race

race n. 1. a contest of speed; 2. any competition or rivalry, e.g. the arms race; 3. a rapid current or channel.

“Life is a race against time.” My father always says so:

“Wasting time is shameful, just like leave the grain rotten in fields.”

“An inch of time is an inch of gold, but you can’t buy that inch of time with an inch of gold.”

After all these education, I believed time was the most expensive thing in the world. When I was a teenager in the middle school, I dared not waste just even twenty minutes to play around. Staring at blue sky having daydream is a fool. Sleeping on the grass under the sun is a lazy cow, without producing milk for the people. Wasting time will earn nothing back in the future. But here, in this country, people spent whole afternoon having a pot of tea, and spent hours having a piece of cheese cake, and a whole night to drink beers in the pub. If life is a race against time, why people pay so much attention on tea and cake and beer?

“You are too anxious. Try to relax. Try to enjoy life.” You say it to me, on the way back from Wales to London.

If life is a race against time, like my father and my teacher said, then life itself must be a very aggressive thing. There is no peace and no relaxation in a race. And one’s life would never win anything in the end. Because whatever effort one makes, time always parallels passing the one. The one will eventually stop racing one day, let time goes by. My father is wrong, I think. People here they don’t live like that.

And what about you, my lover? Life to you seems not a race at all. Because you already decide not living in the towns and society, but living in the nature, living with the sea and the mountain and the forest. So there will be no more social struggle to you anymore. So you can achieve peace. You talk slow and walk slow, you let the time pass by you, because you don’t want to be in a race. So you won’t lose, in the end.

And here it comes to the fate. I met you; a man was born in the year of Rat. A rat never has a stable home, like me, born the year of the goat. Two unstable animals, two homeless things. It won’t work. It is our destiny.

In China, we say: “There are many dreams in a long night.” It has been a long night, but I don’t know if I want to continue the dreams. It feels like I am walking on a little path, both sides are dark mountains and valleys. I am walking towards a little light in the distance. Walking, and walking, I am seeing that light diminishing. I am seeing myself walk towards the end of the love, the sad end.

I love you more than I loved you before. I love you more than I should love you. But I must leave. I am losing myself. It is painful that I can’t see myself. It is time for me to say those words, those words you kept telling me recently. “Yes, I agree with you. We can’t be together.”

departure

departure n. the action or an instance of departing.

Dear Student, Welcome to London! On finishing our course, you will find yourself speaking and thinking in your new language quite effortlessly. You will be able to communicate in a wide variety of situations, empowered by the ability to create your own sentences and use language naturally.

This is what language school leaflet says. Is it true? Perhaps. Mrs. Margaret tells me she is proud of me speaking English like this among her other students. When our last lesson finished, I finally pluck up my courage and run after her:

“Mrs. Margaret, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course you can.” She smiles.

“Where did you normally buying your shoes?”

“Where do I normally buy my shoes?” she corrects me. “Why? Do you like them?” She looks down her shoes. It is a coffee-colour, high-heel shoes, with a shining metal buckle in front.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Thank you. I bought them from Clarks.”

“Oh.” I remember there is a shoes shop in Tottenham Court Road called Clarks.

Mrs. Margaret intends to leave.

“You know, Mrs. Margaret, my parents are shoemakers.”

“Oh, really? Well, I know China produces goods for the whole world…” She smiles another time. “Anyway, good luck with your studies. I hope to see you again.”

“Thank you.” I smile to her as well.

“By the way, it is not right to call me Mrs. Margaret. You should say Mrs. Wilkinson, or just Margaret. All right?”

“All right, Margaret.” I lower down my voice.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I like her, in the end.

When a woman is leaving her man, when a woman finally decides her departure,

Does she still need to water the plants every day?

Does she still need to wash his shirts, socks and jeans? Check all his pockets before washing them?

Does she still need to cook food every evening before he comes back? Or just leave everything uncooked in the fridge? Like those days when he was a bachelor?

Does she still need to wash the dishes, and sweep the floor?

Does she still kiss him? When he comes back through the evening door?

Does she still want to make love with him?

Does she, or will she cry, when she feels her body needs somebody to cover it and warm it, but not this one, the one lies beside hers?

Does she, or will she say, I am leaving you, on a particular day? Or at a particular time? Or in a particular moment?

Does she, or will she hire a car or a taxi, to take all her things before he understands what’s happening?

Does she, or will she cry, cry loudly, when she starts leading her head to a new life, a life without anybody waiting for her and without anybody lighting a fire for her?

The telephone rings. The Chinatown travel agency tells me my air tickets are ready to pick up. I take all my money and I put on my coat. On the way out, I pass by your sculpture. It is nearly finished. All the pieces of the body lie jumbled at bottom of plastic bath.

I come out from the house, you are standing in the garden and watering the plants. You stand still, holding the hose, with your back towards me. The brown of your leather jacket is refusing me, or maybe avoiding me. I think you don’t want to see me leaving. I think you are angry. Water from the hose in hard stream straight on the plants. For a long time you don’t move. I am waiting. I look up at the grey sky. I want to tell you it is winter. I want to tell you maybe you don’t need to water the plants today. But I don’t say anything. I walk out, hesitate, quiet. When I try to close the garden’s door, I hear your voice:

“Here, take these.”

I turn back. I see you pulling out a small bunch of snowdrops from the soil. You hold out those little white flowers and walk towards me.

“For you.”

I take the snowdrops. I gaze at the flowers in my hand. So delicate, they are already wilting in the heat of my palm.