Part I I live with my parents in a small town, while my father’s parents live by the sea. My grandfather used to be a sailor, and in my childhood memories, the sea was always present—perhaps because I often dreamt of black waves and ships, golden light flickering onboard, and myself lying at the ship’s edge, watching those beams of light drifting and swimming in the water like countless spirit butterflies. They would haul up net after net of fish, dragged from the dark seawater by green plastic nets. When the boat’s lights shone on them, the fish would twitch and shudder. They’d be tossed onto the deck in heaps, and seawater would pool beneath them. The side of the fish touching the water would frantically writhe, as if their fins had returned home. By the next morning, the fish would have left silver streaks where they thrashed. I remember, in my dream, I would scoop up the seawater mixed with fish scales and pour it back into the sea. The scales floated up and down in the water like fish swimming. The people in my dreams and I would tell each other this story over and over again, as if the other had never heard it: as long as the ship sailed on the ocean, the seawater on board would never dry up. I told this dream to my parents multiple times, but they adamantly denied it. They said my feet had never left the land. “But the ocean is just a big puddle on the land,” I argued. I tried hard to gather evidence, but they would only curl their lips into a childish smile, even more childlike than mine. My parents’ deep belief in the magic of earth and soil had its reasons. My grandfather had many roles—he was a sailor, but also a bamboo trader. He managed everything by himself, navigating both land and sea. I remember how he stacked bamboo poles by the entrance to the backyard. Past the bamboo pile, there was a small shed. Inside that dim little space were saws, fishing nets, leftover fish and rice. The saws were always hanging upside down. Sometimes, there would be massive salted fish hanging as well, their skins marked by mesh patterns—black lines etched into their blood-silver surfaces like chains, glaringly out of place. These fish looked completely different from when they were in water. Back then, their interlaced black and silver scales resembled solemn armor. Even when imprisoned in red plastic tubs, they looked ready to leap. There was a threatening curve to their bodies, like dragons not yet transformed, coldly gazing upward. Even the fish tossed into snakeskin bags and dumped in the kitchen would spring out suddenly, slapping the tiled floor loudly. It was as if, given the right moment, they could knock the whole house down and leap back to their homeland. I truly believed they could. There were animals in that place, too—my grandfather’s cats. Sometimes I’d slide in over mossy ground into that sorcerer’s workshop of a shed and sit at a table still laid with leftover fish and rice. The cats would slink past underfoot, softly murmuring, as if trying to awaken the dead fish hanging above. None of the cats ever lived out their lives peacefully in our home. Some would disappear in a day or two; others were hit by trucks on the highway. Except for one white old cat. Its fur was always perfectly clean, porcelain-white, never dirty. It was the first cat I ever remembered from my grandfather’s house. My father had many stories about it—how it once leapt unharmed from the top of a pear tree in the courtyard, how it played well with him (something I envied deeply), even shared dead mice with him. I don’t know where it came from, or where it went. But it stayed at our home for at least 20 years, far longer than most cats live. When I was eleven, it gave birth to a litter of soft mewling kittens, each one as white as porcelain. That alone seemed proof that it defied the laws of nature. Later, it vanished, and so did the kittens. As for this, all I can say is: if something is not meant to be in your life, it won’t be. My sister and I used to walk on the bamboo poles, pretending we were crossing mountains. We loved imagining ourselves as characters in those red-covered primary school stories—like Zhu De’s Shoulder Pole: “The mountain was high, the path long and hard to walk, yet everyone fought to go.” Our grandmother often scolded us, warning we’d break our legs. But the earth was firm, the moss-covered bamboo as rough and solid as stone. No matter how much we climbed, they never moved. We’d walk from one end to the other, lengthwise and crosswise, perfectly safe. One year around New Year, I thought about crawling across again. I was poking my finger into the incense ash when the tip got burned by a still-smoldering ember. I was startled into reverence and never entertained the idea again. My grandmother had a vegetable garden. Besides that, I remember her carving out a large section of the limited yard to grow corn, peas, loofah. I couldn’t tell whether they hung down or grew up from the soil. The earth there was salty, but the plants still flourished. Once I stepped into the field and the leaves seemed to wrap around me, pulling me inward as if to swallow me. I suddenly felt that the plants did not accept me—and from then on, I lost interest in exploring. But in that small patch of earth, all sorts of plants I knew grew—taro, yams. One time I saw a little lotus leaf spreading open in a water vat by the kitchen. Grandma told me it was a lotus leaf. I didn’t find it strange, but to this day I’ve never seen it bloom. In the cracks of my grandfather’s crumbling house, many flower pots had been discarded. Yet every single one of those flowers bloomed—vivid and deliberate, flourishing right on time with the seasons. There were always flowers blooming, spring, summer, fall, and winter. So I never once felt that my childhood was desolate. Part II My mother’s hometown had real open fields. Every year when we returned there to honor our ancestors, I’d get so carsick my head would spin. I’d think to myself: if I see more than two colors at once, I’ll definitely throw up. But I never did. All I could see were green plants—wheat, leafy greens, peas, chives—though honestly, I couldn’t name a single one. The sunlight was expansive; it was Qingming Festival sunshine, a kind of pale