dangerous road

Yan Yi felt that something was wrong with him.

Recently, he can always see the shadow of a strange man dangling in front of his eyes.The man was wearing blue and white striped home clothes, with a pair of slippers on his feet, and his body was always hanging in the air, looking at him with a smile.His smile is very, very soft, the kind of warm yellow that makes people feel warm.Every time Yan Yi looked up and saw that smile, he could think of the soft candied egg served on the iron plate when he went to a western restaurant to eat steak.

Yan Yi really likes to eat this kind of half-baked eggs fried on one side, and he can't help himself, but he often feels a little tricky when he is happy with it.The more he tried to fork it to his mouth, the more self-defeating he would break it.When the bright yellow egg liquid flows out through the outer layer of translucent egg whites, he always sighs angrily, ah, what a pity, it's wasted again.

So facing the man's smile, he somehow had an idea that it must be delicious.

When the man appeared for the first time, he was really startled, thinking it was his hallucination, but when he rubbed his eyes and looked over again, he found that he was still there, smiling warmly at himself very nicely.Yan Yi looked around in panic, his heart beating violently, trying to find any evidence to prove that he was still normal, or that the whole world had become abnormal.

The result is not.There is no such thing.

What should the pedestrians coming and going on the street do?The expressionless ones, the ones frowning in thought, the ones holding up their cell phones and talking loudly, and the ones in their high-heeled clothes.Traffic congestion on the roads shows no signs of easing.Horns full of anger blared, and impatient drivers simply rolled down the windows and yelled at the front.

"Will the one in front of me know how to drive?! How can I get out of here if you stick in like this?!! Your mother | force——"

Yan Yi looked around in confusion, then turned his gaze back to the man.His translucent body sat leisurely on top of the street lamp, his two long legs hanging down, swinging briskly in the void.He lowered his head to look at Yan Yi, their gazes naturally met in mid-air, and then merged together.

Looking at the man's penetrating smile, Yan Yi suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of belonging in his body, and this sense of belonging unconsciously calmed his panic.It's like when you go to a strange place, eat strange food, look at strange scenes, and suddenly hear the native language when you are feeling uncomfortable.

That's the way people are.Wherever he is, in whatever he does, no motive is stronger or more enduring than the desire for his identity and sense of belonging.

They just stared at each other quietly, until a passerby who was passing by accidentally bumped into Yan Yi.

"Tsk, what are you doing, don't stop in the middle of the road!" the man complained suspensefully.

Yan Yi suddenly felt uneasy about being overwhelmed by someone, and hurriedly lowered his head and said, "Ah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

When he looked up again, the man was gone.

....................................

At the beginning, the man only appeared for a short time, and he disappeared automatically after lingering in front of Yan Yi for about 10 minutes every day.Later, he stayed longer and longer, and at this time Yan Yi gradually got used to his company.

Sometimes Yan Yi would try to talk to men when he was bored.For example, the food in the company cafeteria is becoming more and more unpalatable, for example, I was scolded by the boss for a trivial matter today, or the intrigue among colleagues is so annoying.The man often sat next to him and listened with a smile, and finally reached out to pat his head.Although Yan Yi couldn't feel anything, he still felt warm in his heart.

He always wondered why only he could see this person.Obviously staying by his side so clearly, why can't others see it.

When he thinks about it, he will feel a little depressed, feeling that he has been abandoned by this world.When he saw the man's sweet-hearted smile, he felt that it might be good to be abandoned like this.

Not everyone living in this world can be silently accompanied by someone like him now.How many people can really understand themselves?Yan Yi had had such a feeling before, he felt that he was living on an isolated island, while planning to create an isolation that stretched across the sea, while frantically praying for someone to find him——in every possible place he met .

One night he was bored lying on the sofa watching a DVD, and the man sat lightly on the chandelier to accompany him, imitating him to prop up his elbows, and staring at the TV with great interest.

Yan Yi looked at it silently for a while, and suddenly felt that it was not interesting. In fact, he would feel that anything was not interesting after doing it for a long time.Unknowingly, he put his eyes lightly on the man, seeing the flip-flops on his feet hanging in mid-air, unable to fall off.

