Chapter 39 Thirty-Nine Grim Wonderland Popcorn, Lord Jim, Vanishing

On the way to the park, I went into the hotel and bought a can of beer.I asked what brand of beer was suitable, and the girl replied that it didn't matter what brand it was as long as it frothed and tasted like beer.My thoughts are generally the same.The sky was so clear that there were no clouds in the sky, as if it had just been born this morning.The season just turned October.As for the drink, it really only needs to froth and taste like beer. But there was still money left, so he bought six cans of imported beer.The golden tank with the mood of upper-class life is shining brightly, as if covered with sunshine.Duke Ellington's music was also perfect for the crisp autumn October mornings.Admittedly, Duke Ellington's music might be more appropriate for an Antarctic base on New Year's Eve.

I followed the song "I have nothing to say to you" by Lawrence.Brown's idiosyncratic trombone solo whistled and drove on.After that, he followed Johnny.Hodges' "Gentle Lady" solo whistles. When I drove to the side of Hibiya Park, I stopped the car and lay down on the lawn of the park to drink beer.The park on Monday morning is like the empty and quiet deck of an aircraft carrier after all the planes have taken off.Only the pigeons are pacing around on the lawn, as if they are preparing for a certain competition. Not a single cloud.I said. There's a slice there.The girl pointed to a place a little above Hibiya Park.Yes, there is one piece.At the tip of the camphor tree, there is a white cloud that looks like cotton wool.

It is not a regular cloud, I said, it cannot be included in the cloud. She built an arbor with her hands, stared at the cloud and said: Yes, it is really small. We kept silent and just looked at the small cloud for a long time.After watching, I opened the second can of beer and drank it. Why did you divorce?she asked. Didn't snag a window seat while traveling. Are you kidding me? J． D．There is such a confession in Salinger's novels.Read it in high school. What is the real reason? It's very simple: one summer five or six years ago, she ran away from home.Gone forever. Never seen again?

Uh, I took a sip of my beer and swallowed it slowly, there's no reason why I have to see it. Married life is not going well? smooth sailing.I looked at the beer can in my hand and continued, but this has little to do with the nature of things.Even if two people share the same bed, they are still alone with their eyes closed.Do you understand what I said? Hmm, I want to understand. The human being as a whole cannot be single-framed.I think the dreams that people have can be roughly divided into two kinds: complete dreams and limited dreams.Relatively speaking, I'm someone who lives a limited dream.Whether this limitation is justified is not a big question.Because there has to be a line somewhere, there is a line there.But not everyone thinks so.

Even people who think this way are probably trying to expand that line outward. Maybe, but I'm an exception.There is no reason why everyone must use a combo to listen to music.Even if the accordion is heard on the left and the double bass is heard on the right, the musicality will not be particularly deepened.It's just that the means of arousing the imagination have become complicated. Are you afraid you are too stubborn? She said the same thing. Mrs? Yes.I said that if the theme is clear, flexibility is lacking.Don't drink beer? Thanks. I unzip the tab on a fourth high-society beer can and pass it to her.

How do you think about your own life?the girl asked.She didn't bring the beer can to her mouth, she just stared at the small hole in the top of the can. Have you read The Brothers Karamazov?I asked. read.Read it a long time ago. I urge you to read it again.There are many things written in the book.Towards the end of the novel, Alyosha is confronted with a man named Kolya.The young student of Krassotokin put it this way: Hey, Kolya, you are going to be a very unfortunate person in the future.But overall, I still want to bless my life. I drained my second can of beer.After a moment of hesitation, he opened the third can of beer.

Alyosha understood many things.I said, but in the process of reading, I have a lot of doubts: Is it possible to bless a very unfortunate life in general? So limit your life? perhaps.I said, I should have been beaten to death on the bus with an iron vase for your husband.I think this method of death is suitable for my image to end straightforwardly, disintegrate immediately, and leave no time for others. I lay face up on the lawn, looking at the location of the cloud just now.The cloud has disappeared, hiding behind the thick shade of the camphor tree. Hey, I can also enter your limited dream?the girl asked.

Everyone can enter and everyone can get out.This, I say, is the advantage of limited dreams.Clean your shoes when you come in, and close the door when you go out.No one is an exception. She stood up laughing, brushing the grass off her cotton shorts. It's almost time to go.Is it time? I glanced at my watch: twenty-two minutes past ten. send you home.I said. No need.She said that she went to a nearby store to buy something, and went back by tram alone.It's still good. Then break up here.I'll stay a little longer, it's very comfortable here. Thank you for the nail clippers.

