Talk Vomit

By Fendy S. Tulodo

There’s a cicak on the ceiling, clinging like it knows a secret. It watches me. I watch it back. The fan spins slow, broken at setting three, so it hums instead of slicing air. The sound fills the bedroom, but not enough to drown out my mother’s voice from the other side of the thin plywood wall.

She’s talking to Bu Indah again. Probably about me.

“Dia itu kayak bapaknya.” (He’s just like his father.)

I stare at the cicak. It flicks its tail. I don’t know if it’s listening, but I know I am.

The cicak is always there. Not the same one, I guess, but another just like it. It watches when I pull my knees to my chest, watches when I press my fingers into my stomach like I can push my ribs back into place. “Mirip bapaknya,” (Looks like his father,) she says again, and I know Bu Indah will hum sympathetically and agree, because that’s what neighbors do.

I wonder if cicaks have fathers. I wonder if they ever feel haunted by them.

The House That Remembers

I used to think I didn’t look like anyone. That I was just a body that existed in the space between my mother and father’s lives, like a cicak on the wall, unnoticed until it moved. But then I turned sixteen, and the comparisons started. The way I walked, the way my jaw set when I was angry, the way I ran my fingers through my hair when I was thinking.

“Pasti nurun dari bapaknya,” (Must have inherited it from his father,) Bu Indah once said, stirring her coffee while her youngest, Sari, braided my hair too tightly. “Dulu aku kenal dia, sebelum…” (I knew him before…)

She trailed off. She always trailed off.

No one ever finished that sentence.

When I was eight, my father’s name stopped existing in our house. I don’t remember when exactly, but one day, I said “Papa” in the kitchen and my mother flinched so hard she dropped a plate. We ate dinner with plastic ones after that.

I didn’t ask. I just learned.

The way you learn not to step on a cicak’s tail unless you want it to wriggle, detached, on the floor.

II. The Things That Are Not Said

Tonight, the cicak is still watching. I wonder if it knows the difference between silence and listening.

My mother has gone quiet now, probably asleep, but I’m still awake, my mind playing old conversations like a cassette tape, rewinding and repeating. The way Sari’s mother looked at me. The way my teachers said my name like it meant something else.

The way I started avoiding mirrors.

I reach for my phone and open the search bar. Just a name. Just to see. My fingers hover.

The cicak’s tail flicks.

I close the app.

The next morning, my mother is in the kitchen, making kopi, humming an old song. The smell curls through the air, thick and bitter.

“Mau kopi?” (Want some coffee?) she asks.

“Nggak,” (No,) I say, but sit down anyway.

She hands me a piece of roti, slightly burnt at the edges.

“Kau ngelamun aja akhir-akhir ini,” she says, stirring her coffee. “Kenapa?” (You’ve been daydreaming a lot lately. Why?)

I shake my head.

“Nggak kenapa-kenapa.” (It’s nothing.)

She watches me. Like the cicak.

The First Time I Saw Him Again

A week later, I see him. Not in real life—just a photo. A Facebook profile, untouched for years. He looks younger than I remember. Or maybe I just got older.

My father.

His name sits under his picture like an afterthought. Like an accident.

It takes three days before I finally press “Message.”

He replies.

Not right away, but he replies.

“Kamu baik?” (Are you well?)

Not “How are you?” Not “I missed you.” Just this. Like he’s talking to a stranger.

Maybe he is.

I stare at the screen for a long time before I type:

“Baik.” (I’m well.)

The House That Hears

The cicak is gone.

I don’t know where it went. Maybe it slipped behind the cupboard, or maybe it fell. Maybe it got tired of watching.

I stretch my legs over the side of the bed and stand, the tile cool under my feet. My mother is still in the kitchen, stirring her coffee. She glances at me as I walk in.

“Tadi malam kau nggak tidur?” (You didn’t sleep last night?)

“Tidur,” (I did,) I lie.

She watches me, her fingers tapping against her mug. Then she sighs.

“Aku dulu suka kopi ini juga, kau tahu?” (I used to like this coffee too, you know?) she says suddenly.

I blink.

“Dulu?” (Used to?)

She nods, staring at the dark liquid in her cup.

“Dulu. Sebelum…” (Before…)

She doesn’t finish the sentence. Just like Bu Indah never did.

I swallow hard. The words are there, stuck in my throat, pressing against my teeth.

“Aku ketemu Papa,” I say, voice barely above a whisper. (I found Papa.)

Silence.

Then:

“Aku tahu.” (I know.)

My head snaps up.

She’s still stirring her coffee.

“Bu Indah bilang dia liat kamu buka Facebook malam-malam,” she says. (Bu Indah said she saw you on Facebook late at night.)

Of course she did.

“Kau nggak marah?” (You’re not angry?)

She exhales through her nose.

“Aku lelah,” she says instead. (I’m just tired.)

She doesn’t ask what we talked about. She doesn’t tell me to stop. She just finishes her coffee, then stands.

“Hati-hati,” she says before leaving. (Be careful.)

And somehow, that scares me more than if she had shouted.

The Things That Stay

I don’t message him again.

Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know what else to say.

“Baik,” I had told him. “Baik.”

And maybe that was enough.

A week passes. Then two. Then three.

The cicak comes back. Or maybe a different one does. But it’s there, clinging to the ceiling, its small body still as stone.

It watches me.

I watch it back.

The house is listening.

And so am I.