Bill

It's a big day, I bet this day is going to be tiring. The sun is still littly peeking through a row of windows, creating some dramatic diagonal light pillars. After we had breakfast, I head to the place where I will be owned by the next couple of hours: a big tall bookcase, covering the whole wall in one side of the living room. Mom is in charge of the kitchen and the fridge, dad is out there with the plants, big sis is with a mountain of laundry, and lil bro is surrounded by pets waste. The pets? Well, I hope they don't mess up.

A bookcase might sounds pretty "meh" compared to the other tasks, but this particular bookcase is no joke. Everything is mixed here: books (of course), photo albums, tons of notebooks, old CDs, old cassettes, electronic devices (broken and not), rarely used kitchenware, stationeries, board games, toys from when we are babies, until stacks of old blankets and curtains. Complete chaos. My specialty is to deal with them until the bookcase is at least clearly seen. I'm starting off with rearranging the place for every types of goods: ground level is for board games and stationeries, first till third level are for books and a little space for photo albums, fifth level is for electronic devices, and sixth is for anything else left. Once again this job is no joke, I'm fully equipped with foldable ladder, my phone plugged with earphone, cleaning solution, some fabric scraps, and mask (the difficulty breathing can get real bad with those dust later on).

The most time-consuming subpart of this job is the books and stationeries. They are all over the place. I take everything out of the first and second level and wipe off the dust, revealing the bookcase's beautiful woody pattern. Then the main part begin: magazine, magazine, tabloid, set of comic, book, book, book, novel, oh this should be out, magazine again, storybook, storybook, set of novels, oh where's the third book of the set, book again, and so on. Before this day, stationeries and books are in one level, but stationeries are a bit stubborn and love to be scattered so I decided to make a home box for them inside the ground level.

When we are talking about the level for books in the bookcase, things around it may be included: scattered random paper, envelopes, clear folders, binders, tapes, markers, wrapping paper, anything. I can say that this house and its contents and its householders are fast moving: things can get here and there for various purposes and instant convenience in a very short time. That's why right now I'm surrounded by those non-book categories, sorting out the useful and the useless on the floor. Between those are a box of random envelopes with random company logos printed there. The condition is still good so I might keep them, but who's gonna send letters with a material store or a bank logo on the envelope?

An envelope with a hospital logo popped up on my sight. It is quite thick, turns out there are more envelopes inside with the same context. I open them one by one because, well, curiosity. Some are my lil bro's medical prescription, then my mom's, then.. a bill? That's for my seven day long hospitalization for a lung infection that almost take my breath away, literally. It was some years ago. Things were going so quickly: an unusually high fever, shivers, my chest hurt, cough with blood specks, sputum test, X rays, IV, oxygen pipe, some other delirious nights, antibiotics, got better, more X rays.

It's all written there in the bill. I've never seen this before, maybe because I'm just a mid-schooler that shouldn't know a thing about money back then? I trace every word and number on the bill. It's pretty big, back then we would be in a horrible situation to pay those. I can feel my joints weaken to see the bill. Yes, right, it's in the past, I got covered by the insurance anyway, but still the numbers are like a huge slap. That much for an infection? How am I gonna survive alone along with other bills?

That bill got me into a state of pensive adagio, in the middle of a messy floor.

As long as I live, I've never felt less. Everything is well-provided until now that I have to take some time to prepare myself that I will become a part of the paying society after I graduate and live by myself. Even the idea of living by myself still scares me. How am I get a job? Should I earn some money or pursue my dream first? How to blend with the paying society?

I fold that bill and tuck it inside the envelope. I'll keep that bill later after this mess is over. I'm still living in my parents' house, so I have to be a good kid and tidy up the bookcase, and graduate of course. Now I just have to believe that in the future I will become more independent and be a good decision maker for my own life.

And stay healthy. Being sick is not good nor cheap.

image courtesy: foxtailbooks.com