After that, and then

By the time the fog gradually dispersed, they were no longer there.
How does one continue to grow while carrying stories of such pain? Unable to forget, yet unable to remember constantly; stories of pain are often both beautiful and ugly, having, no matter what, pushed a person's best potential and worst shadows to their limits. If I am not capable enough to understand their content, then I have no right to preserve them.
Some pages of the book of life have been torn out, making the story difficult to follow chronologically, but we will still painstakingly read it to the end.

I am powerless to prevent lies and harm from entering life, unable to crystallize things into moments of ultimate beauty—if this is what you and I, with youthful hearts, insist on doing—it cannot be done, and death is not the way to achieve it. On the contrary, in the flowing time after death, all I have witnessed is change, great transformations, changes in human appearance and the qualitative change of emotions, all irresistible and often excusable. What more is there to say? Replacing tears and shouts is an intense sense of solitude that engulfs everything, penetrating every corner. But believe me, the spirit has its own immortality. If you are still there, you must be like me, with nothing to panic about. Let solitude be solitude, live with solitude, observe its form closely, and once you are familiar with it, there will be nothing to panic about.

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So, this is not a book about May, but about myself, and subsequently, a book of survival.

Now, have I sailed through that gloomy doldrum of the equator? Where am I about to depart for? Or, from where have I returned? The sails of writing have been lowered and idled for a very long time, the water and sky are one color, the fog is vast and indistinct, the magic mountain of memory, May. I imagine that not only did I accompany her on a journey of gender identity, but she also helped me endure a very long journey of writing identity. Even in the years when she no longer exists, her image and her writing are both a comfort and a pang for me. We once opposed each other, yet at the same time played the role of listeners. Whether constantly climbing high in pursuit or constantly digging deep to internalize, we argued, eventually reaching understanding, realizing that we did not have significant conflicts.

2026-02-26

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