It was a strange day; no matter where he sat, Lin Song could smell a thick odor of sweat. It was a summer smell he knew well. Back in middle school, he’d wear the same jersey for an entire afternoon of ball games, and after practice, he’d just toss it in the equipment room, only to put it on again the next afternoon. It was an age of utter indifference.
The Lin Song of today couldn’t stand messy, dirty clothes; his washing machine ran frequently. On this sweltering summer day, as he dozed on a lounge chair in the mall, he was suddenly assaulted by that smell from a distant memory.
Lin Song pulled up the collar of his shirt and took a deep sniff. He was certain the smell wasn’t his own.
He reluctantly opened his drowsy eyes. At a table across from him, a heavyset young man sat with his back to him, his white t-shirt soaked with sun-baked sweat stains. He was hunched over his phone.
Lin Song frowned and rubbed his heavy eyes, which felt gritty and sore. His right eye had been bothering him for two days; it was time to go to the pharmacy for some eye drops.
He stood up, smoothed the wrinkles on his pants, and left the mall through an exit in the opposite direction of the young man.
The pharmacy was even cooler than the mall, filled with the pungent scent of traditional Chinese medicine.
“What can I get for you?” “Eye drops.” “Oh, your eye is bloodshot.” “Ah!”
Lin Song took out his phone, opened the camera, and flipped it to selfie mode. He snapped a photo of his right eye. Zooming in, he saw a distinct patch of crimson.
“What’s going on here?” “Does it hurt?” “No.” “Is it itchy?” “A little.” “Do you have high blood pressure?” “I don’t know.” “Well, let’s check your blood pressure then.”
Lin Song grumbled to himself. Was he really old enough that a bloodshot eye warranted a blood pressure test? What if, after the test, they found a host of other inexplicable ailments?
“No, that’s okay. Just help me find some eye drops I can use.” “Try this one.”
Lin Song was led to the counter displaying OTC eye drops. The clerk handed him a large box. He didn’t pay attention to the name, but he did notice the label prominently marking the size: “15 Vials.”
“That’s too many. I won’t be able to use them all.” “This one is specifically for bloodshot eyes like yours.”
Lin Song suddenly realized that if he played dumb in the pharmacy, they would surely treat him like a fool. And since he was only pretending, they would pretend that they weren’t intentionally treating him like one.
He scrolled through his OneNote app, found a record of eye drops he had purchased before, and had the clerk use his medical insurance card to buy a bottle of “Naphazoline, Vitamin B12, and Chlorphenamine Maleate Eye Drops” as he requested.
He asked the clerk if they had any tissues; he wanted to use the drops immediately to soothe his dry eyes. Unfortunately, the pharmacy had none. Clutching his newly purchased medicine, Lin Song headed back to the mall, remembering there were tissues available at the restaurant inside.
These days, if you truly want something, you can always find more of it. Whether you actually need any of it is another question entirely.
Lin Song remembered how used toothpaste tubes could be exchanged for malt candy, and how expired newspapers brought home from his mother’s factory reading room had to be saved to be used as toilet paper. His head teacher used to say, “Making the most of every object is a virtue.”
When his family lived on Jingwu Road, they lacked everything at home. On the street, however, there was no lack of anything—just trash, carelessly discarded everywhere. That trash couldn’t be eaten, nor could it be made into clothes. Lin Song couldn’t recall if there were sanitation workers on Jingwu Road, but he vividly remembered the annual “big clean-up.” Adults would stop their work and children would get a half-day off from school, all to sweep the streets. That half-day of freedom, a chance to run wild after school, brought him immense joy.
Today, Lin Song went shopping at a discount store called “Hot Sale.” He picked up three cheese-and-chocolate wafers, an odd “sweet and salty” combination. He wondered, would a mouse be interested in this kind of cheese? Perhaps our mice here prefer rice. He paired it with a bottle of sugar-free Suntory “Longjing & Jasmine” tea. Faint grey characters on the packaging read “複合茶饮料” (Compound Tea Beverage). What kind of beverage is this? And why is there a traditional character mixed in?
The delivery guys, dashing in and out of the mall, all wore helmets representing their own legions. The yellow Meituan helmet sported two long kangaroo ears; the blue Ele.me helmet was topped with a small propeller; and the red McDonald’s helmet seemed to have two chicken drumsticks stuck on it. Yes, just like the generals charging across a battlefield, they all had to wear their helmets. It was their “honor.”
He recalled an advertising slogan meant to “encourage” young people: “Don’t choose comfort in your prime years for enduring hardship.” If you have no special skills, you can at least ride a bike and run errands, right? Just join the ranks of the delivery army, and “It’s not the alarm clock that wakes you up every morning, but your dream.”
Lin Song’s chemistry teacher once taught in class that gold, element 79 on the periodic table, is a transition metal. Its properties are extremely stable; it won’t even combust at incredibly high temperatures. In other words, “Gold itself will never shine.”
Light a candle, and in two and a half hours, darkness is sure to fall. Any dream that is lit will, inevitably, have a moment when it burns out.