8/24

Flossing has been of an odd satisfaction to me, but it is only today that I have learned the hazard of overdoing things - one of my front teeth is missing a corner because I was too carried away indulging myself in such a rare joy. Although, beside some moderate discomfort when my tongue accidentally reaches the front, there's nothing deserving of a cogent concern. The notion of living with it disgruntles me. Yet I know in a mere few years of time, this broken tooth will constitute the new norm of how I view myself, and even become an inseparable part of my body.

I don't know when I have incurred such a scar; obviously flossing alone will never bear a power so destructive. I postulate it must have come from a long time ago; for vaguely I remember getting hurt, and have forgotten when and why. It does not, and will never bar me from eating though. In fact, I just ate a box of rice - I need to gain a little weight and at the same time, eating seems a fairly convenient way of being oblivious. The haunting noise of that mishap will alleviate when I commit myself to the act of chewing, not that its volume or degree will lessen, just that it will associate with me in a different form - since the front of my mind is occupied with the enjoyment of food, it hence becomes unlikely for me to harp on something less tangible. Similar to when I am drinking at the barbecue stand or hastening for a subway door that is about to be closed - the door did close before I set foot in the cabin, but the operator was kind enough to reopen it for me, the affliction will always be tuned down, implausibly as it would feel like to me in these other moments. And so I ponder, how will it play out, if finally the clingy emotions slacken and wounds cure, and I am occupied externally by everything that cheers me up, and the memory ends up wandering in the dusty shelf less used, when I know that the past is still quite there and would, however, retain my dispassion in the face of it? The answer eludes my brain, in spite of the fact that I, most certainly, will not care. Ultimately, just like the same many pinkie-swears I made during the years of my elementary school, these promises I made so resolutely merely a month ago, will inevitably shatter; so will each of them. At the beginning, I dare to imagine, it is going to feel like a slap on the face; but in the end I will lose either the interest or the incentive to actually chastise myself. Dubbing it an ineluctable phase of growth, I will walk away entirely intact. This is, at least according to me, a less-than-honorable ending. Yet the irony is, I am unbacked at every level, and the only sane option appears an eventual concession - a very caustic and profound lesson indeed.

The torment I have felt so deeply up until this moment, the clenching of teeth, the punching of pillow, the smashing of phone, the reluctance to eat, so many goofy tears and saliva and a horrendous peek at the suicide, these will perhaps become my upbringings - that in the future I should always take care of myself no matter how indignant I feel, and never allow another person, intimate and caring as she may be, to steer my own happiness. But these realizations, come off a price whose payment drains me, and a loss whose sincerity decapitates me. And I, numb and weary, glance at the pair of rooms where I once dwelled, at the black kettle with apple juice, at the video in which I shake my butt, at the rain and snow and sun outside of that glass window, at the stickers on it, at the drawing of me with toothbrush, at the two campus cards I carry simultaneously, at the bag of condoms, at the cinema, at the hotel room, at the toilet in which she is taking a D, at the hairdryer I used to dry her shoes, at the gentle whisper, at the screeching groan, at the Big's 1995 cap, at the riverside bench, and at the seashore of Lisbon, only to find a simple truth, that is, for this male earthling of twenty years old, in his limited lifespan, the spot that is the most unadorned and tender, has already been taken by a person who has loved and hurt him, and whom he has hurt and loves.
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There's only one bottle of beer left, and I don't plan to drink it - one bottle will never make a difference to me and as a matter of fact it even helps me recall things more lucidly. I'm casting my eyes for wine now, a little hesitantly for I don't want to change my name to Dimitri and move to Russia upon graduation. But I digress. I won't change my name and I won't move to Russia. I will still allow myself a week-long window to be pensive about the past, and occasionally to relive it - though the images are often blurry and I am hopelessly alone in there, it serves as a tribute to those good-old days which I now think I'm entitled to call.