You're welcome. Can I call you when I get back? go to the library.I said, I like to watch other people work. goodbye.said the girl. I'm like Joseph in "The Third Man".Conte stared at her as she walked away along the straight road in the park.After she disappeared into the shade, I started watching the pigeons.Every pigeon walks subtly differently.After a while, a well-dressed woman led a little girl to scatter popcorn, and the pigeons around me all flew there. The girl is three or four years old, and like all girls of the same age, she holds the pigeon with open arms.Of course the pigeon can't catch it.Pigeons have their own humble way of being.The well-dressed mother glanced in my direction, then dismissed it.A man lying in a park on a Monday morning disposing of five or six empty beer cans is clearly not a gentleman.

I closed my eyes and tried to think of the names of the three brothers in "The Brothers Karamazov": Dmitry, Ivan, Alyosha, and half-brother Smerdyakov.How many people in the world can name the brothers in "The Brothers Karamazov" in one breath? While staring, I couldn't help but feel like a small boat floating on the vast sea.The wind is calm and the sea is calm, but I am quietly floating in it.Small boats floating in the sea always seem a little special. It was Conrad who said this.Speaks of the part where the storm hits the ship in "Master Jim". The sky is vast and clear, like an absolute concept that no one can doubt.Looking up from the ground, the sky seems to be all in one.The same is true of the sea.Looking at the sea for several days, I often feel that there is only the sea in the world.Conrad probably thought the same as I did.There is indeed something special about the small boat that is separated from the same product as the same ship and abandoned on the endless sea. No one can escape this speciality.