"Hey."

He called out tentatively, and the man turned his head to look at him.

"I've been wondering these days... who the hell are you? Or exactly what are you... you're not a ghost, are you?"

The curvature of the man's mouth was wider than usual, and he looked very happy.

"...But I don't think you look like—how can a ghost laugh like you."

The man shook his head, his expression became a little helpless, he looked at Yan Yi as if he was looking at his quarrelsome lover.

Yan Yi sighed lightly, scratching his head helplessly: "Forget it, I'm going to sleep."

After he finished speaking, he stood up, dragged his tired body towards the bedroom, kicked off his slippers and threw himself heavily into the bed.

Yan Yi's bed was against the wall.In summer it is hot and the curtains are always half drawn.Whenever the night wind passed through the screen window, the thin layer of gauze would always blow up with the wind, enveloping his entire upper body.Every time Yan Yi stays in this soft semi-enclosed space with his eyes open, he will think of an article he read before, in which the hero is also surrounded by bulging curtains like him.

Yan Yi thought that psychological description was particularly good.He remembered that the protagonist felt that he had suddenly become a small creature living in a conch, and could only look at the scenery in front of him from birth to death, small and ignorant.He neither knows what to desire nor what to loathe, but instinctively swallows the food that flows to his mouth, sleeps, wakes up, and then dies.Even luck and misfortune are unknown.

He vaguely remembered that it should be an article written by a Japanese writer, and the title should be called...In the Conch...Landscape in the Conch?

It seems to be called this, and I have to dig it out and read it again when I have time.

Yan Yi looked at the man who came in and sat on the window sill, and a complex emotion suddenly surged in his heart.He didn't know whether it was luck or misfortune that he could see things that others couldn't see like this.

"Isn't it cool here? Don't be blown away by the wind." He was worried about this man who no longer had weight, but felt that his worry was unnecessary.

Yan Yi felt that he was different from others since he was a child. As for the difference, he felt that he was a hundred times more contradictory than others.For a while he even wondered if he had schizophrenia.He often comes up with an idea and then immediately shoots it down himself.He often loves a person very much, but in the blink of an eye he finds that person disgusting.He often has a strong self-loathing while being world-weary.Sometimes he really wants to use a scalpel to cut into his own flesh and blood, into the hard bones of another self, to see what kind of another self is growing in his body.However, even in such a process, in such a process of self-unification and division, he still stubbornly believes that his division is complete and inviolable.

So he feels that no one in this world can really understand him, and the reason is that even he himself can't really understand himself.

Yan Yi gradually fell asleep amidst the sudden flood of loneliness, and at the last moment of falling into a dream, he vaguely felt an erratic and cold kiss on his forehead.

....................................

It had been more than two months since the man appeared, and Yan had been completely used to his presence early on.Even when he couldn't see him, Yan Yi would twist his neck and look around.

Sometimes his small actions are discovered by people around him, and he will always be puzzled in one way or another.

"Yo, what are you looking for?"

"Don't look there, there's nothing there."

"……need my help?"

Yan Yi often smiles politely while waving his hands, thinking that I am looking for something that only I can find.

In his heart, the man has unconsciously become his personal property.When eating, he would pull out the stool for the man to set up the tableware, and finish eating happily while the man watched with a smile on his face.When buying things, he would ask for a man's opinion, point out each item to him, and pay attention to whether he nodded or shook his head.When he was sleeping, he would flatten the quilt next to him, watch the man lying on it, and say goodnight to him.

Yan Yi felt that this kind of life was much better than usual.Although the man couldn't speak, every expression and every movement of his made Yan Yi feel that he could be understood.You know, in every year of his life, during the tense twelve months of the solar calendar and the magical thirteen months of the lunar calendar, no one has ever given him such recognition as a man has given him.Not even himself.

He knew that the man was a mystery made up of a bunch of words, a knot made up of a mess.If he could find the slipknot, a pull would free anyone involved—including himself.

But that also meant that their relationship was over.Yan Yi didn't want this.

