3/11, Morning, sunny
The beams of early sunlight break into the window. She lies in her bed, with half of her face bathed in the glow. Eyes staring at the ceiling, she’s not ready to get up from the bed, though she’s quite awake.
The curls of his black hair gently roll down from his ears to his neck. It is the hair he has been keeping for nearly two years. The first year of high school, his hair was just as short as newly mowed lawn. Now, as the breezy wind flows by, his hair dances on his shoulders. That’s what she can identify from this distance. She can’t even see his face clearly. But she can always recognize that hair, looking soft and silky.
Here he comes. She stands still, looking some where else, pretending to be ignorant of his approaching. But with the brink of her sight, she watches every step he takes. He’s now nearer, nearer, and nearer. The shadow leaps onto her back. She turns around to find out that they are standing face to face, in the distance within a few centimeters. His eyes, sharp but full of sentiments, see straight into hers. She’s motionless. He speaks. “Are you… Ann?”
After clearing her mind, she thinks it is about time to get ready for the school. As she brushes her teeth, her mind is occupied with the vivid scenes of that dream. Where will it lead to, if it didn’t end up there? She wonders. How I wish it were real. Is it going to happen? Numerous thoughts bubble up in her head. But the time wakes her up, again. She notices that if she does not hurry up, the school bus will be long gone when she gets there. So she puts on her uniform in haste and rushes out the door.
Noon, sunny
Holding her lunch, a toast smeared with a layer of chocolate sauce and baked in an oven, she walks up the stairs with her classmates. They walk out from the stairwell. She urges them to take a detour. What for? She does not answer her friends’ question. The building has a garden in the middle, which has a problem of water draining. They walk across the entire floor, four hallways in total. She now is satisfied for she had just passed by his classroom and saw him sitting in his chair, eating his own lunch. Oh, what a delight! She cannot conceal the joy, the smile extending on her face. But still, she speaks not a single word to her friends.
Afternoon, sunny
The weather is warm and windless. Hot air freezes the time. Minutes move in the pace of hours. She is not paying much attention to what the teacher is saying. At any moment she will doze off. Yes, she is absent-minded. What else can she think about? His hair, his face, and their ride on the school bus. Everything about him. About them…
It is noisy. Hundreds of students in the hallway stuff the space with noise. She is walking alone, without a certain direction. She does not have a place in mind of where to go. It is uncomfortable being surrounded by so many people. But there he is. He is so cute, she thinks. I should move closer to get a better look at him. Maybe, just maybe, he would speak to me! However, as some of the students clear aside for her eyes to see, what she sees is him walking with some other girl. Her heart sinks. She lets out a sigh, but cannot breathe in. She calls out. He turns around, staring at her with a look that says “What is this silly girl doing?” The schoolgirl who walks beside him also turns her face to look at her. All of a sudden, she finds that all of the students on the hallway are looking at her, waiting to see what word will come out of her mouth. Feeling all eyes directed at her, her head gets dizzy.
She blushes. She feels embarrassed.
Evening, sunny
The sun is setting, giving the firmament a rosy orange, like a teenage girl’s peachy cheeks. She is sitting on the bus, awaiting the driver to start the vehicle and go home. That was a bizarre dream, she keeps pondering. What if the schoolgirl is real? Is there any possibility that they are simply friends? She can’t think further for that may lead to a horrible scene. She gazes at the school gate with the window in between. She is expecting him. But she’s also afraid that he won’t be taking the school bus. By now, he could be playing basketball with his friends instead of hurrying to the bus. Or maybe he’s seeing that girl. Oh, no more thoughts like that, she warns herself. It’s just one of those reveries, nothing else.