I lay still, drank the last can of beer, smoked a cigarette, and pushed the literary associations out of my head.I have to be a little more realistic.Only a little over an hour remained. I stood up, carried the empty beer can to the trash can and threw it in.Then I pull out my credit card from my wallet and burn it in an ashtray.The well-dressed mother glanced in my direction again.No decent person burns his credit card in the park on a Monday morning. I burned the Amex card first, and then I burned the Visa card.Credit cards crumbled to ashes in an ashtray, contentedly. I really want to take Paul.The Struart tie was also burned, but after thinking about it, I gave up.First, it is too eye-catching, and second, it is really unnecessary. Next, I bought ten bags of popcorn at the commissary.Nine bags were sprinkled on the ground to feed the pigeons, and one bag was eaten by himself while sitting on a chair. Pigeons flock like an October Revolution documentary, pecking at popcorn.I ate popcorn with the pigeons.I haven't eaten this stuff for a long time, it's delicious. Well-dressed mother and little girl are watching the fountain.My mother was about the same age as me.I look at her.While looking around, I thought again of the classmate who married a revolutionary activist and gave birth to two children and disappeared.She can't even talk about taking the children to the park.Of course I don't know how she feels about it.But in terms of my own life disappearing, I think I might be able to understand something with her.However, it is also very possible that she will refuse to understand each other with me on this point.After all, we haven't seen each other for nearly 20 years, and a lot of things have happened in these 20 years.Everyone is in a different situation, and they think differently.Besides, even if it is the same liquidation of life, she does it out of her own will, but I don't.I just had the sheets pulled off suddenly while I was sleeping soundly. I think she might reprimand me for it and ask me what I chose.To be fair, I really had no choice.If it is said that I chose with my own will, there are only two things: I forgave the doctor; I did not sleep with his granddaughter.But what does this do for me?Could it be that she would positively judge the part my existence played in my disappearance because of this little thing? I don't know.Nearly twenty years have separated us from each other.What she evaluates and how she evaluates is beyond the framework of my imagination. There is almost nothing left in my frame.The only things that come into view are pigeons, fountains, lawns and mother and daughter.But while watching such a scene, for the first time in a few days, I had the idea of ​​not wanting to disappear from this world.As for going down to a certain world, this is no longer a concern.It doesn't matter that ninety-three percent of my light has been spent in the first thirty-five years of my life.I just want Yiyi to embrace the remaining 7% to see what the world has become.Because I don't know why, but it seems to me that this is a mission given to me.Indeed, I have distorted my life and lifestyle from a certain stage.And there is a reason for this.Even if no one understands, I can't help it. However, I don't want to leave this distorted life and disappear from now on.I am obliged to watch over to the end.Otherwise, I must lose my impartiality to myself.I can't put my life at risk like this. Even if my disappearance wasn't enough to grieve anyone, leave a void in anyone's heart, or go unnoticed by anyone, that was my problem.I have really lost too many things, and now I seem to have almost nothing to lose.Yet a smear of what was lost remains within me like a dross, and it has kept me alive to this day. I don't want to disappear from this world.When I close my eyes, I can really feel my heart shaking.Those were the ups and downs that went beyond sadness and loneliness and shook my very existence to the very core.The ups and downs are endless.I put my arms over the back of the chair and endure the ups and downs.No one can save me, no one can save me, just as I can't save anyone. I wish I could cry, but I can't.I am too old for tears, and have experienced too much.There is sorrow in the world that cannot shed tears.This kind of sorrow cannot be explained to anyone, and even if it is explained, others will not understand it. It will never change, like snowflakes on a windless night deposited quietly in the bottom of my heart. When I was younger, I also tried to put this sadness into words.However, no matter how I searched for words and sentences, I couldn't convey them to others, or even to myself, so I had to give up such efforts.In this way, I closed my language and closed my heart.Deep sorrow cannot even take the form of tears. Want to smoke a cigarette, but the cigarette case is missing.There are only matches in the pocket.There are only three matches left.I lit three matches one after another and threw them on the ground. When he closed his eyes again, he didn't know where he was going.All that comes to mind is the light silence like dust.I stared at the dust alone for a long time.The dust does not go up or down, floating there motionless.I pursed my lips and blew, but remained motionless.No matter how strong the wind is, it can't help it at all. Then I started thinking about the library girl I just broke up with.Think of her velvet dress, stockings and underwear on the carpet.Could it be that they were still lying there quietly, intact like herself?Can I do justice to her?No one seeks justice.I'm the only one who seeks that stuff.The question is, what is the meaning of this search for a life without justice?I love the dress and the meat dress she's taking off on the carpet as much as I love her.Is this also a form of my justice? The so-called fairness is nothing more than a concept that only applies to a very limited world.But the concept cuts across all fields. From snails to hardware store counters to married life, without exception.Although no one pursues it, I have nothing else to give.In this sense, fairness is similar to love, and what is wanted to give and what is pursued are difficult to match.Only in this way, there are all kinds of things passing by in front of me or inside me. Maybe I should regret my life.It is also a form of justice.Yet I can regret nothing.Even if everything leaves me whizzing away like the wind, it is also due to my own hope.All that remains in my mind is floating white dust. When I went to the small shop in the park to buy cigarettes and matches, out of caution, I made another phone call to my residence.I know no one will answer, but it's not a bad idea to make a phone call to my room at the last moment of my life.You can also imagine the scene of the phone ringing in an uproar. Unexpectedly, when the phone rang for the third time, someone actually picked up the receiver and said hello twice.It's a fat girl in a pink suit skirt. still there?I was taken aback. Why?The girl said, went and came