yellow-green. I often felt it was just like that spot in the Book of Songs where a valley lies quietly, grass trembling with dew, reborn in the east wind. It was the same soul-bearing green as “The kudzu grows thick.” When I visited my great-great-grandparents’ graves, those leaves brushed against my calves. I remember when I was eleven, my mother sighed with emotion. I don’t remember what she was wearing, but she had on a beautiful sunhat woven from straw—a soft beige. I thought it was some kind of new retro fashion, because my mother had an uncanny sense of style, despite never having been formally trained in aesthetics. Later, she told me it was my grandmother’s hat. But I had never seen my grandmother wear anything like it—it had a striking white ribbon and was tied with a plant that still oozed a milky sap. She said, “When you were little, you were just as tall as them.” I snapped awake as if struck by something. I suddenly felt that the land was so stubborn—like a seasoned soldier, brave and proud, always picky with newcomers. I could almost picture myself walking carefully, trying not to be tripped or swallowed by the plants. My mother just stood watching, like it was some coronation ceremony. I felt as if I were walking among my people, those who I owed something to, the leaves reaching toward me like open palms. Bound by a silent, ancestral contract, there was nothing I could do but let them take what they willed. I remember we burned many offerings for the deceased—houses, cars, and endless money. At that moment, I had the impulsive thought that dying might not be so bad—one could receive all these things without lifting a finger. I can’t quite remember whether I told my mom. She was the kind of extraordinary woman who never found anything I said odd or strange. In the version of the memory I’ve kept in my mind, I did tell her. And she said she once had the same thought. I dozed off on a little stool, and she gently patted the swirl of my hair. Then we came to a new understanding: living might be more interesting after all. She also told me that once a person dies, they’re completely free—no longer bound to linger around their homeland. “Maybe your great-grandmother has already caught the spring wind and gone somewhere else to see the flowers.” At my great-grandmother’s funeral, there were two little black fish swimming in circles. I touched one gently, and suddenly I felt—maybe there’s no need to ride the wind. To turn into a fish might be wonderful enough. Later, when I got too busy with school, only my mother went back to honor the ancestors. One time, when she returned, she pulled me aside with rare solemnity and told me, “One of your ancestors was named Huai Xuan.” Such a beautiful name, she said. I still sigh over it to this day. The last memory is of that pale green-yellow sun. I held my mother’s hand. They were burning paper offerings in front of the tomb. Strangely, the willow tree beside the graves—companion to my ancestors—was always green, perhaps because of the soil. Soil that strictly chooses and tightly clings to each life that belongs to it. Or perhaps it was because we still held such vivid memories and longing for our ancestors. In any case, all things have spirits. The land itself is a king, a country. Blue smoke curled upward. My lively uncle shouted cheerfully, “Look, the smoke’s turning blue!” It really was—blue smoke, with sunlight gilding its edges. Through the haze, I looked at the plants and the willow tree. Even now, as I look back on that memory, I feel like there’s something else it resembles. I think it’s A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains. Those etched peaks and flowing colors—somewhere between cold and warm—make Wang Ximeng’s painting seem neither heavenly nor earthly. It feels like the place I’ve wandered through in dreams, the silent language I hold on my tongue but never speak. All I see—rivers, mountains, soil—is home.
Today, I watched The Sinking of Lisbon Maru. Occasionally, quiet sobs could be heard in the theater. The documentary recounted how three British prisoners of war managed to escape the searches on an isolated island. The daughter of a fisherman who helped with the rescue recited their names one by one in a dialect-laced Chinese. Then, their photos appeared on the screen, clad in Chinese clothing. In those foreign garments, they consciously shrank their bodies to better fit, offering sheepish smiles to the camera. It was an amusing sight; the audience laughed. In a film filled with the living, the nearly dead, and the dead, they seemed comical and lighthearted. To survive was to be separated from the darkness and despair of the ship’s hold. To be alive was a cause for joy, a tiny prospect for insignificant people, a friend with a ruddy nose. A scholar researching the Lisbon Maru described it as a three-act tragedy. Indeed, all deaths conform to the script. But life itself is chaos, an absurdist play devoid of aesthetic meaning. When I visited the pyramids, I had menstrual cramps so intense they felt like they could split the sky. The pain was unbearable; I couldn’t take a single step. It was as if my body were reliving the entire process of stone-laying from millennia ago. With every stone pushed into place, my flesh was torn apart, my fingers wracked with searing pain. I crouched before the pyramid, screaming silently within. For a moment, the sunlight wavered—an echo of the old folktale where Meng Jiang wept at the Great Wall. The golden stones tumbled down; the pharaoh sought to resurrect himself within me. The tour guide said the pyramids symbolized rebirth. Egypt, and later Europe, embraced the worship of monumental structures to make the divine visible. But in the secular world, the pyramids clearly proclaim the pharaoh’s death. The precondition for all prayers of resurrection is death—sublimity layered upon sublimity. Death lingers like a shadow. Just as the serpent of chaos beneath Ra’s solar barge, they painted it as waves that propel him forward. Set grips his harpoon, tempted to kill and yet to spare. I first understood death when my great-grandmother passed away. To know death is like losing innocence—like a shattered porcelain vessel reduced to dust. It is an irreversible