These Are The Angels

Yesterday, Nit told me that she, Doy, Chris and Bar would have a gig at 8-11 pm, and I was invited. It has been too long since the last time I saw Doy and Chris onstage so that all I can think of saying was: I will definitely be there.

I managed to get there at 11 and was lucky enough that I got to see the 40-minute overtime. I noticed instantly that all the right ingredients for a good time were there: small place, old friends, and burning liquors. I myself was tricked into having a big sip of something I thought was iced-lemon tea. I knew my throat loved the hot liquid, but I still decided it was my last drop. Alcohol was never my thing.

Judging from the tunes they played on overtime, I assumed that the booze had kicked well. Those were the tunes you sing only for old time sake. And with Chris on stage, it is guaranteed that with every passing minute the stage will only get hotter. The night was rocked perfectly.

Ironic to the view of a group of half-drunk people, I was reminded to an old poem, Human Among The Angels. Back in college, there were two poets among our peers; Nde and Cell. From time to time, Leg, Doy, and I were honored with premiere readings of their masterpieces. I have always described Nde’s work as exotic, and of Cell’s I would say calming. It never mattered what he wrote about –his happiness, despair, or even hate– they always started and ended with calm. Human Among The Angels was Cell’s.

Human Among The Angels tells a story about a man (who has spent his lifetime thinking of himself as terribly ordinary) feeling lucky of being surrounded by such angelic people. Cell was fluent in both word-play and idea-play. And I bet that all those years of being head over heels about Shakespeare is responsible for such a melodic piece. Human Among The Angels was clearly a naked truth of how he viewed his friends. When I read the piece, my boyish heart melted, while at the same time the rest of my manly-self attempted difficultly to save myself from the humiliation of feeling so girlie (I failed, of course). I’m sure that among ourselves, I’m not the only one who endured this embarrassing ordeal.

If someone thinks of you as an angel, you will get off the ground so high you would actually believe that you probably are one. Human Among The Angels made people feel that way, but Cell made me feel envious. I tried to seek explanation of how on earth a person is capable of writing such a fantastic verse. I came up with the cheapest explanation of all: Freudian’s. I made myself believe that Cell was feeling degrading of himself and that the poetry was his instrument to his own self-acceptance. Considering such feeling is socially unacceptable, he upgraded himself from subhuman to human while at the same time upgraded everyone else from human to angel. In short, I thought Cell was sick. It didn’t help much because at the very end of that thought, whether I was right or wrong, I was back admiring Cell’s work.

Someone else was a much wiser than I was (actually everybody else was wiser than I was). With Cell’s consent, Doy composed a song based on the poem. Doy, being a person capable of interpreting verbal experiences into sounds, completed the perfect sense of the poem. It was only the rough version, but already the sounds of the instruments spoke the serenity, and all the vocals –front and back– gave the feeling of godly noises.

In September 27, 1996, all of us hung out on a street corner in Bogor from late night to early day. It was Cell’s birthday. We spent the whole night sitting in circles, lighting candles[1], talking, drinking coffee, and unavoidably, singing. On the coming of the early dawn, our brain part we suspect responsible for censoring any dangerous thoughts (read: truth) coming out stopped working. Uncontrollably we told among ourselves our fantasies, hopes, and dreams[2]. I always think that part of the brain only exist in boys because when it stopped working, we became as hideously romantic as girls are. I also remember something else vividly. That night when we gather around, I felt comfortable. It felt like what Cell wrote in Human Among The Angels.

And comfortable was what I felt last night. Maybe it’s because the presence of your friends means protection to you. Comfort is what I get when they’re around: with or without singing, booze or candles. What I may need, as Cell eloquently put it, are just those angels (though drunk they may be).

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After the gig was over, Leg came to me. He said he was thinking of an idea for Human Among The Angels music video. I thought that was a nice coincidence.

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[1] Oh my God, what were we thinking
[2] After that incident, we call it Honest Hour, a moment when your censoring brain stops working and any potential damaging secret may come out.