Nighttime, clear sky
She looks out from the window in front of her desk. The moon, which wanes a little for it is just past the fifteenth on the lunar calendar, is climbing up to the top. It beams softly, caressing the ground where the light falls in the garden, a special area where she grows herbs. Rosemary and lavender have gone into sleep with the soft touch of the moonlight. She turns her sight and mind back to her room. On her diary she writes this: “3/11, sunny,
How is the sun aware of the existence of the moon? Together they circle the sky but cannot coexist at one time. Oh, how I wish that one day soon he will discover my tenderness and be soon. He will kiss me like I put my lips on the leaves of thyme. That doesn’t come easily as I’ve always known. From daylight to nighttime, there is, in between, a great distance. And then, here comes the break of dawn. Will the sun be able to feel the sadness from the moon’s absence?
The relationships of love, just like dreams, are transient. Soon after the affection’s gone, you’ll wake up and wonder if what had happened was true.”
It took her nearly an hour to compose these lines. But she is quite satisfied as if she is reading them aloud to him. He will be pleased. She can’t help but smile with glee. She puts down the pen and closes her diary. The house sinks into silence. It is about time for her to rest, too. She jumps into bed, hoping to fall asleep as soon as possible. It can be explained that she loves the sunlight in the morning more than the solitariness of the moon in the night sky. There is also the explanation that she cannot wait to see tonight’s dream. Dreams, to her, are always exciting.
3/14, Noon, sunny
She has been thinking about what she should prepare for this day. A box of chocolate? No, he wouldn’t like that. A love letter? That’s a cliché. A confession? Maybe some other day. But, then again, shouldn’t today, White Day that is, be a perfect day? Ah, it’s all because she’s too bashful to do it. So this morning, when they took the school bus, she did nothing but secretly peek at him. She didn’t even talk to him.
Amid the crowd, she tries to reach for the toast. But the last one, in front of her eyes, is taken in a second by someone else. She turns and starts brooding what she’s going to have for lunch. That’s when she sees him. She doesn’t even notice that her body’s drawing nearer to him, inch by inch, through the walls of people. They now stand side by side but he doesn’t realize that there is someone who can hardly control her breathing. In a minute he leaves with his lunch in hand. In the next minute, he turns and disappears in the next hall corner.
It is the short break between two classes. There are some clouds in the sky but not enough to call it a cloudy day.
She sits in the shade of a camphor tree along with the rhododendron bushes, hiding from the direct exposure to sunlight. It is five minutes before PE class but not a soul shows up. So she keeps waiting for them to come.
The school bell has just rung. Now she’s getting nervous. Why is nobody here at the gym? She decides to go back to her classroom and find her classmates. She walks faster and faster. Then she runs. Looking through the hallway, she sees no one. “Ah!” She bumps into someone else.
And she falls to the ground. She tries to push her body up with her left arm but finds it aching. A sturdy arm swiftly surrounds her shoulders and picks her up from the floor. She lifts her face and is surprised by the presence of him. That was him who saved her, she marveled. A basketball is placed between of his other arm and his side. She is out of breath and speechless, let alone able to say thanks. So he speaks first.
“Are you alright?” Suddenly she comes back to reality. “Oh, I…I’m…fine.”
She takes math class in classroom 304. It happens to be his classroom, where his desk and chair are. Having this in mind, she feels excited.
The school bell rings. She notices that his seat has not been taken. So she moves to there at a speed that she thinks no one would detect what she’s up to. There she sinks her body down to the chair. She opens up the textbook and leaves it, not planning to read it for the next two hours. What matters most is her discoveries here. She bends her neck to check what he keeps in the desk. Shorts. Some books. She sneakily pulls out the weekly diary their teacher asks them to keep as an assignment. She places it on her lap, trying to hide from the teacher. Then she begins to read. “This weekend I played basketball with my friends. Then we went to the small lane and ate dinner…Last afternoon I walked home from the park…”Boring, she thinks. Even though she knows what he wrote is tedious, she still finds it adorable. And then she sees the teacher’s comment. “Handwriting is scratchy, even illegible.” She smiles. Well, after all he’s a typical boy. Sporty. Not good at writing.
She loves words, especially those written by his hand. Contrarily, she does not love to speak and is not good at it. Even with her friends she seldom talks. So it becomes a big problem for her to confess her affection. Through letters maybe, she thinks.