cognition. I felt my childhood ended then. In some ways, childhood is closer to death than adulthood is, for we are born from it. A child’s sorrow is therefore deeper, heavier, as it still holds the memory of death. I once read a passage from Zhuangzi on Weibo: “The True Men of old did not rejoice in life, nor did they loathe death. Their coming was unheralded, their departure unresisted. They floated along, arriving and departing with ease, never forgetting their origins, never seeking their end.” Those who do not know death are ancient souls, like water dissolving into water. In therapy, my therapist told me I didn’t know which values I should follow. She gave me a chart to classify priorities as important, less important, or unimportant. My scalp tingled at the thought of ranking them. I have an innate fear of categorization. I forced myself through it, but the result was a mess—chaotic, disordered, impossible to define by any single moral code, principle, or personality trait. I joked that I was a quintessential modern person. Perhaps because of that, death is of such importance to me. In Game of Thrones, there is a concept I deeply admire: after Arya arrives in Braavos, she learns that although there are many gods, they all serve the same deity—the God of Death. Valar Morghulis—all men must die. I crave silence. I am exhausted by social media’s incessant whispers in my ear. The Leviathan with its thousand faces laughs at me from the shadows. Even on the bus, I find the presence of others unbearable. I knelt before the Pantheon, overwhelmed by the indistinct faces, longing to cry for help—yet upon recognizing them, I only felt revulsion. Self-loathing breeds hatred for others; narcissism leads to rejection; selfishness necessitates dependence. Death is a ticket to leave at any moment. And yet, I fear it. The sight of Kinkaku-ji burning to the ground—such beauty turned light and absurd in the face of death. Death is the only thing that truly belongs to us. Not long ago, I read Yiyun Li’s The Deaths and Lives of Two Sons in The New Yorker. It felt as if I were reading about my own mother—or perhaps every mother. The deaths of her two sons were met with endless speculation, but in the end, it wasn’t so complicated. It was simply that the fruit of death had ripened. I deeply love Rilke’s poetry: “Früher wußte man (oder vielleicht man ahnte es), daß man den Tod in sich hatte wie die Frucht den Kern. Die Kinder hatten einen kleinen in sich und die Erwachsenen einen großen. Die Frauen hatten ihn im Schooß und die Männer in der Brust. Den hatte man, und das gab einem eine eigentümliche Würde und einen stillen Stolz.” The dead remain shrouded in mist to the living. In the beginning, there was the Word. At some point, time was not yet invented, nor was death. I do not recall whether the Bible ever mentions God creating death. Perhaps death has always been beyond religion. Perhaps it is simply another life within us finally coming to maturity. Water Margin ends with Lu Zhishen hearing the tide of the Qiantang River. “He thought it was the sound of war drums,” but others told him, “It is the tidal current.” What a beautiful phrase: “The tide comes because it keeps its promise.” At that moment, he understood another way of being—another world of life. Not life, yet something like life. And so, he attained nirvana. The flower that bears the seed of death bursts open—not in mono no aware, not in sentimentality, but in an indifferent, unknowing bloom. The moment it opens, the seed drops to the ground with a dull thud, like a skull, like an overturned jade bowl. Like a magnolia blossom. Today, I realized I am myself. This street is lined with cherry trees, their petals drifting down as I walk beneath them. Petal-thin boats descend along beams of light, the trailing hems of Sakura maidens’ dresses, an endless rain of spring’s tears. I have never seen mourning so lush—a funeral procession for the new year’s arrival. The trees form a canopy overhead, like the Milky Way. One day, I sat on the upper deck of a bus, passing through this joyous yet sorrowful carnival. I thought of my violin teacher. At the end of a lesson, he suddenly locked eyes with me and asked, “Is it simple?” In that moment, boredom, curiosity, and anticipation converged—he was waiting for me to say yes or no. A moment of recognition. Shostakovich and Beethoven fade into twilight. Humans survive on caffeine and scale exercises. The helplessness, boredom, absurdity, and fragility of genius. After leaving LSO, he started teaching violin, simplifying from a hundred shifting positions per minute to just one. After I die, I plan to submit a thousand job applications. A single distilled adjective turned into a hundred similar, meaningless sentences. In that question, he and I mourned each other. To live is merely to live. Nick told Harry about Sirius beyond the veil: “He has gone on.” He has gone on. To live for the future is laughable, lucky, insignificant, ugly. Yet he has gone on—through death, braver than a ghost, more corporeal than a phantom. For no reason other than that the seed within him had not yet fully ripened. Humanity marches onward, shrinking from colossus to man, shrink endlessly, infinitely, into insignificance. Someone blew bubbles in the street. As the bus passed through them, I mistook them for falling cherry blossoms. In the breathtaking instant of a thousand suns bursting at once, I walked through the apocalypse—expressionless, unmoved. 今天去看了《里斯本丸沉没》，现场时有啜泣声。纪录片里讲到有三个英军俘虏在极东岛逃过了搜索，搜救渔民的女儿用带着方言的中文一个一个地讲了他们的名字，随之浮现的是他们穿着中国人衣服的照片。三个人在异族的衣服里有意识地缩小自己身型来适应，对着镜头讪讪笑着。娱乐性的一幕，在场所有人都笑了。在充斥着死者和近死者的生人者，他们如此滑稽、轻浮，幸存这样一件事让他们和船舱里的黑暗、绝望隔离了开来。活着就是皆大欢喜、活着就是小人物式的微小前程、活着就是那个鼻子红通通的普通朋友。研究里斯本丸的学者说这是一个三幕式悲剧，是的，所有的死亡都如此符合程序。活着是混沌、没有审美意义的荒谬剧。 去金字塔的时候我在痛经，穿云裂石的疼痛，我一步都没法走，仿佛体内闪回千年前垒石的全程。每一片石头被推进去时皮开肉绽、十指连心的剧痛。我蹲在金字塔前面，内里在无声地尖叫，一瞬间日色恍惚，好像是异国版的孟姜女哭长城的故事上演。金色落石滚滚而下，法老想要寄生在我体内复活。导游说金字塔意味着复活。埃及包括后来影响欧洲的巨物崇拜初衷是为了让神可见，但是在世俗世界，金字塔明明白白地宣告了法老的死。所有复活的祈愿的前提都是死，崇高之上叠加的崇高。死如影随形。就像拉神在太阳船下的混沌之蛇，他们把这画成推助其向前的波涛。赛特手持鱼叉，欲诱欲杀。 我第一次知道死是在我曾祖母去世的时候，知道死就像一去不回的童贞，碎成粉末的瓷器。是一件无可转寰的认知。我觉得我的童年在那时候就结束了。童年比我现在离死还相近，因为我刚从死亡里出生。所以童年的哭泣和悲伤都是一种深重、沉痛的悲伤，因为还遗留着死亡的记忆。之前在微博读到《庄子》里说，“古之真人，不知说生，不知恶死。其出不欣，其入不距。翛然而往，翛然而来而已矣。不忘其所始，不求其所终。”不知道死的人，很古的人，像水消失在水中。 