“花谢花飞花满天”的季节已经过去了,可我仍然收到了友人“花开易见落难寻”的落寞之言。其实,那段爱情已经落定了许久,而他依然喜欢让回忆轻舞飞扬,即使是旧尘扑面,他依然倍感馨香。他说:“我知道你是一种已经绝种的花儿,可我高傲地要重新找到可以克隆的基因。我不承认,我遇不到那种已经绝版的情爱。是的,在你面前,我从来不曾用过“爱情”这两个字,因为,据说,充满激情的爱情,最多只能燃烧一百天,而我们已相识了十年,可我的身体里依然有种被埋藏的鲜红,你说,那只能是水底的火焰。”
The season was gone where the flowers fade and wave in the sky with the wind, yet I received the melancholy words of a lover. He said: ‘It’s easy to see the flowers in blossom but it’s difficult to find them when they are fading’. In fact, the love between us took place long ago but he still enjoys roaming and dancing in his memory. Despite the heavy dust of memory he still enjoys the warmth and feeling we shared in the past. He said to me: ‘I know that you are a flower that is now extinct, but I would be proud to find the genes to clone that flower once again. I cannot accept that this love is gone for ever and cannot come back. I never used the word love in the sense of passion, as people say that passionate love can only last a hundred days. However, we’ve known each other for ten years and I still feel that hot stirring in my blood. You told me that that is the flame burning beneath the water.
Embraced in his long-lasting warm love, I’ve seen a kind of memory that exists like an oil painting where the surface or the depth of love is no longer important but which will last forever as soon as it is hung there. Moreover, I could only enjoy love when it is raised above the clouds and the sky. Thus I made a decision: I won’t allow his melancholy to spread out like wild weeds; I won’t let his heart echo to the pain that is in mine.
He told me that the spring was gone when he saw the dropping flowers outside. I told him: ‘It is spring for me regardless of the flowers stretched over the ground.’ I played the classical music from the album 《dreaming piano》 which we had listened to together. He uttered these memorable words: ‘What has separated us? Why could I only listen to the music quietly and look at you silently? I dreamed of stroking your face in the darkness. The palm of your hand slips from mine at odd moments. On the banks of the river where the fog is dispelled by the sunshine, we see each other face to face and all bewilderment and embarrassment disappears. The passion has been dissolved in those sleepless nights; yet it still echoes faintly but firmly. I hear the voice of your heart and I know you haven’t forgotten - neither have I. While the river of memory is flowing we can only look at each other this way, deprived of speech.’ I replied: ‘It is better to be absorbed in this kind of illusion in listening to the music, as if we are experiencing the classic butterfly dream of Zhuangzi, unable to tell the difference between the place where we are living and ourselves who are living there. You can only know what the spring really means in this relaxed and surrealist way. Or else, you should no longer beg for the spring. What we are pursuing is mere elusive shadows while we are actually holding the beloved sunshine.’
我还记得,然后,我给他讲了一个故事:一条鱼摇着尾巴游来,乞求庄子的爱情,庄子敲敲鱼的脑袋,告诉它,你拥有,就会失去。你若没有生的快乐,就不会有死的痛苦。相濡以沫,最终还是要在光阴中彼此迷失。你和这躯壳所拥有的一切,最终会像水一样蒸发,像河流一样远去,像梦一样不可追寻。我们为什么要走那么多弯路呢?结局清清楚楚地摆在面前,它可以用更简单的方法抵达。――他告诉鱼:你还是回到海里去吧,江长湖宽,生命只是一场体验。我们可以真实相拥的时候只在灵魂相遇的瞬间。
I told him a story. A fish came in front of Zhuangzi and begged for his love. The Zhuangzi tapped the fish on the head, telling him: ‘If you possess it, you are doomed to lose it one day. Without the pleasure of being alive, you would not experience the pain of dying. Although we could love each other intimately, we will be eventually separated as time passes by. You and what is your body would finally evaporate like the water, fading away like the river, or be beyond pursuit as in a dream. Why should we do so since we see the ending so clearly? It can be reached in a much simpler way.’ He told the fish: ‘You should go back to the sea; life is a mere experience no matter where we are. The only time we could truly embrace each other is at the instant when our souls meet.’
I finished telling these words to my lover as if I had been in a dream. He looked at me in silence and then gave me a smile; I saw in his eyes the purity and peace which I’d never seen before. He had such a detached quiet manner as if his soul were going to be set free from the world. He then swam back to his sea like a fish, leaving the waves behind that I shall never forget. The waves were breaking in red blood. He once said that it was the sign that he would never return if he showed me the red blood. It might be a real release or an everlasting disappearance. I was certain that the red blood did not mean pain but a flower blossoming from his body on his way back home.
I lingered on the bank, without feeling lost, sad or freed. I kept thinking of the story - the love story of Zhuangzi. Who had told it to me? Or from whose eyes did I see the doomed words?