One thing that is still with me, perhaps one of the few things that still braces me, is my finesse in objectifying my own life, so no matter how dark and deserted it feels and how latched I am to such grandeur of misery, I can laugh it off as I would to that of the other's. I make fun of it, I depict it with clarity, and I sympathize with what has happened, watching my own soul crumbling while patting the back of that orphan down the street - o' so unbearably sad, someone else's suffering.
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A timely epiphany has been captured amidst the meager soil of my thoughts, that rather than dwelling on the deteriorating emotions that will surely drag me down to the unthinkable, imposed on my reality are worldly issues whose direness is beyond estimation by my current state of mind, that in the coming years I would have no means of support aside from the payment of university fees, that I will be living entirely off a campus card, which alone, convincingly is not even going to cater to the necessity. And if the students ask for further rebate, and it is entirely in their reason to do so, I will have been deprived with all the alternatives but the bleak mire of debt. My health, bad as it is, still underscores a likelihood for a possible strife. However, alcohol makes me functionally inapt at addressing even the most trivial of problems and depression is snuffing out the last few glimmers of brilliancy for which I so ardently vied. I'm fully fledged at telling myself not to panic; I am not at my liberty, for that would cripple the already tarrying faith my entire family has placed on me. Sardonically, it is during these times that God will lead me away from the notion that I shall carry all the weight in my solitude, and that all the steps I have taken thus far will end up unrequited. Yet I no longer feel certain about a thing. I don't feel certain about anything. All I sense is a sort of dreadfulness not as an emotional contrivance but as a result of meticulous calculation. It is all wickedly dreadful, dreadful and dreadful. Van Gogh left this world saying "the sadness will last forever", and I am terminally scared.
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I can barely recognize myself. Even my endeavor to write is failing me - I have lost all the elegance of prose and indifference of mind; I have lost my words. What I see formerly as a capable person is gone; what's left is a moving lump of patchwork. I wreck myself to the last of all pieces, hoping to smash the stubbornly limerent core; I keep beating it, keep beating myself of no avail. It won't fucking die off - it just won't no matter how hard I fantasize and hoarsely I scream. Seeing in the mirror is a vacant corpse rid of soul, I have tried and corrupted every single trick; but it is still there. It's still fucking there! Just one fucking summer, just ten fucking days! I'm tossed and burned and disposed of like rubbish; and then I re-tossed, re-burned and re-disposed of myself! What's towards the end of it? I'm fucking penniless, bereft, and defamed! And she fucking hates me now! I fucking hate myself now! Why the fuck can't I just stop!? Why the fuck am I writing this bullshit instead of pissing off!? Why the fuck with every single of my belittled aspiration utterly ruined am I still not hating her and moving on!? Why the fuck!!! (Life is too short for any such bullshit.)

Oh dear Lord please grant mercy to this struggling youth; please point for directions and escort me out of this mist, fainted and agonal and with the last reserve of strength I pray.

8/23

It appears that beers, no matter how plentiful they are and how prolonged is the time I spend drinking them, have lost their effects on me. This urine-like, bubbly liquid, loathsome as it may be, is what sustains me in these of my gloomiest days. I have even inadvertently become a master of beer-pouring. With this glass of around fifteen centimeters in height, I can keep the foam for as long as half an hour. What is worrisome though, is that in the aftermath I usually feel much worse; there would be an inundation of emotions - an enormous infatuation of what has long ceased existing, and an unanchored, perhaps irrational guilt that arises from how firm I once was in a commitment, and from how equally firm I now am required to be in breaking it off. I still find it improbable, at the moment, to wholly imagine myself without those preserved in the vividness of my memory; but I reckon, one day when I eventually do, it is going to be the same ecstasy, as overwhelming as the day in summer when I first met her. And unutterably, it begets a pity - my life from now on will never be as complete - it will, of course, continue to fulfill in the days coming ahead, but inescapably the past will have always been bruised.

The couple at the Hong Kong Express restaurant in Marktkauf will be taking a day off tomorrow. Before my departure for China, I promised them that I'll bring a carton of cigarettes along - at first I proposed ChungHwa, but they thought that it is too expensive, as a carton of twenty or thirty euro will definitely do. I haven't bought any yet. For I considered doing start-ups and making money a more pertinent pursuit, and indeed I made quite a lot, albeit before long I squandered all of it. Shame to admit that only now do I think of buying cigarettes for that couple, of hanging out with friends back in middle school, and of inviting my favorite cousin over for a treat which he himself could seldom afford. Happiness might be of standing abundance to some, but so far it has not been for me. A smile out of her weren't meant to carry forward as much as a smile out of me, and hopefully it is not too late an insight to be gained.