3/17, Afternoon, cloudy
On Monday afternoons, she has history class. The temperature is dropping fast. She can sense the chill coming from the open window. /
Today they are going to continue with the History of England. The main character is Henry VIII. Judging from what she can remember in the class, she thinks Henry VIII was a jerk, who filed an annulment of his marriage with his first wife, Catherine, and then married Anne Boleyn, his mistress. But then he sentenced her to death and continued to have four other wives after that. He is nothing more than a ruthless beast! And the so-called religious reformation is simply out of his self-interest.
Then the whole class gets disturbed by the sudden sound of a shower falling from the gray sky. They look out and see a curtain of rain enclose their campus. Pupils start to chit chat seeing that the class has been interrupted. Most talk is about what they were going to do without an umbrella. While some of them are getting panic, thinking of the result of becoming soaking wet from head to toe, she calms herself. I think I have an umbrella in the locker, fortunately. I don’t have to get wet as I go home.
Nighttime, rainy
The rain has not stopped. She sits in front of her computer, watching a movie, The Other Boleyn Girl (2008 film), on the Internet. Quickly finishing it, she thinks Henry VIII should not be played by Eric Bana for the portrait of the king looks more like an old, fat guy. On the other hand, she does think Natalie Portman has done a fantastic acting job in the movie, especially when she fully acted out her fear when Anne Boleyn was at the guillotine. Thinking outside of the cast, she starts to question if it was fair for Anne Boleyn. Did she cause her imminent death?
The idea that his name and hers are the names of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn hits upon her. What a coincidence, she thinks. What will become of them, then? Just like the old Henry and Anne? Is he willing to move heaven for the love of her? Is he daring to challenge the Pope for the marriage with her? It is love that can conquer all in the first place. And then what comes into her mind next is the death of Anne Boleyn. Is their relationship ever going to change? Is it possible that her love will be beheaded? The truth can be so cruel that she cannot bear to imagine it. Death is always so frightening.
How forgetful she is! Just because it was not raining this morning, she did not bring an umbrella out. Facing the downpour starting this afternoon, she has no idea what to do. She does nothing but stand still at the school gate, hiding from the rain. People are passing through. It must look stupid standing here, she complains in her mind.
She sees him coming in this direction. Her pulse is quickened. The next thing she knows, he is standing besides her, holding an umbrella. “You don’t have one with you, I suppose?” “Um…no, I don’t.”
“Then, do you want to share mine. Maybe we can walk together to the bus and after we get off I can walk you home first.” “Okay.” She tries to hold down her excitement. Finally, this day has come. Though it’s a rainy day, it’s lovely.
They stick to each other, walking side by side. She can feel his body temperature.
“Henry! Wait up!” someone calls him. He looks back over his shoulder. Some guy she has not seen before. She can’t make out the speaker’s face. He walks away from her and runs to that person. Just like that, she’s left behind in the rain.
3/20, Morning, rainy
Her emotions cannot be kept in check. So this morning, she decided to confide her feelings to a friend in her class.
“That’s him. Do you see him?”
“Which one…oh, I see.”
“Are you sure you are looking at the one I’m speaking about?”
“Yeah, the guy who’s wearing a jacket in the back of the classroom.” replies her friend, sounding bothered.
“No. You saw the wrong one. He sits in the back of the row nearest to the window. He’s wearing a T-shirt, not a jacket.”
“You like him? He’s not so…handsome. I mean…you know what I mean.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t. I think he’s cute”
“Whatever.” Her friend seems bored and wants to go back to the classroom, leaving her standing there. Although her feet are moving toward her classroom, her eyes are still fixed on him.
It is springtime, with rain and sun shine coming and going all the time. She is confused and vexed by the quickly changing weather. When the sun comes out from the cloud, it is a lovely sunny day. But as soon as the rain starts to fall, the air is cold. She does not like raining because it is troublesome carrying an umbrella everywhere she goes. The energy and beauty of the scenery seems to be flushed away by the water. The flowers fall to the ground. The colors fade. Petals are scattered. For a sentimental person like her, she cannot bear to see the spring wither.
