In the darkness of 2022

✧To everyone who has run through the night ✧
 
A personal graphic diary born in the year of the pandemic
A person who keeps running in stagnant time and space
In the darkness of 2022
When the air began to thin
Still had to cut through the fog and breathe with all one's might
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"It felt like the tunnel was so long it had no end, but finally, I made it out."
 

 "Please control the soul's desire for freedom, don't open the window and sing."
 
That was the year we wore masks and couldn't see each other's expressions;
It was also the year we were trapped in chaos, yet couldn't stop running.
In those days when the pause button was pressed,
How should people continue to live?
 
"It felt like the tunnel was so long it had no end, but finally, I made it out."
 
A personal graphic diary written in the dark,
Emerging cartoonist mao, with delicate and keen black-and-white strokes,
Records the farewells, waits, escapes, and hesitations of 2022.
 
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In 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic still raged globally, and everyday life here was divided into two:
 
First half, epidemic prevention policies became increasingly strict; PCR tests, lockdowns, and isolation became the new normal.
Second half, policies suddenly "opened up," as if nothing had happened.
 
In this year, mao witnessed people with nowhere to go on New Year's Eve
Saw one absurd news story after another
Experienced isolation and lockdowns repeatedly
 
In the darkest hour, mao and her friends kept moving:
From one city to another,
From one friend's dinner table to another friend's sofa,
Sharing hard-to-find painkillers with a stranger...
 
"The things I thought I had lost continued in another way."