之前在咨询师那里，她告诉我，我不知道我需要遵循哪些value，我对着她发给我的测试圆圈，对着重要次重要不重要列出一二三四五头皮发麻。我对分类有天然的恐惧。硬着头皮做完，我的组成混乱、无序，没有办法用任何一种一以贯之的道德、准则、性格归类。我那时候自嘲自己是个不折不扣的现代人。正因为如此，死对我如此重要。《冰与火之歌》里有个我非常喜欢的设置。艾丽娅在去了布拉夫斯之后，发现神那么多的脸，但是他们实际侍奉的神只有一个神。死神。Valar Morghulis，凡人皆有一死。我喜欢安静。我受够了社交媒体在我耳边的窃窃私语，利维坦的千面身体在阴影里嘲笑我，公交车上别人坐在我身边都让我觉得烦躁。我跪在万神殿前，每一张模糊的脸都让我想求救、在看清后每一张脸都让我厌恶。自厌从而厌恶他人，自恋从而拒斥他人、自私从而需要他人。死是随时离场的通行券。同时我又那么害怕死亡。见证金阁寺火烧后的世间至美在死面前变得如此轻浮、荒谬。死亡是唯一的身内之物。 在不久之前读了李翊云在《纽约客》上的，《两个儿子的死与生》。我仿佛读到我的母亲，或许是每一个母亲。两个儿子的相继死亡众说纷纭，其实一切并没有那么复杂。只是死亡的果实成熟了而已。我非常喜欢里尔克的诗，“死亡就藏在人的体内，如同果核位于水果中央。儿童们体内是小小的死，成人们体内是大大的死，妇女的死在怀腹，男子的死在胸膛。人们一直就有的死赋予人们一种特殊的尊严和宁静的骄傲。” Früher wußte man (oder vielleicht man ahnte es), daß man den Tod in sich hatte wie die Frucht den Kern. Die Kinder hatten einen kleinen in sich und die Erwachsenen einen großen. Die Frauen hatten ihn im Schooß und die Männer in der Brust. Den hatte man, und das gab einem eine eigentümliche Würde und einen stillen Stolz. 对于死者的一切打探在活人世界都如同隔雾看花。太初有道，在某一个时刻，没有发明时间，也没有发明死。我记不得圣经中上帝有没有造出死这个词。或许死始终是非宗教的。或许死是体内另一个生命终于长成。《水浒传》的结尾中，鲁智深听到钱塘江的声音，“只道是战鼓响”，后来别人告诉他，这是“潮信”。非常美丽的一个词语，“因不失信，为之潮信。”他在那时候理解了另一种生的方式，另一种生的世界。非生而似有生，而生者不能与之归一。于是他圆寂了。含着死果的花怦然绽开，比之物哀之美而无谓无知，开的一瞬间含果落地，匝响如头颅，倒扣如玉碗。就像玉兰花。 今日方知我是我。 这条街上到处都种植着樱花，走在树下经常见落樱纷飞。顺光柱而下的粉薄轻舟，樱女曳溢的裙裾，飘飘缈缈、无穷无尽的春泪。从未见过这样盛荣的哭葬，哀悼新岁开始的仪仗。树笼在头上。似是银河。某天我坐在汽车最上层，穿行过这悲而似喜极的狂欢节。想到我的小提琴老师，在一堂课结束的时候忽然盯住我的眼睛，问简单吗？那一刻的百无聊赖、兴味盎然、期待我说是和不是。相认的瞬间。肖斯塔科维奇和贝多芬日薄西山，人要靠着咖啡因和和弦练习过活。天才的无奈、无聊、荒谬、软弱。离开了LSO后他开始教小提琴，从繁到简，一分钟一百个变位变成一个。我死过之后准备投够一千份简历，一个精纯的形容词变成一百句相似的废话。我和他在那一句问话里互相凭吊。活着，仅仅是活着。 尼克告诉哈利，在帷幕彼岸的小天狼星：“他继续往下走了。” 他继续往下走了。为未来活着是多么可笑、侥幸、渺小、丑陋的一句话，可是他继续往下走了，穿过死亡，比幽灵肉质而英勇。没有别的什么原因，只是因为那个果核还没有真正的成熟。人无限地行走，从大到小，从巨像变为人。无限地卑猥下去。 街上有人吹泡泡，公交车穿过的时候，我以为是飘飞的樱花。在这一千个太阳同时迸裂的惊心动魄一瞬间。我面无表情地穿过了这一秒钟的末世。
The morning in which I hadn’t decided to go to Paris, I opened The Paris Review for the first time and skipped the interviews of Truman Capote, directly towards to the Ernest Hemingway one. At that moment I just floated from the seabed to the deep water area——the weight-crushing the heart was removed, but the pressure still threatened my flesh and bones. The day before I went to Paris, 19/11/2024. London snowed, but I missed all the things when I woke up. Snow is no longer light and superficial to the world, it becomes the mud underneath my feet. At that day, I walked with the mud to the Daleham Gardens to meet the crisis team. The last meeting they officially and personally discharged me. I can’t help trembling on the late bus back, the famous judgement declaration of Madame Bovary from Flaubert occured to me and echoed in my mind. She longed to travel; she longed to go back to her convent to live. She wanted to die, and she wanted to live in Paris. I completed the first half of the sentence and now is time to complete the next one. The unconscious thoughts are like a fuse buried in my mind. The spark is the second day’s weather report. That day is a sunny day, which the sun is too good that it’s like the last day of London to exist in the world. I was checking how many 24 hours the doom day will last. And suddenly I saw the report of Paris. Although the UK accomplished the Brexit, but it is still connected to the Europa in tiny ways. There are 75 percentages snowy in Pairs. Annie Ernaux used to express her suspicion of all the modern technologies in her The years, which is reasonable and solid. A data may be calculated and published by AI makes me abandon the rare sunny days of London. I said goodbye to everything in an idyllic pastoral frame and buried myself in the endless darkness of the subway. And the next is the anxious procedure at the airport. I am heading to a European city in which I know nothing of the language. And which is worse there may be probably a 25 percent chance of Paris just being gloomy, miserable, and rainy. I regretted heavily when the subway left the sunshine and went to the darkness, I regretted heavily when I walked in the plane with my simplified package. The plane flew plainly in the sky, from the 4 of London to the 6 of Europe. I slid into a huge gap of time. Here is London, there is Paris, and the hour that disappears in between is like a fog-filled chasm in a cliff. The sky turned dark suddenly when we were out of the clouds, like how the classical films do——they just dragged the curtain to change the scenery. And then I saw the view out of my expectations, no matter how the land will disenchant herself, the beauty came across me in a PRESENTING way, I immersed in it with huge astonishment. Europe which is woven with golden threads, France which is woven with golden threads, and Paris which is woven with golden threads. Paris’s night lights are golden which looks like an overlook of a blacksmith’s casting table, quite different from London’s night full of red shining lights. The lights outline the curve of the city and also convey the fluidity of the city’s inner. Beauty flows in that form. My hotel is in the city center, and I felt that way when I did the city walk from the dinner restaurant to it. I walked past Musée du Louvre, Notre-Dame de Paris and Senie. I walked according to Google Maps, but I don’t think I was led by the blue line on the map, but by the city. If it is London that embeds the quality and texture of the Thames River, then it is the Seine that embeds these of Paris. The feminine and maternal quality. He is like the woman in my dream, whose face is covered by the veil, and the Greek-style long dresses slid from her shoulders. I am like the new birth of the world, try to catch the invisible fabric that flows like time, and follows her with every step. I stopped beside the Senie for a long time and my feet were on the crunching late-autumn falling leaves, which seemed like the real material consisted of the bank. This Seine, I thought while watching the waves under the bridge. In August, I saw the Goddess in armour riding the waves on every social media. A stranger was skating in front of the transparent primad of Musée du Louvre. Fly on the ground like a bird. He may be entitled to an artist, but maybe not. In Paris, I only think he do it just because he wanted to not for the performance. He may be aware of me, maybe not. But nothing is important if it is undoubtedly beautiful. Just like on Senie, on the boat which is modified by a train