back.How can I be so carefree!I wanted to continue reading, so I came back. See Balzac? Well, exactly, it's full of wit and wit, and you can feel something like the power of fate from it. So, I ask, is your grandfather saved? Needless to say, it's easy!The water disappeared, and it was time to go back to the old way.I bought two subway tickets.Grandfather is very energetic, let me say hello to you. Thanks.I said, what is your grandfather doing now? He went to Finland. He said that there was too much interference in Japan and he could not concentrate on research, so he went to Finland to set up a research institute. I'm afraid it's a nice quiet place, and there are reindeer or something. you didn't go? I decided to stay and take your room. my room? yes.I like this room very much.The door leaf has been completely installed, and the refrigerator and video recorder have been purchased.Wasn't it ruined by someone?Would you mind if the bedsheets and curtains were changed to pink? It doesn't matter. Can I order a newspaper, too?I look at the program preview. Can.I said, it's just that there's danger there.There is a possibility of a comeback for the organized gang or symbolists. Look at you, there's nothing to be afraid of.The girl said, what they want is grandfather and you, and I am irrelevant.Just now there were two unusually large and unusually small guys, and I blasted them out. How to bomb? Hit the big guy in the ear with a pistol, and the eardrum will definitely be scrapped.There is nothing to be afraid of! But wouldn't shooting in the apartment cause another mess? Nothing like that.She said that with only one shot, people can only treat it as an accident.Of course, firing several shots in a row is a problem.But my marksmanship is accurate, one shot is enough. Ah! By the way, after you lose consciousness, I plan to freeze you, how about it? it's up to you.Anyway, no consciousness.I said, let's go to Qinghai Wharf and collect it there.I was in a white Carrena 1800GT twin jet engine.I can't tell the model, anyway, it plays Bob.Dylan's tape. Bob.who is dylan Rainy day just started to explain, then became impatient, and changed his words, a singer with a hoarse voice. Freeze it, and wait for Grandpa to discover a new method, maybe it can bring you back to life, right?Excessive expectations may not come true, but this possibility is not impossible. Consciousness is gone, what else do you expect.I pointed out, can you really freeze me? No problem, take it easy.Well, freezing is my thing.When doing animal experiments, cats and dogs were frozen alive for a long time.Freeze you too, and hide it in a place where no one can find it.So, if it goes well, your consciousness will come back, she said.You must have slept with me then? certainly!I said, if you still want to sleep with me then. Will you do that kind of thing well? Use all skills.I said, I don't know how many years to wait. I wouldn't be seventeen then anyway. People are always getting old.I said, even freeze it. Take care.The girl said. You can do it yourself.I said, being able to talk to you makes me feel a little better. Because of the possibility of returning to this world?However, it is not known whether he can repay his wish, but No, not like that.Of course, the possibility of that is something to be desired.But I don't mean that, I mean it's a pleasure to talk to you, to hear your voice, to know what you're doing. Talk a little longer? No, stop here, time is running out. Tell you, said the fat girl, don't be afraid.Even if I lose you forever, I will miss you forever.You will not be lost from my heart.Remember this! remember.After all, I put down the phone. When it was eleven o'clock, I relieved myself in a nearby toilet and walked out of the park.Immediately, I started the engine and drove towards the port while thinking about freezing.Ginza Street is full of people in suits.While waiting for the signal, I searched for the library girl who was supposed to be shopping in the street with my eyes, but unfortunately I couldn't find it.Strange men and women are everywhere. When I arrived at the port, I parked the car beside the empty warehouse, smoked, and turned the stereo in the car to the automatic repeat function, and began to listen to Bob.Dylan's tape.I put the back of the car seat down, put my feet on the steering wheel, and breathe quietly.Tried to have some more beer, but it's gone, drank the whole can with the girl in the park.Sunlight poured in through the front window, enveloping me.Closing my eyes, I can feel the warm light caressing my eyelids.The thought of the sun's light traveling the long way to this tiny planet, warming my eyelids with one end, filled me with an inexplicable emotion.The laws of the universe did not ignore my puny eyelids.I seem to understand Alyosha more or less.The mood of Karamazov.Perhaps a limited life is being endowed with limited blessings. I also gave my special blessing to the doctor and his fat granddaughter by the way.I don't know if I have the authority to give blessings to others, but anyway, I am the one who is about to disappear, and I am not afraid of anyone being held accountable.I put Boris.The driver of Lycon's rental car was also on the blessing list.He's the one who drove us all covered in mud, there's no reason why he shouldn't be on the list.He must have been driving young passengers on a road somewhere while listening to pop music on the car stereo. Facing the sea.You can see the old freighter with its waterline exposed after unloading.Seagulls gather their feathers to rest like dots of white marks. Bob.Dylan was singing "Blowin' the Wind."While listening, I thought of snails, nail clippers, sea bass braised in cream, and shaving cream.The world is full of inspirations of all kinds. The sun in early autumn shone brightly on the sea like the waves, as if someone had smashed a huge mirror into thousands of pieces.Because it was so finely beaten, no one could restore it, not even the Imperial Forest Army. Bob.Dylan's song reminds me of the girl in the rental car office.By the way, I must also bless her.She made a great impression on me.Can't leave her out of the list. I try to push an image of her in my head.She was wearing a green blazer in shades reminiscent of a baseball field turf in early spring, a white shirt and a black bow tie.Estimated to be the uniform of the car rental company.She listens to Bob.Dylan's outdated song, Imagine Rainscreen. I also thought about the rain screen for a while.The rain I thought of was drizzle, and I couldn't tell whether it was falling or not.But actually it's down.The rain wets the snail, the wall, and the car.No one can stop it, and no one can avoid it. The rain is always just and non-stop. For a moment, the rain turned into an indistinct opaque rain curtain, covering my consciousness. Drowsiness sets in. So I can find all that I lost, I thought.Although the country was once lost, it was never damaged.I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.Bob.Dylan sings "Storm Rain" on and on.