It's Gonna Be a Long Trip

He walks around the house, twice, and when he comes back to the front door, the summer has already been very hot. He feels the sweat on his collar, and the noise of a fan, rolling inside the house. These feelings seem to remind him of the mosquitos and bright sunshine over his head. He stands in front of this house, for a little while, and becomes extremely thirsty. It is as if all the colors inside his heart all at once explode mercilessly, and what left on his tongue is but thick layers of gray pigments. He hesitates for a long time, but finally makes up his mind. He comes to the door, and knocks on it with his knuckles, for exactly three times.

she does not answer it. He smiles, but with his eyes full of emptiness. About one minute has passed, finally, she breaks the silence. He hears the friction between her slippers and the wood floor, but when she actually opens the door, without any hesitation, he steps back with the shrink of his shoulders, almost instinctively.

"I have told you, we are done." She says. She is hollow-eyes, with purple bruises around her eyes, and her sunken cheeks are covered up by her withered golden hair. However, she has no tears now. He can only see her head from this angle, but he is sure that she is clenching her fists: she used to say that it was the only way for her to remain rational when she was on the edge of breakdowns. When he thinks of it, he feels the pain, as if someone is piercing his chest with needles.

he is crestfallen, like he is a child who waits for the punishments from his mother for what he has done; but she stands in silence, and her eyes are on him, like a beam with sunshine without any temperature.

he wets his lips:" I'm sorry."

"No, you are not." She raises her head. He pulls open his mouth, suddenly does not know whether he should cry or smile. Endless streams of force converge at his arms, and all of sudden he reaches her with his hands, trying to bend his arms into an awkward embrace. This time the repulsion overflows her eyes, so she steps forward and pushes him back with all her might, and slams the door. The pounding awakens his deepest desperation. "Please! This is the last time!" He begs her, and he almost kneels on the floor, "I just want to have a look at it for the last time, and maybe have some water. Please..."

She speaks nothing at first. Later on, she finally opens the door. "Come on in." She says.  He looks into her eyes, which have bored by tiredness, and trembles as he walks into the house. Nothing has changed inside, and every corner is crowded with heavy sweetness and memories. Dark shadows of the shutter are projected on the white wall, and an old photo, which has not faded yet, is also hung on the wall. There are three people in the photo: she, in her yellow dress; a girl with stumpy plaits, who stands on her left hand side; and of course he, whose brown eyes are not polluted by the black melancholy in his soul. He stares at this photo, tells himself that once she was also young and fair, and finally utters a silent cry. There used to be a stained glass ashtray on the table, and maybe a few books, piled up randomly. Now they are all gone, without the need to show him how they have disappeared.

She walks out from the kitchen, with a glass of water on her hands, and it was he who bought the glass a few years ago. He says:" Thank you." And sits on the sofa. He has been putting great efforts to prevent himself from falling.

He pauses for a few seconds, asking her:" How's Linda recently?"

"She's fine." Her voice is coarse, "She transferred to another school."

"What? Another school?" He exclaims with amazement.

"Yes. You know, she doesn't wanna see you."

Yes, he understands. He has brought this family with pains, derangement, sticky tears and leaden blood. Now he is gone, the days of tortures come to an end.

"Why didn't she tell me about it?" His voice trembles.

"She's already eighteen. She can make her own decisions now."

"When was it?"

"A few weeks ago. She got admitted by a private college."

"...What about the tuition?"

"I said to you once, I could raise her up. Without you I could still make it." She seems annoyed, though he does not understand why.

"How tall is she now?" He feels he has nothing left except for a dead sense of peace.

"Maybe six inches, maybe less." She sighs, "I haven't seen her for a while either."

"I will still send the money to you from time to time..."

"I said, I could raise her up!" She emphasized on the last three words on purpose.