I just went to the kitchen for a usual box of microwaveable rice. And like the hundreds of times before, I touched for the switch that would turn on that particular light - it did not work. The light was already broken when I came back from Shanghai; I managed to make it work for a brief moment, circa one or two days until it completely shuts down. Yet, immediately after, I felt an insurmountable grief - it was this light that illuminated the darkness during those countless nights when I studied alone and would creep out for something to stuff myself. But I kept calm and opened the fridge. In it there were several boxes of the type of rice I'd like to eat - both my mom and papa had bought some, half of a watermelon with the other half turned into serviceable slices in my plate this afternoon and a glass of juice, and many more vegetables. I closed the fridge, turned on the other light from the dining room, and put the box into the microwave - the other three lights would work just fine, and I barely noticed that deep inside the fridge, there were two bottles of chili sauce that came from Sichuan.

In the movie Spirited Away, there's a line I vaguely remember - life is a train heading towards the tomb; there are many stops and not everyone will accompany you till the last one. When they have to get off, don't trouble them, just be grateful and wave goodbye.

The rain suddenly comes as it patters crisply on the window. From a distance the swishing sound of car wheels running over water can be heard. In this empty room on my empty desk are empty beer bottles and a sinking soul - I recount with voices subdued and expressions soothed, yet not a word is said; thumping on the floor between the pair of slippers, tears are gushing all over my face; yet not a word is said.

8/18

According to Dylan Thomas, a writer who writes his books on, rather than between, whisky is a lousy writer, and he is probably American. I don't write either on or between whisky; I start writing before opening any bottle, and what I drink, is not whisky but a particular type of beer that is local to my city - very plain beer but alcoholic nonetheless. It perhaps does clarify that I am not an American and assure that I am not lousy. After all, he who drinks and gets drunk and spews on his own at the corner is not lousy; it is, at best, unfortunate, and at worst, miserable. But ultimately, it does not matter either way.

Originally I aimed for barbecue with beer. Yet sitting at the table were at least two people, and at one particular table there were six of them, only on the steps sat those who are single. Since I am only one person, and I do not want to sit on the steps, I choose beer only - three bottles of them, not more lest I confide something against my wish, and not fewer so they do intoxicate. Carrying these bottles is a task unto itself, and the weight on my left hand seems to convince me that I am already drunk - I naturally feel a tad dizzy and walk more strenuously. "Look, there is a cat hiding beneath the car, now what you coward! But ugh, if I want to kill it, I will kill it. The problem is, would I?" Inebriation makes everything philosophical, so I repeat inward, would I, and laugh and walk back upstairs; this time with three beer bottles.

My ghastly demeanor unsettled my mom. She came in once to offer me a cup of lemon tea with honey, and she just knocked again with a bottle opener, asking if I'd want to have some toasted cauliflowers - no, of course, for she can in no way comfort me and I do not even want to be comforted. I keep typing, occasionally gazing around for thoughts on how to continue, and keep typing. To the least, I mutter thusly, I still have the composure to bring back beers, and to drink them while typing, rather than to shout "it is all ruined and I'm ruined" and collapse into total despair. Huh? It's a good thing.

And ahoy mate, it feels great. No resentment, no bittersweet, no regret, nothing. As I slide slowly back from the bathroom with a freshly emptied bladder, I saw my mom crouching on the floor in her bedroom, watching TV - she ain't remembering a thing from that damned screen I bet, and she just keeps watching because somehow it relives her. Oh this shitty place that smells like how gazillions of those so-called ordinary have lived and died, I flounder with my hands waving mid-air, laughably useless as I try. "Man, you have lost all of your dignity and respect, who are you but a cynic, a loser and a freak? Your aspiration is destined for doom and your pretense is seen right through. Get lost and go eff yourself, lad!" Sure, sure, I answer intuitively, and I do nothing because for some reason I think I'd still linger around.

