I 1

It’s not exactly a bad life, but in this world there are very few places that offer happiness. Even if you don’t live in a conflict-ridden country you still have to make something out of life. What is that something? Something you can’t even have a feel or a touch. Something that is not in the present but in the future. But as time passes you just don’t see that in sight.

A fleeting life with not much to cherish and not much to be sad about. I still find my own school life to be much better than that of the girl who kept getting physically beaten by the classmates surrounding her. As if that’s a normal sight of them pulling her to the ground outside and her screaming noises. And as if it’s normal for no teacher or guard to pay attention. Only until one day she bled. But in any case being sneered upon and slapped occasionally is still much better than other students in the same class. I have seen some transferred to another school, even though you would love to wonder why they have been here in the first two months to begin with. Saying this I should mention that those friends happen to be very nice people as well, perhaps that’s why they moved because they are just so nice, and that made me very sad due to the lessened number of friends I could barely talk to in class.

Stereotypical school life. Not much to say. Perhaps there are more to be said about my adult working life which involves me sitting at the table among the constant bickering office workers, and the occasionally passing by boss who loves to scream to vent his frustration at life. This country is a developed one by some metrics and local assessment but that’s just not enough for lots of people who seem to be as lifeless as me. Or maybe they aren’t and they are much more lively than I do, and anger is the way they exhibit such a tendency. But I always see the same repetitive things happening in the office, with me coming in, colleagues passing by, paperwork being finished and computer keyboards being typed. It always feels like there’s no more to life even if I get out of this office, judging by the content of what people always talk to each other. “See… you shouldn’t have done that to make the boss mad!”, “He would get mad anyway why do you blame me?!”. I gaze at the clock and fantasize myself having seen every single frame of the view of the clock just by glancing at it occasional enough. “What are you looking at? Go on to work!” The scream of the boss to my face forces me to focus my eyes back to the computer, and the two other guys spurt out laughs they try to suppress, “Wearing eyeglasses doesn’t make you more intelligent”, “Well, nobody is being stupid here”, “What are you saying? I’m not criticizing anybody here”, “Me neither I’m not defending anybody here”, and so go another suppressed laugh. “Why do you keep working here? Maybe finding another place to work would be better?”, so whispers a younger male worker next to my table. “It’s not so bad here. I earn enough paycheck, the culture isn’t that bad,” I utter a sentence that I don't even intend to be ironic, “and besides, there’s nothing else to do”, I say another sentence that really should be elaborated, as I meant to say… is that really just one thing? Perhaps deep down I do feel like conveying three things at one: the difficulty of finding another job – which isn’t really an issue, I have a university degree; the sameness of another job, as far as I know there’s no other workplace in this entire country offers a much different culture than this one, and besides why do I need to seek after some other work culture when the issue might not lay on that, if I truly have any?; the lack of alternatives in life, I know my wife shall bicker that I change job for no good reason and I can still handle it, but I’m not exactly getting anything out of reordering my life. “Well, getting out of here isn’t really easy anyway”, as the guy next to me says that, I realized he wasn’t really asking about me, but indirectly trying to talk about his own issue, “I only got a college degree from a low tier school. The fact this company hired me was already a fortune, and if I try to find another I think I shall have to move somewhere else, but moving is just hard in this country. Not the transportation but the prices for rent.” I try to offer some consolation or some hints that could be helpful to him, I said something like “Yeah yeah I do heard of some region like X and Y that do offer cheaper rent,” and I can see the bluish tone of his face doesn’t change any slightly, as much as I’m trying to be heartfelt I know I’m doing nothing significantly. He still does appreciate it as he says “Thank you” before the work hour almost ends. 5PM. As I walk to the entrance, a loud window-breaking noise is heard and I look back to see that young man I was talking to just a few many minutes earlier. Done with the pieces of glass, my eyes glance quickly to the window to see two fleeting silhouettes whose owners I know. As people gathered to investigate, those two provided ample accounts to suggest the incident lean toward an accident (without ruling out the possibility of suicide). I now realized another thing, that that young man was trying to comfort me due to his preconceived notions with those two guys that triggered his sympathy. I changed my job for the first time.

But this is all saying my adult life is pretty much just the same as my school life. Throughout years from school to university and adulthood, I have always been an avid reader of a lot of books. They don’t tend to be some of the most popular books, but a book reader doesn’t really stick long to the hobby if they only chase after some magazine trends. Of course reading a book on the way from school back to home on an electric train doesn’t quell all of my life anxiety, but they give me fascination with the world of letters. When people talk about another world people have never been into, I always wonder if they are being abstract and talk about things humans can never step into but is a life in itself and branches itself into multiple stuff. Few of the books I read I finished fully, and many of them aren't related to each other, but they all do contain precious gems I have managed to swallow. There’s a reason why I never mention to anybody I’m a fan of fantasy or science or history or any genre, as I can never muster anything that matches what I have always reached out to read. Perhaps I am searching for that myself, the name of what I have always had a thing for.