carriage, people are singing, laughing, and drinking. There’s not much space shown by looking through the transparent window, but people are happy and the boat floats beautifully. Which is enough. It‘s all about the narcissism at the moment or in the permanent safe deposit box. All is beautiful if the moment is. The Paris snowed as I expected the second day I went out. That is the reason why I came here. I was not as excited as I expected when it started to snow. Maybe I know I have already made a secret agreement with the Wind God of the city. I asked for a Strawberry macaron with raspberry center and chocolate cake capricious in a random shop around local people buying croissants and buns. The face the shop owner makes is like the story of Angla Carter. In the adaptation of the story ‘The Blood Chamber’, the protagonist, the newly minted mistress of the old castle, asks for all the flavors of ice cream to be brought out for dinner, with the eye of the maid in there who is used to serving aristocratic masters rather than whimsical schoolgirls. But the fact showed I am bright, people only knew taking out of the camera unpreparedly and took photos. While I appreciating the chocolate cake in the corridor of an unknown old museum. The snowflakes fall down on the mirror-like chocolate cake. I ate it with my mouth and part of my face skin because I didn’t have a spoon. I thought I wiped them clearly, until an Asian look like man looked at me uneasily in the line of Pompidou. I realized that I had a chocolate trail left like a split above my lip. It just so happened that I had a cut on my lip and he probably thought I just have had a stitching operation. I am not an expert of art, so I am past the world famoust paintings unconsciouly in Musée du Louvre and Pompidou. But the museums are tolerant enough, maybe they know they have too much to be pround of. The center of Marc Chagall’s The Bride and the Eiffel Tower in Pompidou is the half-human, half-ghostly pale bride, dressed in a pure white wedding gown, her physical existence seemingly fading away. Meanwhile, the woman in Picasso’s The Muse always appears so weary. Art is always so honest—in 1935, as Picasso separated from his wife and edged toward divorce, his paintings candidly revealed everything. Also, in the time I traveled around Musée du Louvre, there were also women leading me, three women, the Three Graces: La Liberté guidant le peuple, Mona Lisa, and Venus de Milo. Shameless in their nudity, shameless in their concealment, shameless in their loss. On the fourth day I went to Napoleon’s tomb and the Pantheon, French people made the tomb spectacularly restored. I just didn’t expect Napoleon’s tomb to be so mellow and Hugo’s so frugal. The tombs of Hugo, Dumas, and Zola are pure white, like three fresh sheets of manuscript paper. Voltaire and Rousseau stand side by side, while Diderot has a statue alone upstairs. The audio guide will locate where you are, then you press the number corresponding to the map, it starts to play, or there’s no data will be uploaded. But the map was actually so confusing. Generally, it’s hard for me to learn anything from the audio guide. The only information I could learn from them was that de Gaulle used to cover the true name with Leclerc, and for Pantheon, as usual, the Frenchmen were arguing over who got to sleep under that huge church building. The person who proposed to the president with the reason “Do you have the heart to see Voltaire’s ashes in the hands of a private buyer?” And Voltaire was poped in the crowded underground floor. Hugo, as well, may also not have expected himself will share the room with two others. When evening fell, the church was extremely empty and cold, the heat from the body’s temperature vanished in one second. The dome of the church is ornate and detailed, and I feel dazzled when I look up, but perhaps it is not for the living, but for the dead, who have had countless days and nights lying on their backs to view it. With coffins and chambers forming the foundations, statues beneath them telling of the wonders of the world of the dead. I also found the words of San Antonio, who disappeared into the sea, inscribed on the walls, also claimed that it is the House of the Dead. It feels warmer when I left the grand hall, the shining stars of French history is blown directly behind it by the warm breeze. This is Paris, where history does not exist in a carried and burdened form. I read Annie Ernaux when I was in Paris. At first, I was not very into her. For me, it is the specific identities’ memories, french white women. But when one day I read her on the Paris underground, it was like being hit by a perfumed breeze. The book and the life around me referred to each other. The way people talk, walk and sit down make the words solid and vivid, and the book also enlightens life. Her honest record gave confidence to a tourist. She reminds people humans are humans, and they are complicated when the stereotype wall is highly built again. She opens up herself with every detail, the open-up is full of repentance and review, shame and anger. They fill people’s daily lives. As I wrote before, Paris’ tourists are led by the maternal quality of the city. I led by the maternal quality of the French female writers. At first, I just wanted to find one copy of The Years of Annie Ernaux, and I found her in the first bookshop I went. Then I can’t help myself going to more secondhand bookshops. It was as if I had received a ball of string from Ariadne and was trying to find an exit for the labyrinth of thoughts of millions of Parisian brains in second-hand bookshops. In an Asian bookshop, I found lots of books about Chinese contemporary history. The Chinese books in Paris are unusually detailed and insightful especially about Chinese revolutionary history. At each stage, there is a corresponding history book. I found a biography of Zhao Ziyang’s political life, as well as an overview of China’s 20th-century history. I also dug up fossils about China’s 20th-century history in another second-hand bookstore, not only translations of Mao’s personal poems but also a compilation of different commentaries by People’s Daily and Red Flag based on the same event. Like a prism refracting the