....................................

When he found the man this afternoon, the man was sitting on the railing of the balcony, looking at the gradually setting sun at the end of the city.

Yan Yi looked at the warm light spots embedded in the two reinforced concrete buildings, and thought of the candied egg once again in a very unpleasant way.This color is really similar.They are all warm yellow that can melt, and they are still steaming.

Compared with the refreshing morning, Yan Yi prefers dusk.It is always lazy and lacks energy, and explains very simply that any tenderness is the result of incapacity.Many times, Yan Yi couldn't judge whether what he did was correct.Sometimes he will impulsively make a resolution, but is very paradoxically aware that this heroic resolution is both illogical and easily shaken, and then his emotions will quickly sink to a low point.

Fortunately, he also understands that it is also worthy of mourning and gratitude to be able to clearly realize how divided his life is.

When Yan Yi was thinking about things, the man suddenly stood up, turned around and looked at him.

Yan Yi saw that smile again, that smile that was ironed and could flow in the air like warm egg liquid.The man looked at him quietly for a while, then kept his back to the setting sun, and walked backward step by step into the void outside the balcony.

"……What’s wrong with you?"

Yan Yi took a few steps forward to hold onto the railing, and leaned over to see the expression on the man's face.The man against the light was suspended in mid-air, his body was covered with a fuzzy gold border, fluffy and warm.

He looked like he was going to melt into the sunset with that smile.

The man raised his arm and waved to Yan Yi, his movements were slow and continuous, as if in slow motion.Yan Yi reached out to grab him in vain, even though he knew it was useless.

In fact, even if this man was sitting in front of him, he couldn't touch him at all.

"...What are you going to do? Where are you going? Hey, I said—don't go!" He desperately tried to keep him, but his instinct told himself that he couldn't.

Yan Yi didn't know why he wanted something so persistently, he had always been a very casual person, and he didn't care about anything.But this time, he stubbornly didn't want to be indifferent anymore.

I can't keep it - so what should I do?

"...I'll go with you! Can I go with you? Tell me where you're going!"

The man understood, put down his arms that had been waving, and pointed to the crouching sunset on the horizon.

"Want to go there? I see, come here right away—be sure to wait for me!"

Yan Yi took a firm step, stepping into the void where the man was.

He suddenly felt that he had turned into a bird, with white wings growing from his back, and those wings could drive his body to fly lightly in the air.The orange boom of an excavator on a nearby construction site stretches across the road, forming giant, irregular arches.Downstairs the plaintive lavender flowers of the sycamore tree climbed up the wall from the branches and swayed gently.The pompoms scattered by Fatong flew happily and peacefully in the low air, light and soundless, which looked like a kind of praise and encouragement in his eyes.

Yan Yi looked at the man who greeted him with open arms in the air, and smiled contentedly.At that moment, he felt that it didn't matter if the whole world didn't understand him.At this moment in his heart, deeper than ever, there was a small wave beating regularly, as if it was about to awaken a new self.

——Then there will be only the two of them left in this world.

...............................................................................................................

"...What happened? What did the police say?"

"What else can I say, this is suicide! Tsk tsk, what a pity... at such a young age, you actually jumped off a building..."

"I heard that his lover died in an accident not long ago! Then he has been mentally abnormal, always looking for something crazy..."

"An accident? What accident?"

"What kind of accident can there be! These days, it's either a car accident or a disease, or maybe it's suicide, who can say for sure..."

"—Hey! Isn't this a martyrdom?!"

"——What kind of martyrdom are homosexuals playing?! In my opinion, they are just crazy psychopaths!"

"…………"

I saw the setting sun pouring out a slight coolness.

..................................................................................................................

【The End】

The author has something to say:

"Landscape in the Conch", Takami Ito.It's a short story.

In fact, Yan Yi’s thoughts here are mine.Then I want to say that I live in this world as a person with normal limbs, a normal IQ, a perfect family, and I can express my thoughts in writing, even if sometimes I can’t be understood, it’s really great .

Although the protagonists are all dead, but for some reason, I am very happy to write—=口=I am a pervert.