The library is never crowded. For how advanced this country is supposed to be, reading is just never something that has a significant presence in their lives. Even when I sit in class and read, that would be a sight with no meaning and the teacher would go on to nag students they deem to be not focusing on the lecture. As if their mindless lecturing really means anything, like we the students don’t have to do the work ourselves already, and like their very lecturing isn’t the cause of our very own distraction. “Say, do you believe in reincarnation?”, so asks one young man who wears an unfamiliar uniform and facial feature which is native and off-putting at the same time, like there’s no way somebody could have such a face, even though that is the face of somebody who belongs in this region. The question doesn’t feel strange to my intuition, but it doesn’t make me feel inclined to answer, unless I can answer with silence itself. Being fathomable doesn’t make me inclined to believe in things I never see directly throughout my daily life. But I try to answer the question that I’m not sure where to start with, “I would say it doesn’t mean much because here I am reading in these libraries, I am not searching for the meaning of anything I am doing. Unless you count finding out what’s in common with the books I have been reading one such drive. But it’s not even a drive and just a secondary objective. I give my fleeting life something I can do sometimes here and there. I think to believe in reincarnation you have to believe in some inherent meaning of life which I am not searching or seeing. My wife and I live alone without bearing children since she doesn’t feel like it. But with or without children I would still feel nothing further throughout my daily life.” His face suggests he takes that as a no and I need no further word to be said, even though little can be seen to have moved or shifted on his face, as if he always wears a faint smile and serenity that has no bother for the tranquil surrounding. I can see a similarity between my own life and his, even though I would wager that I have suffered much more abuse than him. But in just a very short moment, the melancholy in his eyes changes my mind and I try to suppress whatever instinctive reaction I may produce mindlessly. This is a very different kind of self-doubt I have had like the one that has always followed me ever since I was in school. A kind of self-doubt that I wonder perhaps it would be nice to quell, by doing something that has always been alien to my life, of prying the life of the young man before my eyes. I don’t know what he reads from my face, he asks, “Do you want to read my novel?”. My nod is taken as obvious and I don’t know if I even did that, but he presents me with a small book with an antique fashion cover like some aesthetics of an old and foreign country. I give a glance through the pages to have some ideas of what the book is about even though I can just ask. It’s a fantastical fantasy story that is very personal, judging by the 30 first pages I have read as he silently gazes at me reading, like he knows I’m not bothered. It involves magic and a kingdom and the people living in it. As if to answer my very own question, “You can take it home. I’m happy to have somebody who reads it. This is a cliché thing to say, but perhaps this is destiny that I found you as a reader of my story. I can’t tell you if it's a true story or not, since I can’t even determine my own existence here, whether it’s real or unreal. Perhaps this very world has always been a figment of my imagination and I have always been stuck in a void without escape. Like that’s how you create an entire world from nothing.”

That’s what he says, something I resonate with. Ever since my very young childhood, I have never been able to determine the universe surrounding me as something that truly exists or just some ephemeral fleeting consciousness that could very well shut down at any given moment. Even when my leg was bleeding due to tripping over a rail line, and the train could be coming to run over me at any given movement. At any given movement, the universe could shatter, my family could disappear, but the very feeling of meaning for any of these things has never existed even if I try to search for it, which I don’t. Right now if I come home, my wife could very well disappear into thin air and I would go on with my day like it meant nothing, even if I would cry a lot. She has always loved to joke that perhaps if I died her life would have been better, something I have never been able to determine if it would be so – I don’t know if she can find another husband or provide for herself, although that wouldn’t be a question in the hypothetical scenario of my own non-existence.

“I have a favor to ask. I want you to live the life I have gone through in this book. It’s simply that I want somebody to understand what I have gone through. Simply as that so may not even need to go through some elaborate way of having you live through it. I would love it if you want to change it. Even if meaningfully or not meaningfully. I don’t know if you can change much of a life even if you know for sure what would have happened to it. That life is something I myself wouldn’t relive so maybe it’s meaningless to suggest this for somebody who doesn’t live my life the first time. Those that are contented with their own life just don’t find any need to change it. When you change your life, what goes accompanied with it like your feelings could also change. Nobody changes their life to perfection since they have already found some other course or end or objectives that may have been done. This novel of mine is written with the three or four phases of my life. I don’t have more to say about what has been written in this novel, and I have written again and again. Perhaps it doesn’t reflect fully what I have seen, as always with books. It doesn’t even reflect what other people may have seen, and I don’t know what other possible things I would love to know that others have seen. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t relive this life since doing that would be like crumbling a page of a notebook.”