curiosity of the French at the time, the enthusiasm, the anatomical meticulousness so. At the same time, I was vaguely aware that the Revolution was not only a source of historical pride for them, but also a source of doubt and trauma on the other side of the coin. I saved the last part of The Years on the Underground, I want to finish the book in a public and moveable space. I read in an open space when it comes to the closure of the long diary of her past 60 years. I can be immersed in the life of the book when I finish reading, just like going to the cinema directly to the filming field. I sat on the underground and drifted off to sleep in the long, flat, nap-like narrative, I felt like being accompanied by the literary readings I was hypnotized like I was a protagonist in a film, that’s what everyone does in Paris. Become no one, an audience or a protagonist consumes all the beautiful things from Paris, I am so light and I can fly away anytime I want. But at the end, a reader quoted her Nobel Prize acknowledgment in a comment, and the moment I read it, it was like hearing the girl who began the narrative sixty years ago shoot an arrow through all time and hit the bell above my head that hangs at the origin of eternity witch earth’ has been consequent rotating, it gives out a warning sound as sharp as a bird’s chirp. The visionary picture disappeared like a summer night when my mother draws the curtains to block out the sunlight, and the big grey hole that had coiled itself in my heart appeared before my eyes once again. Gender, race, class. Some things people have when they are born that in turn make them lose the world and the truth. I know she saw the same big hole as I did. But fortunately and unfortunately, I saw her response first. In writing, no choice is self-evident. But those who, as immigrants, no longer speak their parents’ language, and those who, as class defectors, no longer have quite the same language, think and express themselves with other words, face additional hurdles. A dilemma. When the reader was culturally privileged, he maintained the same imposing and condescending outlook on a character in a book as he would in real life. I felt, a betrayal. This commitment through which I pledge myself in writing is supported by the belief, which has become a certainty, that a book can contribute to change in private life, help to shatter the loneliness of experiences endured and repressed, and enable beings to reimagine themselves. When the unspeakable is brought to light, it is political. In the bringing to light of the social unspeakable, of those internalized power relations linked to class and/or race, and gender too, felt only by the people who directly experience their impact, the possibility of individual but also collective emancipation emerges. To decipher the real world by stripping it of the visions and values that language, all language, carries within it is to upend its established order, and upset its hierarchies. My brain was like a book with fast-turning pages, recording my movements in Paris. How I became bored with the monuments full of patriarchal qualities and how I unconsciously searched the bookshops for women writers. I found Annie Ernaux, I found Hélène Cixous, who was posing with other French feminist writers, and I tried to find Duras, with no luck. Then dumbfounded, because I was wearing a man’s hat, and all I could think about during my entire visit to Paris was how she wrote that fifteen-year-old heroine in The Lover wearing a man’s style hat. The idea that a trip can change a person always struck me as a means of consumerism. They go out of their way to transport your bodies from one continent to another, insisting in flowery language that this is a new life. But at the end of this journey, I found that I was no longer ashamed of my position. I’ve always been ambivalent about political positions because I thought identity politics would make you miss out on something as a ‘natural person’. I thought it would make me look prudent and smart, but in reality, I just didn’t brave enough to acknowledge what the world and myself like. And it was only belatedly, with these women writers leading the way, that I was able to solidify my identity as a feminist. It was the first time I had a separate image of myself in my mind’s eye as I imagined the future, and it was also the first time I imagined myself growing old. It always used to look like an American posting from the eighties, with the eternally young me in an eager embrace with a man without face. I still wore the oversized, especially in the shoulders, Japanese men’s suit coat and navy hat. I was dressed like a student of the May Fourth Movement and like the protagonist of a novel from the Taisho era. But it didn’t matter, what mattered was the way I tilted my head slightly, the way I leaned my shoulders against one of the cupboards, or perhaps my bookcase, and the way my eyes, like those of , Annie Ernaux or any woman who writes honestly and finds the holes in the patriarchy so glaringly obvious that they’re not worth it, were motherly, intelligent, aloof, mocking, and teasing, and in the wrinkled eyes, Medusa’s laughter echoed during the period. 在还未决定去巴黎的那天上午，我第一次翻开《巴黎评论》，我跳过了卡波蒂·杜鲁门的访谈，直接来到了第二篇欧内斯特·海明威的谈话。当时我正从生活的海底中浮到深水区——那种压灭心脏的重量被挪走了，但是压强还凶狠地伺机环绕在你的骨肉周围。 在我去巴黎的前一天，也就是2024年的11月19日，伦敦下了一场雪，我醒来的时候已经错过了全部。雪从一种轻盈而超于世间的物事变成了脚下翻涌的泥浆。在那一天，我踩着雪水最后去了一趟位于达勒汉姆花园的危机处理团队的会面，最后一次会面意味着解除了我的危机。我在回程的公交车上止不住颤抖，脑袋里是那句福楼拜对于包法利夫人的著名判词：她既想死，也想去巴黎。 我擅自完成了前一句的一半，我想我该完成后一句。这个潜意识像一条埋在脑海里的引线。把它引燃的是第二天上午的天气预报。当日伦敦的太阳好得像这个城市生存在地球上的最后一天，我在查看末日将会延续多少个24小时时，看到了巴黎的预报。明天有75%的可能会下雪。 安妮·艾尔诺曾在她的《悠悠岁月》中明确表达过现代的一切技术工具的怀疑。而这显然并非空穴来风。一行或许不是由人类计算发布的数据就让我将鲜有的晴天抛在脑后，在这里是田园牧歌画框中的一切，在那头是地铁里无尽黑暗，机场如催命般的程式，一个我完全不会说语言的欧洲城市，以及25%只是阴沉或下雨水的泥泞巴黎。 在地铁驶入黑暗时我深切后悔着，而我一直忏悔到了走上登机口。飞机乏味地在天空中翱翔，从伦敦的四点飞到了欧洲的六点，我在浑然不觉中滑入了时间的巨大空档中。天空像是老式电影牵扯幕布一样在云层散尽后变得突然黑暗，接着我看到了我未曾预想的景致，无论这片陆地将来会以何种形式褪去她的魅力，但是美以一种临在的形式穿过了我，我在巨大的震撼中与其融为一体。 金线织就的欧洲。金线织就的法国。金线织就的巴黎。与伦敦闪烁红光的夜色不同，巴黎的灯光一律是金黄色的，就像铁匠铺铸造台的俯瞰。灯光既勾勒出城市的清晰轮廓，又让人感到其内在川流不息的流动。美以这种形式流淌而过。我的旅店在市中心，而我吃完晚饭夜游时再一次感受到这种呈现形式。我在恍然不觉中走过了卢浮宫，巴黎圣母院，以及塞纳河。我按照地图行进，但并非是地图上那条蓝色的，顺流而下连通终点的线引领我，而是这座城市在引领我。如果说伦敦赋予了泰晤士河气质，而塞纳河赋予了巴黎气质。女性的，母性的气质。她像以纱覆面的梦中妇人，抖落肩上的希腊式长裙，我如同世界的婴儿，伸手去接落那如时间般无形的布料，亦步亦趋地蹒跚行走。 