Passing Through Your World Chapter 10: I Couldn't Say “I Love You”

I wished you loved the color of the shoes I bought. I wished when I dialed your phone number, you right thought of me as well. I wished when I greeted you with "good morning", you just got up. I wished you could enjoy the book I wrote. I wished when I turned the light off, you wanted to sleep. I wished you always found the fruit I bought sweet. I wished you wanted to sing each song I chose.

1

At school, my Chinese teacher always accused us of lacking in vocabularies, so we racked our brains to come up with new words. I still recalled a sentence I made: my body fell down fast like a skydive but my heart was still in the clouds. To be honest, I didn't understand what this feeling was.

As time went, I found there were many precise sentences that had long existed, and they were overly used.

For example: my whole heart sank; I burst with joy; there was a buzz in my ears; my head was blank; I swallowed the words at the tip of my tongue; I couldn't hear clearly what I said; out of the blue, I found the one facing me strange; there was pain in my chest; my chest was like being hammered; the words were like a knife stabbing my chest; I got cold feet; I couldn't control my feet; tears welled up in my eyes; I trembled with anger; I was so furious that I lost my mind; I clapped on my thighs with regret; I wished I could chop him alive; I was as dumb as a piece of wood; the entire world was spinning; I was poured by a bucket of cold water...It was the first time that my whole heart sank. I felt only the above sentence could depict that feeling at that moment.

When I used it too many times, I could tell the difference between "my whole heart sank" and "my whole body sank".

I gave full play to the word "sink". It sank into the sticky and asphyxial swamp; it sank into the endless darkness; it sank into the bottomless sea; it sank into the cold suns.h.i.+ne; it sank into the quicksand; it sank into the fragile bubbles.

Afterward, I found only the rich experience could make a profound description. Many situations could be expressed in the same way with nuanced differences. No experiences, no diversified descriptions.

2

You couldn't consider an article of the small fresh style affected and couldn't name an idiotic pa.s.sage unreadable. You couldn't regard the literary and artistic articles as ostentatious, nor did you think that the poetry was pretentious. Neither could you say that stream-of-consciousness pa.s.sages sounded stupid.

Everyone had his own way of expression. If you didn't like it, it meant that his way didn't fit you.

It was totally okay if you didn't accept it, which was your freedom. But, you disdained or criticized it by use of another world outlook, which only showed your ignorance and arbitrariness.

We should respect the others' ways of expressing their colorful life.

Of course, I could do otherwise on one condition that the pa.s.sages they wrote were really unreadable.

3

I hoped when I stood up, you could help me brush the unnoticeable dust off my clothes. I hoped when I wrote, you could make the tea of my favorite temperature for me. I hoped when I lit a cigarette up, you could tell me there were still a few by the end of the day. I hoped when I kept silent, we wouldn't feel embarra.s.sed while you accompanied me silently.

I wished you loved the color of the shoes I bought. I wished when I dialed your phone number, you right thought of me as well. I wished when I greeted you with "good morning", you just got up. I wished you could enjoy the book I wrote. I wished when I turned the light off, you wanted to sleep. I wished you always found the fruit I bought sweet. I wished you wanted to sing each song I chose for you.

So many hopes were trivial and scattered but different.

However, they silently grew onto your heart, and you were unable to identify the process of each.

It was like a gla.s.s of water and a gla.s.s of sand. Even if you carelessly dropped them after you mixed them, the sand was still wet, and the water was still mixed with the sand.

Love would permeate into your life just like your blood. You didn't notice it running, but you definitely knew that it ran through your whole body.

It would be problematic if you gave wild publicity to your love.

I made an a.n.a.logy here. It was a slice of bread, but you cut it open and stuffed it with eggs and hams, turning it into a sandwich.

This often ended up with a roar: I was a sandwich, but did you know I ended up with the eggs and hams scattered over the ground after you pulled the bread away?

We should pour a cup of water slowly into the sands instead of being sandwiches.

If you asked me what if you poured the water into the wrong sand, I wouldn't reply to you, because I were a sandwich.