“Do you truly want me to…”, I choose the word, “relive it?” This question of mine perhaps is hollow, in what I know what he meant and the potential answer he will be giving. His eyes don’t seem to be giving any meaningful answer, which I take as a ‘no’ even though he may insist otherwise. So I ask another question “Why me?”, but I do feel the answer for this one. I don’t know what question should I be asking right now to quell the hollowness, so I ask directly “Why is it so hollow what you want to ask of me?”

He lets out a sigh and his blank eyes gradually shift to me guiltily until he looks back to the ceiling again. Just as this novel, and the life he wants me to relive, the feelings for any of these could change at any given moment. So when he gave me the novel, the paper had already crumbled.

I pat his shoulder. “I shall read your novel. Whatever the lack of meaning you have, I shall try to relive through it. I live a fleeting life myself.” He says, “Thank you. When it comes to the novel I just don’t know what to say of it, and what do I want to be asked of it, even what I would like to answer. In some ways however, perhaps my life has been done. You feel regrets only when you can do something about it. I can’t, and even when I can perhaps I just no longer feel like reaching for it. Perhaps I should have tried to write a version of the novel that I would love it to be what I wanted as the best possible ending. A happy ending. The thought just never occurred to my mind and maybe for a reason deep down that I just don’t want anything to do with it. Whatever you make of this novel. Whatever from this encounter of ours.”

And so he leaves the library. I don’t have much lingering need to stay here and leave as well. Coming home is to wonder if he meant “relive” figuratively or literally as the train runs. In this world of ours, there is no magic or sorcery so I can’t figure what kind of life he lives that has magic that doesn’t mean something metaphorical. I have yet to continue reading the novel until I reach my home.

My obsession with the novel leads me to imitate what the main character does and says to the annoyance of my wife who tells me to cut all that off. Months and years passed and I keep reading what turns out to be the most engrossing novel I have ever read. I have so many questions for the author of this novel, questions I know may have no answers since I may never be able to see him. The library is sparse as usual and I always sit in the same seat ever since that day I saw him. If he doesn’t have any intention to see me again then there’s no way he will be here again. But I am not one to talk given my own visits to this library haven’t been consistent, as if deep down I know beforehand and if anything even expected him not to come, and might even get upset if he did. I keep reading the same novel on and on to the point my wife must have gotten frustrated seeing the same book every day every month.

Years have passed as our lives go up and down with the next day going on just as the previous, then one day an earthquake happened. It sure doesn’t reach any historic record but has managed to cause a lot of damage to the region I have been living in most of my life. Worse of all is her disappearance. As 12 days passed without anybody in the searching teams managed to find her, the next earthquake happened to the horror of people around me. A huge earthquake isn’t as dangerous as multiple consecutive earthquakes. In this state, people are even more unprepared. The severed infrastructures make it impossible to go from my house to the facilities. Not that I still have any remaining energy to muster, but I still make my way toward the direction where those facilities should be, in 30 hours? Is it even possible to walk by foot for that duration of time without my body collapsing on the ground? Certainly a human can handle several days without water, although does this account for dehydration? Feet go along the hanging bridge which does seem to be inclined to fall down at any point soon, I take some rest and begin the journey again, take some rest. I let out a cry and drop myself down, there’s no possible human that can make a trip that far. I ask myself if accepting the end of my life passively would be much better. I think about my wife and how normally I wouldn’t shed much tears if she happened to die out of natural causes, but the ambiguous status of her life and death is just so painful I don’t know what I am agonizing for. How I came to see and live with her happened so quickly I may even confuse the effect with the cause. But in any case it was arranged by my own parents right before I knew it and I accepted it when they no longer bother to hear my voice, as is very typical that I always answer them way after when their backs already faced me. I console myself that my wife is just like me in how she treats her own life as something fleeting just like I do. I try to remind myself if she’s truly such a woman, as I wade through the constant annoyance she expresses to me daily. As repetitive as those daily lives were, I don’t see a hint that suggests her routine being much different from that of my own family and myself. Such thoughts calm me a lot and I proceed to wonder if I still have any last regret. The image of the young man flashes into my mind and I remind myself of the novel again, which I haven’t read again for some years now. I just don’t remember much of the content, not sure due to lack of rereading or due to the current shocking event right before my eyes. But I truly have no remaining ability to move a finger right now, so perhaps I shall have to end my life in the agonizing hot summer of this year right here. When you have nothing lingering in your mind, you just find the process of your life ending so long and tedious. The concrete on the verge of falling down from the high bridge looks scary and tempting at the same time, as I just wish for it to finally drop down and get rid of my own life altogether. But what if I still don’t pass away shortly afterwards? Thoughts and thoughts go inside my own head like a vortex.