Pathway of Lights and Memories

From the path that runs from school to home, there are countless lamps planted along the way. In the depths of night, they firmly hold onto the bridge, extending straight towards infinity. Bright and reliable, they guide me back home. Looking back, I wonder about what lies on the other side of the bridge. From afar, I see the wind blowing from that direction, with students laughing and talking in the distance, as if it were from my past. When it reaches me, the warmth has faded. Am I walking towards the future? Recollecting “Long bright and dim, connecting the living and the dead” by Nan Bi, gazing at the stars above, they seem to guide us as well, with the heavens forming a single unity. My thoughts drift endlessly.

When I return home, the cool air and bustling sounds of the inside are separated from the outside when the door is closed. Inside, there is a sense of stillness that seems unchanginglike time has stopped. It feels like a solid silence nestled in a slightly warm room. I lie in bed in my pyjamas, comforted by the familiar warmth of my sleeping body as I imagine walking down that path once more. While I was out, singing the opening song of “The Antidotal Manual” repeatedly: “I walked a thousand miles to see you.” What I long to see at the end of the road is myself strolling there.

Just as I passed by a crowd of young university students in bars and theaters, I recall the mixed emotions that accompanied me. Although I know that everyone on this equal world has their own rights, I often envy those around me, believing they possess some shared secret or secret knowledge. While they bask in their own fervor without knowing it’s forbidden, I feel excluded from theirs. However, when I step aside into the crowd, surrounded by warmth from behind and coolness from ahead, I’m grateful for my remaining strength. This space is uniquely minefree to move with ease, adjusting to the temperature of the air around me, blending in or stepping out into the night sky at will.