我在塞纳河边驻足良久，脚面踩在深秋的落叶上，仿佛那才是构成堤岸的物质。这就是塞纳河。我看着桥洞下的波浪心想到。在八月的时候，我在无数社媒的片段上看到女神渡河而来。 在经过卢浮宫的透明金字塔时，有人在卢浮宫面前滑冰，在旱地上像鸟一样滑翔。他或许有某种头衔，或许不是。在巴黎只是让人觉得他想这么做。他或许发现了我，或许没有。但一切不再重要。如果毋庸置疑的美的。就像在塞纳河上，火车车厢改造的游船里人在欢歌和欢饮。透过透明的窗户所见空间并不大，但船如是漂浮是美的。这就够了，无限的对于当下瞬息和落在永恒保险箱中的记忆的自恋，现在美即一切美。 第二天我出门时，巴黎不负众望地开始下雪。这是我来这里的原因，真的下雪时我却没有意想中的雀跃，可能我早就知道我和这座城市中的风神的秘密契约。我在一个烘焙店里在一众购买可颂和法棍的当地人中，任性地钦点了草莓马卡龙和巧克力蛋糕，店主看我的眼神就像安吉拉·卡特在改编的《染血之室》的故事中，女主角新晋古堡女主人，要求晚餐拿出所有口味冰淇淋，里面那个服侍惯了贵族主人而非异想天开女学生的女佣眼神。但事实证明我的明智，当人们面对雪景的反应只有仓皇拿出摄像机拍摄时，我在一座记不起名字的博物馆前吃巧克力蛋糕。雪花落在如镜面一样的蛋糕上，我没有勺子，吃得满嘴都是。我以为自己擦得足够干净，直到在蓬皮杜排队，前面一个亚洲面相的男人看我一脸惊异，我才发现自己嘴唇上方有如裂口一样留着一道巧克力的痕迹。正好我嘴唇上有道伤口，他或许以为我经历了一场缝合手术。 我对艺术知之甚少，因此在蓬皮杜和卢浮宫的希腊雕像馆前总是在掠过惊世骇俗的珍藏中毫无自觉。但博物馆对我足够宽容，似乎他们也知道自己富集太多名家名篇。蓬皮杜的藏品中马尔克·夏尔的《新婚夫妇和埃菲尔铁塔》的中心是那个半人半鬼，身着纯白婚纱，实体似乎消亡的苍白妻子，而毕加索的缪斯的《缪斯》中的女人，永远看上去那么疲惫。艺术永远是诚实的，1935年毕加索与妻子分居并濒临离婚，他的画坦诚地吐露了一切原因。同样，在我游历卢浮宫的有限时间里，引领我的游历的也是三个女人，三美神。《自由领导人民》，《蒙娜丽莎》和《米洛的维纳斯》。无所羞耻的裸露，无所羞耻的隐藏，无所羞耻的残缺。 在第四天我去了拿破仑墓和先贤祠，法国人的墓修得很壮观。只是我没料到拿破仑的墓会如此圆润，雨果的墓又如此俭朴。雨果，大仲马和左拉的墓都是纯白色的，像三张新的稿纸。伏尔泰和卢梭并肩而立，而狄德罗在楼上独有一个雕像。讲解器对应地图上的数字，租给我的讲解器似乎是会索引你的地点，我没有走到相应的地点按键不动，而地图又是如此扑朔迷离。因为讲解器是如此难用，我在荣军院所能了解的唯一信息是戴高乐曾化名勒克莱尔，而在先贤祠，讲解器里的法国人照例在为谁能沉睡在那栋巨大的教堂之下争论不休。当时上议的人以“你能忍心伏尔泰的骨灰落在私人买家手里”而将伏尔泰移到了这游人如织时拥挤的地下一层，而雨果也没想到自己死后会躺在三人舍间。夜幕降临后，这座教堂因为空阔而格外冰冷，人与人相近的热气在瞬秒中挥散了。教堂的穹顶华丽而细致，我抬头时感觉眼花缭乱，但或许这不是给活人，而是死者看的，他们有无数个仰卧的日日夜夜来观摩。棺椁和墓室构成的地基，雕像在诉说死者世界的奇遇，墙上刻着消失在大海的圣安东尼奥的字句，这是死者之家。离开这座大殿后反而温暖了起来，法国的群星闪耀史直接被打在脸上的暖风吹散在身后。这就是巴黎，历史并不以一种负载的形式存在。 我在巴黎的时候一直在读安妮·艾尔诺，我开始并不觉得她吸引我。法国白人女孩的生活，特定群体的追忆。但是我某天在地铁上继续读她的《悠悠岁月》的时候，就像被一阵香风吹醒了脑子。文字和生活相互映照，人们说话，行走，坐下地方式具象了文字，而文字启发了形象。她的诚实记叙给了一个外来游客信心，一种在如今的偏见之墙又开始高铸时点醒着人就是人的写作方式。因为她事无巨细地敞开着，这种敞开中又带着忏悔和检视，羞耻和愤怒。而这就是人的日常。我在前文说道，巴黎的游客是被这座城市的母性引领的。而我是被巴黎的女作家引领的。我在法国去了有五六家二手书店，起初是为了买一本法语的安妮·艾尔诺的《悠悠岁月》，而我在第一家书店就找到了她。而随后我就像接到了阿里阿德涅的线球，试图从二手书店中找到巴黎千万大脑思想迷宫的出口。随后我去了巴黎的亚洲书店，巴黎的中文书本异样地对中国革命历史进程端详得细致而深刻。在每一个阶段，都有对应的历史书本。我在其中找到了赵紫阳的政治生活传记，以及中国20世纪历史的全览。我在另一个二手书店也挖到关于中国20世纪历史的化石，不光有毛泽东的个人诗词翻译，还有《人民日报》和《红旗》基于同一事件的不同评论合集。如同棱镜折射出当时法国人的好奇，热忱，解剖细致如此。同时我也隐隐约约意识到，大革命不仅是他们的历史自豪，同时翻动另一面，也牵连着无数疑虑和创伤。 我有意在地铁上看完安妮·艾尔诺的《悠悠岁月》的最后一部分，我想在一个公共、流动的空间完成她，在一个敞开的空间看她如何收束这60年。完成阅读后，我直接浸没在生活里。就像直接从影院走到拍摄场地。我坐在地铁上，在那绵长平坦如午睡般的记叙中昏昏欲睡，伴随着文学读本我就像电影里的女主角一样被催眠，就像所有人来巴黎所做的那样。成为无名之辈，只要享用巴黎提供给你的一切，我轻盈得可以明天就飞走。 但是在结尾处，有一个读者在评论中引用了她的诺贝尔获奖致谢词，在读到的一瞬间，就像听见六十年前开始记叙的女孩射出一枝隔世经年的箭，射中了我头顶上那枚悬置在永恒不变，地球随之旋转的原点的铃铛，发出尖锐如鸟鸣的警醒声。幻梦的图景像夏日夜晚母亲拉上遮挡阳光的窗帘那样消失了，那个盘踞在我心中的灰色大洞再次显现在我眼前。我知道她和我同样看到了那个大洞。性别，种族，阶级。一些人身来具有又使得他们失去世界和真实的东西。但幸运而不幸的是，我先看到了她的回应。 “对写作的任何一种选择都并非自然而然的。但是移民们不再说他们父母的语言，社会阶级的叛逆者们完全不再说同样的语言，而是以另外的词语来思考和表达，他们都面对着一切额外的障碍。一种进退两难的困境。 当读者在文化上享有特权时，他对书中的人物保持着与现实生活中一样的威严和居高临下的看法。…我觉得这是一种背叛。 作为在写作中对我自己的保证，这种由信仰支撑的倾向变成了确信，一本书能有助于改变个人的生活，打破一切被忍受和隐藏的事情的沉默，以不同的方式思考。当难以言说的事情被说出来的时候，这就是政治。 在对那些不可言说的社会问题的揭露中，这种阶级和/或种族的、同样还有性别的统治关系的、只有那些作为被统治的对象的人才能感觉得到的内心化，有着个人的但也是集体的解放的可能性。在了解现实世界的同时抛弃它的由语言、全部语言承载的一切观念和价值，这就是在扰乱它的既定秩序，动摇它的等级制度。” 我的大脑如同一本飞速翻页的书，记录着我在巴黎的行踪。我是如何对那些充满着父权制色彩的纪念碑感到乏味，而我又是如何无意识地在书店寻找女作家的踪迹。我找到了安妮·艾尔诺，我又找到了埃莱娜·西苏，她与其他的法国女性主义作家摆在一起，我试图寻找杜拉斯，没有找到。后来哑然失笑，因为我戴着一顶男帽，而在整个巴黎的游览期间，我想得都是她如何在《情人》中书写那个十五岁的女主角戴着一顶圆顶男帽。 一趟旅行能改变一个人，我总觉得是一种消费世界的手段。他们想尽办法地把你的肉体从一片大陆搬运到另一片，花言巧语地坚称这就是新生活。但是在这趟旅行的结尾，我发现我对于立场不再羞耻。我总是对政治立场含糊不清，因为觉得身份政治会让人错过一些作为“自然人”的东西。我以为这样可以显得审慎、聪明，实际我只是不够了解世界和自己。而在这些女性作家的引领下，我才迟来地确凿自己女性主义者的身份。我的脑海中摹想未来的时候，第一次出现我的单独形象，那也是我第一次想象自己变老的样子。以前总是像八十年代的美国张贴画，永远年轻的我和一个面目不清的男人热切的拥抱。我依旧穿着那件偏大，特别是肩膀过于宽阔的日本男式西服大衣，带着海军帽。我穿得既像“五四”运动时期的学生，又像日本大正时代的小说男主人公。但是这一切不重要，重要的是我微微歪着头的样子，肩膀靠在某个橱柜，或许是我书柜的姿势，还有我的眼神，就像安妮·艾尔诺，或者一切诚实写作而发现父权制的漏洞如此鲜明而不堪一击的女作家那样，带着母性、智慧、冷淡、嘲笑和戏谑，在被皱纹环绕的眼睛里，美杜莎的笑声回荡期间。
The most consistent thing I can remember since I was fifteen is that I often forget things. When I was reading the series novel of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle wrote that Sherlock didn’t know the earth revolved around the sun to save space in his mind for classifying cigarette ash. The brain’s space is limited. Yet despite forgetting constantly, I still can’t remember anything. Today was my last meeting with the crisis team. Since I’ve gained one kilogram after taking mirtazapine, I decided to walk there to maintain my weight. Google Maps showed two routes, and I distinctly remember choosing the one along the streets, but somehow, I ended up walking into a forest. A real forest. At first, I walked across the grass, feeling the snowmelt dripping onto my shoes, sinking into the ground with every step. Then, the space around me began to deepen. It was like the scene in Spirited Away when Chihiro’s family discovers the temple. Bushes started appearing around me, and twilight blurred into dusk. I began to see illusions. I often mistake black trash bins for people, while real passersby become parts of public infrastructure in my eyes. Wearing headphones, I felt like I was starring in a self-directed music video. I passed two lakes, though I wasn’t sure if they were the same one. When I saw the first, I thought of Virginia Woolf and her drowning. The second time, I didn’t see the lake directly but glimpsed it through the trees. It reminded me of the Lady of the Lake in Arthurian legend, her hand emerging from the mirror-like water to deliver Excalibur—a sword both drawn and returned. The lake, a mirror, foretells everything. What is taken will be returned; everything is balanced. Such exquisite yet cruel geometry. The last stretch of the path was completely covered by trees, meaning that if someone wanted to kill me, I would collapse like a deer, silent and unnoticed. But I didn’t look back, because it was too late. If I turned back, it would all be over. I took off my headphones. Once sound joined my sensory world, the forest felt so tender, so quiet, like the hair of a goddess falling around me. It was as if every crisis was a delusion. I felt like Hansel and Gretel, lured by the candy-like chirps of insects and birds. The fallen leaves beneath my feet still bore the marks of their frozen state. My palms grew warm from constant movement. I couldn’t remember when I had removed my gloves, which now lay in my hands like a wounded white bird. My legs moved on their own, as if I held Ariadne’s thread. Everything was receding, as though the forest were a rolling carpet, unraveling behind me, swallowed by a void of white nothingness. My steps marked the coastline of the forest’s tide. When I finally reached the forest’s edge, I didn’t look back. I held onto my gloves