Now, they again fall into silence. He may have a thousand sentences to tell her, but they just dissolve into the water, the water inside the glass he is holding, and he gulps them back to his stomach. Sunshine from the outside roasted his heart cold. He smiles, see her in red T-shirt turn around, and her wizened back cut the humid and hot air into pieces. He thinks she is more beautiful now, more beautiful than any time in her life. He wants to say to her, that how he loves her countenance now, "devastated", as it is written in a novel. However, he has long lost the ability to tell her about it. "She hates me." He says to himself, "She will hate me for the rest of her life."

Even though, he still desires to touch her, softly and gently, for the last time. He wants to embrace her with all his tenderness, as what he used to do. He cannot suppress this desire so he runs to her, but it scares her. She jumps back and cries out:" Don't touch me!" She is like a kitten with its fur stuck out.

Her eyes are full of tears now, and again, turns red. Her arms cross in front of her chest, and her hands grip her shoulders, tightly, as a way of self-defense. His breath is stopped, and he is petrified into a statue. His takes back his right hand, which tries to touch her face, and puts it on his forehead. Orange light runs over his fingers, and paints his hair white, as if all the ages just make a turn and stop on his head. He suddenly feels tired, like an elderly, who is drunk with dizziness, so he walks backwards to the sofa, and sits down, with his eyes closed.

She watches him from a distance. His profile is blurred and faded into colors of the summer. "What's your job now?" She asked and pretends not to care about him. She snaps fetches out a cigarette from the pocket, igniting it with a lighter. Smoke arises and builds a wall between them. She used to hate smoking that much, but now it is all changed. She shakes off the dust on her fingers, says:" I am fine, both now and then. I'm good."

"I find another job. I'm good, too." He finds it so hard to talk, so he sips some water.

"Still drink alcohol?"

"No. That has become a history."

A bitter smile appears across her face. She blows some heavy smoke rings into the air, so they rise upwards in the dimmed light. "I happened to walk past our house, no, I mean, your house, so I decide to come in and have a look. For the last time." His eyes skim across the room, the room he is so familiar with, but finally he steads his sight on her face, "I am totally changed now. I always think, I am sorry. I owe you this."

"...You still know how to say sorry." All of sudden she bursts into tears, so she turns her face aside, with her head raised. He can barely see her forehead. "You just walk away, and that's it." She complains, which makes his life meaningful again.

"I thought you didn't want to see me." He shakes his head and looks down at the glass. Half of the water is left, and he sees his colorful but twisted reflection on the glass. She laughs coldly, walking to the window directly, opening it, and throwing the cigarette outside. "Are you finished?" She frowns. He ignores her question, and mumbles:

"I think I need to go away for a while."

"To where?"

"I don't know. I just wanna get out of this city."

"When will you come back?"

"I don't know. It's gonna be a long trip."

"How long?"

"I don't know." He is satisfied. "She cares about me." He says to himself silently, "and that's enough. Even too much."

"What are you going to do?"

"No, nothing. Good, that's enough. Good. Great." He stands up and heads to the door, "Thank you. Thank you for the water and for letting me in. I guess now it's enough. Thanks, I gotta go. I gotta go. Bye... Goodbye my..." He opens the door and looks back at her face, for the last sight. He does not wait for her to have any reaction, and closes the door.

He runs away, following the path outside the house. He is afraid to turn around, afraid that she will get out and chase after him, as what they did when they first got married. However, she doesn't, for this time. When they first got married they belonged to each other, but now it is different. They are two kites, high up in the sky, flying separately. When he runs out of his breath, he starts to walk, and walks for a long time without any pause. Suddenly, he realizes he has come to the railroad, and the whistling of a train is approaching. From her house to this railroad, it has been a long trip.

He smiles, this time without desperation. He lies down on the railroad, and finally finishes his sentence:

"Goodbye, my darling."

The train rolls over his body. Now he forgets everything, including her name.

at night she walks into her bedroom, as usual. When she turns off the light, the smell of summertime spreads out in the air, which makes her feel safe. She does not look outside tonight. She just closes her eyes, and goes into sleep again.