie that I play several times. I flashed back to my childhood memory, when I was 10 years old. Then, my father should move for a duty in another town, I had to leave her behind. And Utik should let me go. It was so sad to move to another place. I did many things to show my disagreement. I did demonstration like students always do: I refused to eat, so that Utik and Ibu Irah were asked by my father to soften my action that finally I gave up and moved with my parents. Since then, I never met and played with Utik. I couldn’t extend my arm to her pretended to be her arm. And, of course, my dream to give my left arm to her. “Sorry Sir, we have arrived.” “Ah… what?” I asked my driver, Pak Kirman. “We have arrived. Where should I park my car?” I got dumbfounded. “At the front of that white house,” I pointed to the house that was formerly my house. Pak Kirman slowed the car and parked right in front of my former house. I got off from my car, brought the arms along with me that I was giving to Utik. Across the road, at Ibu Irah’s booth, I saw a woman playing with two children. ”That’s Utik,” I said to myself. ”Yes, that’s Utik.” “Utik?” “Didin?” I ran to her. Utik ran to me. We hold each other on the roadside. My tears ran down and dripped on my hands. “There are still no arms,” I said to myself. I cried. Utik cried. Then, I addressed my eyes to the two children who were comfort to join with us. And Utik could read what passed in my mind. “They are my children, Din.” ”Twins?” ”Yes. The girl is Dita, and the boy is Dito,” Utik mentioned their names to me. They shook my hands and drove my hand to their head. “They are so cute, Tik.” “Yes, they are now my left and right arms,” Utik explained to me with a happy face. And I put the package of arms I brought for her without telling her. Utik, now, has got her own arms.*** Translated by Irene Prabandari