3/25, Morning, cloudy
In the Chinese class, they are studying Kun Opera of the Ming Dynasty. “The Peony Pavilion”, written by Tang Xianzu, catches her attention and sympathy. She can roughly recall what her teacher said. On a spring afternoon, Du Liniang falls asleep in the garden. In her dream, she meets a young man, Liu Mengmei, whom she had never met before, and falls in love with him. After she wakes up, she thinks about him all the time. Later, she comes down with lovesickness, never to recover. Eventually, she dies. But they are destined to meet and get married, so Du Liniang’s body never decays. And after some twists and turns that she cannot remember in detail, Du Liniang is brought back to life and the couple lives happily ever after.
How powerful dreams and love can be, she wonders. Maybe death is just a process.
3/31, Night, cloudy
“I’m so into him!” She murmurs.
“Cut the crap, would you? We got a math quiz tomorrow, don’t you remember?” They are in the school library, studying. It seems that she does not take her friend’s advice into mind.
“Hey! Listen to me. If you really fall for him, just go tell him.”
“I can’t!”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it is because I am too scared to hear the outcome with my own ears.” There follows a silence. “Marie, do you think that… you can talk to him?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Why would I do that? It’s your business, not mine.” Even though getting the rejection from her friend, she is not willing to settle for it.
“How about a letter? Do you think he will notice it?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m not him.” Inside her, she has made up her mind to write a letter to him.
“No, this is wrong.” She keeps saying this to herself while rewriting the letter for another dozen times. This can be regarded as the very first time words disappoint her like that. Hours later, a rough script is laid on her desk. “That’s pretty much for now.” She decides to go to sleep first and finish the rest tomorrow morning.
Again she is studying in the school library with her friend. She is delighted to find that he is staying for tonight to study, too. Three desks apart, from time to time she peeks at the place where he sits. She studies his face thoroughly: His delicate nose, his powerful eyes, and the way he writes.
As she reads the dreary history, a scrap of paper is passed to her from the student sitting next to her. She unfolds note and reads “meet me outside in 10 minutes.” Needless to say, she is surprised. Waiting for the time to arrive, she sits restless in her chair, paying no attention to her book. At last, she stands up and walks out the door.
The moon is clear and bright. He has already been waiting downstairs. Both of them are bathed in the light. He walks up to her, taking up her hands, and leads the way. Side by side they come to the basketball court. The rain has stopped for now and the heat of noon has been cooled down by the breezy winds of the night. He faces her with both eyes looking into hers. He says, “Uh…it’s difficult to say but…I love you.” Upon hearing it, her mouth widens into a big smile.
4/8, Evening, rainy
She is determined to confess to him today! Last night before she went to bed she kept reminding herself to put the letter in her schoolbag.
For the whole day she has been anxious. But she keeps telling herself that everything is going to be alright. Still, she cannot concentrate on the teacher’s lecture.
When the afternoon comes, she rushes to the school bus. Holding her bags on her lap, she awaited his presence. “There he comes”, she screams to herself. He climbs up into the bus and finds a seat to sit in. She urges herself to be patient for once they get off the bus she will catch up with him and confess to him. That’s how the plan goes in her head.
But when the big moment comes, she is shocked to find her letter missing. She hesitates, wondering if the plan will work out. After reconstructing her confidence, she runs to him. She runs through the red light, loses her umbrella, and her uniform gets wet.
“Hey!” She calls out to him. He stops and turns around, staring at her. Standing before him, she looks exhausted. Her breathing gradually comes back to a normal pace. “I got something to say to you.” He stands there, silent, looking confused. “I…I…have a crush on you.” What she had written in the letter is all forgotten. Now she just says what is in her heart. “I love you.” At that moment, she feels soothed, more than ever, as if the worry finally vanishes. And then she waits for his feedback.