After several cups of water, miraculously I found myself sober. I turn off the green fan to the back of which I used to pour peppermint to make the room smell better; it is facing me at a direct angle, looking at me with its stern front - one year ago the cover went loose and I fixed it. The air conditioner whose age is larger than mine, is still functioning in the background. Its remote is now placed under my Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, shiny like new because my mom has always taken great care of it. The room temperature is set at 27°C. I feel cozy and warm. I am reminded not of those hours I spent waiting for a girl in vain; I am reminded of how many more months of solitude and struggle with which that tragic romance can happen, for myself. In the end, it is about me; it is about my own naivety; it is about my own past.

Thanks though; if the God in my dictionary has taught me anything, it is always to be thankful. Therefore, thanks.

8/16

Now I sit on my routine wooden chair in front of the desk that faces the window; different objects are scattered around the desk with the same randomness as one year ago - only now the curtain is closed and I'm not interested in reopening it, for such an act requires me seeing it as worthwhile, and no, it is not worthwhile. A new shopping mall was erected in front of my apartment building where I lashed myself to move forward, and the road and the street lamps and the cars are all veiled visually, with occasional bursts of sound reminding me of their past, and putting me into reminiscence.

Only recently, have I realized that the depression I once pridefully thought I have is not depression at all, it is mere discomfort, a mild ailment that is not debilitating, upon which no one genuinely suffers, and about which no one eventually cares. Now my thoughts are plastered, my body congealed, I type on the keyboard - the plate of grapefruit and pear slices to the left of my laptop does not arouse me, and nothing arouses me to the extent that typing the act itself is the straw I agonize myself to grasp. More than that, the start-up that I will set up next semester, the unfulfilled duty to my students, and the pills which I take to make myself cosmetically tolerable, I do these things no longer out of a diminutive but nevertheless operant aspiration, but out of an automation, out of them as prerequisites of my continued existence - this is depression, a depression so bizarre that I'm willing - I still have the SSRIs and benzodiazepines, and they are readily in the drawer within the reach of my right arm, and I do not want to take them, even the temptation of doing so is avoided like a plague. For it is in reality that I corporally pass by, and it is in dream that I dwell in the past.

What is still agreeable though, is that the world is still revolving around me. The young man from Jiangxi is still working at his barbecue stand, from 11 PM to 4 or 5 AM in the morning, depending on whether there are customers, not knowing that I will not be one of them; the Shanghainese old lady is still washing her dishes in her windowless apartment, and her husband is still watching television - they know that the crying baby living next door will never return, and they offer a hug and proceed with their own mundane matter. Everyone is still having their lives, happy or bitter, sometimes either, sometimes both. None seems affected, in the same way that none will seem affected if I die instantly - they might try to talk you out of it, they might hug you, they might grieve for a moment, and they walk on. Why the hell can't I do it? I indeed can. Indeed there is nothing in this world that cannot be foregone, the sole distinguisher being its value - the happiness in the past one year, or the happiness in the future, just that I ain't so sure; and I refuse to be.

Henry Miller once said, the best way to forget about a woman is to turn her into literature. But for me, she is always quite the opposite of literature, and if anything, what that literature requires is a form of detachment that I could never attain, for in it there inevitably shall be traces of her. My usual contempt for things loses its potency. And if, in the future I managed to get over it, no matter how earnest I will have become, and how righteous the reasons I will have used, that future, will seem to me, at this precise moment, on this precise day, an utter deviation of my worth that I consider to be the most applaudable, a vicious and ever sickening betrayal. (P: June 29, 2017 - I felt neither righteous nor earnest, only a sort of inevitable oblivion, inkstain washed away; Mar 27, 2021 - no, she has never been washed away.)
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It is with the greatest self-constraint that I did not delete any blog post from the past one year. Whenever I read them, I watch what was once part of me turning into a folly satire, a satire so close to being a real-life romance that every time I think of it, I chuckle with regret and weep with delight.