Early on a weekend morning, Lin Song had to go to Gaoqiao Fifth Road to pick up some goods.
He had received the call from the freight yard on Thursday notifying him the shipment had arrived. He had delayed for a day; thankfully, there weren’t many heavy trucks on the Third Ring Road on a Saturday.
On the Gusao Shu interchange viaduct, on the ramp turning from the Airport Expressway toward Gutian Second Road, a black Volkswagen tailgated Lin Song’s Peugeot 508. He could clearly see the numbers on the license plate in his rearview mirror—obviously an unsafe following distance. Lin Song hugged the inside line of the lane, gently pressed the accelerator, and swiftly rounded the circular ramp. By the time he straightened out, the black Volkswagen was no longer in sight. The feeling of being pressured finally eased.
Near the airport area on Jinshan Avenue, the sky was clear and blue. The planes that were landing looked huge; the ones that had taken off looked tiny. On a Saturday morning, the music station on the radio had no chattering hosts, nor the clamor of advertisements. All sorts of eclectic songs played one after another, with no standard, no formula. “What day was yesterday? What day is today?” What eccentric lyrics. He couldn’t hear them clearly, nor could he understand. Why ask, “What day was yesterday?” A delicate, opera-style female voice gracefully interjected with a classical line: “Gather flowers when they are in bloom; wait not till they’re gone, leaving but a bare branch.” Perhaps the singer was about to ramble on about Xin Qiji. “In ancient times, there was a Xin Qiji…” On a boring morning, one listens to boring songs.
At the freight yard, the forklift driver told Lin Song to park his car in the open space to the side of the large truck, so as not to block his route. This time, 11 turnover boxes had arrived. The old master loader looked at the open trunk of Lin Song’s car and asked: “How are all these going to fit in there?” “They will. Just load them the way I tell you.” Two boxes were placed vertically in the middle of the back seat, with two more on each side; four were laid flat in the trunk; one went in the front passenger seat. Exactly 11 boxes, all packed in. It was nearing noon, and the sun was glaring. The loader was shirtless, and his sweat soaked into the cardboard boxes.
The pan-fried buns and fried eggs he had packed this morning were intended to be his lunch after he finished his work. But coming out of the freight yard, he unexpectedly felt hungry. He opened the takeout bag, figuring he could eat while waiting at red lights. There would surely be more than four red lights on the way, enough time to match the four buns.
One must always focus and not get distracted. Eating while driving was already a risky business; he shouldn’t have been paying attention to the scenery. And while looking at the scenery, he definitely shouldn’t have been pondering its origins. He had just passed the South Lake Kindergarten. Previously, he would always see teachers or parents at the entrance. Why was it so quiet today? Oh, it must be summer vacation. “Ouch!”
An agonizing pain shot from the tip of his tongue to his central nervous system. Lin Song had bitten down hard on his own tongue. To make matters worse, he had added two spoonfuls of chili sauce to the buns when he packed them. Driving, eating a chili-smeared bun, and biting his own tongue—the sky was about to fall. The pain made Lin Song break out in a cold sweat. His jaw was frozen; he didn’t dare move it. The spiciness was also a form of pain, layered on top of the searing tear on his tongue. He couldn’t spit the masticated mush of the bun out in the car. He could only grip the steering wheel with both hands, unable to think of any way to relieve the pain.
He drove on stiffly like this, following the car in front of him, slowly waiting through one red light after another. He didn’t even dare to glance at his惨-looking tongue in the rearview mirror. He could only pray silently in his heart that his tongue, which was quite capable of enduring suffering, would quickly recover from the trauma. During the pauses at red lights, Lin Song took several large gulps of iced tea to soothe the pain on his tongue.
At this age, even when you are meticulously careful with everything, you can still bite your tongue; you can step out to buy groceries and still catch a cold. A cold is no small matter. It too has its own hierarchy; the most distinguished flu can be fatal. But generally speaking, a cold is just there to make you miserable, to make you remember that such a thing exists in the world, something that can rob you of your peace and appetite. A minor misery is the uncontrollably runny nose, which always catches you off guard. If you don’t quickly grab a tissue to wipe away the clear fluid, you risk it running into your mouth. In comparison, sneezing is much more satisfying. Most sneezes need to build up, and when the moment is ripe, a single, thunderous sneeze is a cathartic release that only a person with a cold can truly enjoy. Sometimes a cold can cause back pain. That’s a shangfeng—a chill that has settled in your bones, an internal ailment. One cannot maintain any posture for too long. Sit for a while, stand up, and it hurts. Stand for a while, sit down, and it hurts. A cold, ultimately, is a difficult thing to manage.
When you are helpless, you are inevitably helpless. The inertia of a person’s life will necessarily lead to the limitations of their existence.