“Mm…listen. I’m…really sorry.” Oh my goodness, he’s turning me down, she thinks. “I can’t be with you.” He walks away, holding his umbrella. She is left behind in the rain, wet from head to toe. She has been rejected.
Nighttime, rainy
“4/8, rainy, I have been turned down. The one I have loved for two years has refused me. Shouldn’t I be dismayed? Why do I feel nothing but relief? The secret admiration must have been a job I felt obliged to do. Now I am released from that duty. Maybe that’s good news to me after all.”
This was nothing like what she had expected or dreamed of. It was not him who took action and talked to her. In reality, she had to say it to him. She can’t wait to tell her friend what had happened. Listening to the peaceful and rhythmic taps of raindrops, she sinks into a deep sleep.
4/9, Morning, cloudy
Her friend is nowhere to be found. She has looked for her everywhere. As soon as the classes are dismissed, she’s gone. Right now, she needs someone to share her thoughts with.
Then she sees her, standing there at the corner of the hallway. She is glad and walks in her direction. He shows up from the other head of the corner. He smiles at her and takes her hand. Together they walk in another direction. She is taken aback. Following behind them at a distance, she cannot believe what she sees.
Evening, rainy
It has been raining on and off for nearly two weeks. She feels completely lost. Where is her friend? Where is he? It is painful to come to the realization that they are all gone, together. She walks to the garden where water has flooded the floor. She lets rain drench her clothes, her face, and her hair. Streaks of her hair cling to her face. Drops are dripping from her lashes and her nose. She steps into the muddy water flowing in the ditches. Water leaks into her shoes and pants. The penetrating coldness seizes her from feet to knees. Her legs are not in her control as she tries to move them. The world falls silent as she falls into the pond. With all her might left she wants to breathe above the surface. But before long, the freezing water paralyzes her weak limbs. Her mind fades into darkness and her sight becomes a blur…
She dreams of her own death. It was like sleeping, a long one. She falls into sleep and after some time she wakes up as if nothing has happened to her. But the world has changed. The people she sees everyday are different. She no longer can recognize them.
It takes place in the small lane she passes five days a week. Cars are parked by the roadsides. It was sunny. It reminds her that she has not seen clear sky for quite a while. She walks down the lane, bear feet on the asphalt. Out of the blue, she spots two persons coming from the distance. She quickly jumps to the side and hides herself behind a car. She sticks out her head to see who are passing. It is them. Hand in hand they walk by.
All of a sudden she is astounded by her own nakedness. She looks down and finds that there is no piece of clothing covering her skin. When did she become undressed? At once, her heart is overwhelmed by her helplessness and the full exposure. Although she tries to be invisible, crouching behind the car, they find her. Their cold eyes fall on her, posing a grave pressure. And then they leave, looking indifferent. But she knows instinctively that compared to a month ago, her life is different.
4/12, Morning, sunny
The beams of early sunlight break into the window. She wakes up lying in the hospital bed. Glancing around the ward, she finds her mother taking a nap in the chair besides her bed. She wants to push herself up but fails, so her body lies still in the softness of the white sheet.
An acute pain strikes her heart. She tries to make out the painful feeling of loss. She will not feel the same about him anymore. The habit of loving him which she has been relying on disappeared. That explains her insecurity. And her idolizing becomes self-criticizism. As for this, it manifests the guilt she has. All the emotional ups and downs for him appear to be foolish ideas. But there is one thing that kills her the most: the reason his refusal is unbearable is because it is her friend who took him away. It suddenly dawns on her that her friend has deceived her all this time. He could have accepted her, if she had not stolen his heart first. Why her? Why then? She begins to feel tired of all this. Inside she is empty because of the past days. But ironically, he is not even a part of her past. The one who lives in her memory is a man mainly created by her. He just happens to have a similar outer form like Henry, but he is nothing like him. She realizes how silly she was. That should be the most dreadful thing, her foolishness.
She tries to clear her head and reason out the dissatisfaction with the outcome. The story does not end with a happy ending.
Or maybe it is just another dream.
~the end~