tightly, as if the magical thread’s beginning and end were in my hands. I thought I was holding onto someone else, but in truth, I was holding onto myself. In this final meeting with the crisis team, there were two people. Unlike before, they didn’t ask, “Do you still have thoughts of harming yourself?” Instead, we talked about the passion for life. They asked me what I wanted to do in the future. I said I wanted to write a book, a book of my own. They told me to send them a copy when it was published. I smiled and said, “Alright.” One of the staff, half-Scottish, showed me how to spell his name. I have dyslexia in English, so I watched the letters float and tried to memorize them with my lips. We talked about Scotland, about Edinburgh, about football, Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard, and Carragher. We said goodbye. He told me there were 15 people in this team, who had worked over the past two weeks not just to keep me alive but to help me truly live. I had only met a third of them, but my memories of them were already fading. I remember last time, a patient holding a cup of water ran after me, saying, “You’re so pretty.” I remember meeting the first staff member of the crisis team while I was with my roommate’s dog. Afterward, all the staff remembered, saying, “You like dogs, right?” I walked out the door, knowing I might never return. As soon as I left, I started running, like Shinichi Izumi in Parasyte. I didn’t know why I was running. I didn’t care. Everyone in this city runs. I was running and praying crazily, as if running could make me shine like a meteor burning across the sky. “All I can do is write. Please, I beg you, if my brain can’t remember, let my writer’s intuition remember it all. Please, let me remember this.” There were two boys my age who brought me to the emergency center that eventually sent me to the mental health hospital. The first NHS staff member I met had red hair and a soft voice like mine. He noted every detail of my trauma, softly telling others, “This girl wants to kill herself.” I remember the two meals I had there, the Japanese boy with auditory hallucinations I met who was celebrating his birthday the next day. I remember the Romanian doctor who told me, “The UK is a lonely country,” the Colombian doctor who told me to love myself, the nurse who knew I loved dogs and wrote me a note with places where I could volunteer. “You like dogs, right?” I know I will inevitably forget. I have already started forgetting. There’s a word in the Bible—“new creation.” I don’t know if I count as one. I’m just trying to let my consciousness and body separate, They I was sent into a system to help people do so. After causing a flood, I was sent an olive branch by an indifferent dove. Every NHS staff I met did their best to help me. I remember Adam Kay’s speech at the end of This Is Going to Hurt, where he says they do it simply because they care. I can’t deconstruct it philosophically. I’m just grateful, clumsy with shame, as if I’ve returned to the oral stage of infancy, unable to use words to express myself. There’s a flood in Greek mythology, too. Deucalion and Pyrrha survive and follow an oracle’s command to throw the “bones of their mother” behind them without looking back. In a sense, I am also a part of my mother’s bones. The new creation walks in old shells. They must walk; they cannot stop. I know I must do the same. Those who look back in Greek myth are met with disaster. I know it will be the same for me. Today was the first snow of the season, but I missed it in my sleep. The snow had already melted, and walking on it felt precarious, like walking on eggshells. The trees, like brides, lifted their white veils. They only wished to glance at the vast shade of people one last time before walking toward the altar, to live on from then among the normal. I was like a precocious child standing at the edge of a path of flowers, accidentally receiving a fleeting glimpse of the bride, which is like a meteor streaking across the sky. I only know the bitterness of separation, not realizing that sometimes, separation is a blessing in disguise. 我从十五岁的时候开始，记得最连贯的事情就是我经常忘记事情。我在读《福尔摩斯探案集》的时候，柯南道尔写道，夏洛克不知道地球绕太阳旋转，是为了给烟灰的分类留下空间。脑子的空间是有限的。但我即便不停忘记，我依旧记不住任何事。 今天是我最后一次和crisis team会面，因为我吃米氮平后已经增重了一千克，为了保持体重，我决定走着去。谷歌地图上有两条路可以选择，我记得我明明选的是靠着街区的路线，但是我走进了一座森林。 是真的森林，开始我在草地上走，我可以感到雪水滴在我的鞋面上，深一脚浅一脚，接着空间开始出现了纵深。就像《千与千寻》里面千寻一家发现了神庙一样。四周开始出现树丛。暮色将夜未夜，我开始不断地幻视。我经常把黑色垃圾桶认成人，而把偶尔路过的人认成里面的公共设施。我戴着耳机，我就像走在我自导自演的音乐电影里一样。 我见过了两次湖泊，我不确定是不是同一片。在第一次见到的时候，我想得是投水而死的伍尔夫。第二次见到的时候，我没有直接见到湖泊，而是在树丛掩映间，我想那是给亚瑟王送剑的湖中仙女，从如镜中的水面中伸出一只手，Excalibur从湖中被取出，最后被还回湖中。镜子预示了一切，剑被取出，就会被送还，一切都是对等，平衡的。如此精美又残忍的几何美学。 我在森林中走得最后一段路完全是被树木遮盖。这就意味着如果有人想杀掉我，我会像鹿一样悄无声息地倒地。 但是我没有回头，因为已经来不及了。 如果我回头，一切都太晚了。我取下了耳机，在听觉加入了我的感官世界后，森林如此温柔，安静，像母神垂下的头发。好像所有的一切危机都是妄想。我就像汉赛尔和格雷塔，被糖果般的虫鸣和鸟叫引诱。脚下的落叶还处于他们被冰封时的状态。我的手掌发热，因为一刻不停地走动。我记不清什么时候取下了我的手套，在我手中像一只折翼的白鸟。我的双腿自觉地行走，就好像我的手中握着阿里阿德涅的绳线。一切都在消退，好像森林是一卷随着我走动而不断卷起的地毯，被身后白色的空无不断地吞没。我的脚指示着树林浪潮的海岸线。 当我终于走到树林边缘的时候，我没有回头。我依旧仅仅握着我的手套。仿佛魔法线绳的开端和末尾都在我的手里，我以为自己牵着什么人，实际上我自己牵着自己。 最后一次和crisis team会面是两个人，没有像之前的人那样问，“你还有没有伤害自己的念头”，我们聊到了生活的热情，他们问我以后要做什么，我说写书，写一本属于我的书。他们说，记得寄一本到这里。我笑了，说好。那个有一半苏格兰血统的工作人员给我展示了他的名字怎么拼。我有英语读写障碍，我看着漂浮的字母试图用嘴唇记住他。 我们聊着苏格兰，我们聊着爱丁堡，我们聊着足球和费尔南多托雷斯，斯蒂文杰拉德和卡拉格。我们说了再见。他告诉我这个team里面有15个人。在过去两周里，在为了我活着不止于我活下去而努力。我只见过三分之一，但是我的记忆已经开始消退。我记得上次来的时候，一个患者端着水杯追着我说，你好漂亮。第一次我见crisis team的员工的时候，我和舍友的狗在一起。后来所有的员工都记住了，他们说，“你喜欢狗，对吧？” 我走出了门，或许我以后再也不会来这里。我出了门之后，我忽然开始跑步。就像《寄生兽》里的染谷将太。我不知道为什么要跑步，我不在乎，这个城市到处都是跑步的人。我只是一边跑步一边疯狂的祈求上天，好像跑步可以让我像一颗疯狂的流星那样发光。“我唯一能做的就是写字了，求求你，如果我的大脑不能记住，那就让我的作家的直觉来记住这一切。求求你，让我记住这一切。” 在我去急救中心两个把我送到mental health hospital的同龄男孩，第一个接见我的NHS员工，他有红色头发和和我一样轻的嗓音。像记笔记一样事无巨细地记录我的创伤，轻轻地和别人说，“这女孩想杀了她自己”，我在那里吃的两顿饭，我遇到了一个有幻听问题的日本男孩，我和他遇到的时候，他第二天就要过生日。和我说“英国是个孤单的国家”的罗马尼亚医生，告诉我要爱我自己的哥伦比亚的医生，知道我喜欢狗给我写了便条告诉我可以去哪里当志愿者的护士。 “你喜欢狗，对吧？” 我知道我终究会忘记，我已经开始忘记了。圣经里有个词叫“新人”。我不知道我算不算。我只是在试图让我的意识和身体分离后，接着被送进了一个系统。我在引发了一场洪水后，被鸽子不管不顾地送来了橄榄叶。我被每一个接手地尽其所能地照护，我想起来在This is going to hurt的结尾，本威士肖发表的演讲。他们这么做只是因为他们在乎。我无法去做任何的哲学解构，因为我感激，羞耻地口齿笨拙，仿佛回到了无法用唇齿创造语言的口唇期。 希腊神话也有一场洪水，幸存下来的丢卡利翁和皮拉要依照神谕，头也不回地丢弃“母亲的骸骨”。是的，某种意义上，我也是母亲的骸骨的一部分。沿用旧的躯壳的新人依旧要行走，他们无法不行走。我知道我也一样。希腊神话中的人回头要遭遇灾厄，我知道我也一样。 今日初雪，于眠中错过。雪早已霁，行走其上危如累卵。树若新妇，摘起白纱，只愿在走向圣坛前最后渺一眼万里层云，从此后芸芸莘莘活下去。我如在花路边的早熟稚童，不经意领受这如抛坠流星的神性的一眼。只知别离苦，却不知道，别离有时也是歆享的祝福。