A boy and a girl sat in a car together, stuck in the unmoving traffic inside the parking lot of some mall somewhere around Jakarta. The radio was blasting one of Bruno Mars's hit songs, a must sing karaoke one, I suppose. They were inbetween conversations, when the boy said: "isn't it weird that you're not singing along to this song? I mean it's such a dancy and even a bit overplayed song, I'm sure you remember at least the lyrics to the reff part. I was just in a car with (our friend) earlier, and she can't stop screaming along to this song."
The girl looked puzzled. "I wonder," was all she could answer. She was really confused as well; as one of her most favorite activities is to sing absent-mindedly. She would sing on the shower to herself, while working on her assignments along with friends (and even around her not-so-close friends, although she was a rather shy person; but some songs are just impossible not to sing along to), during concerts, during church services sometimes as a singer up front at the stage, during guitar solos and the beating of the drum, even in secondary or third notes. She knew that singing for at least 15 minutes per day supposedly elongates one's life and even burn out some calories. Her mother, in particular, liked to remark her ability to remember so many different songs and their lyrics. In short, she loved singing. Why didn't she sang? Why wasn't it her initial reaction to sing whenever there was a halt in their conversation (as she usually does sometimes to fill up a silence)?
The answer didn't come right away, as they was quick to move on to another topic. But time passes by, and, the answer came through a flashback of memory.
Several years earlier, the boy and the girl were in the same class together, and were chair mates for several months to almost a year, perhaps. And even before that they were acquainted since early years of kindergarten, so they were at the very least, good friends. They talked a lot as they are both very chatty, and through this they knew each other's characters, vices and virtues pretty well: there are almost no pretentiousness among them. Each knows each other very well, the author supposes.
One particular day, the girl was singing around absent-mindedly as per usual, when the boy, perhaps half jokingly, but perhaps true as well, told her that she was off key.
That's it. She couldn't remember what came after that: what was her initial reaction (though she was sure she didn't really make a fuss about it and even kept on singing)? Did she ever sang again in front of him? Did she noticeably sing less after hearing so?
One, perhaps thought to be harmless, remark, was the basis of one's constrain to a supposedly unconscious mere act of joy (that is, singing absent-mindedly). Isn't that somewhat remarkable, that something so trivial could alter one's habit without her even realizing or deemed so?