Goodbye, my unreachable lover.

“Cupid is often complained about, that is, the god of love’s arrows shot off course, causing many unfortunate entanglements.”

In my dream, a woman wept softly, her sobs drawn out, whispers, whimpers. The dream faded, never to return, never to last. Youthful beauty faded like a chain, a waning moon a crescent, her face washed clean of its former glory.

My eyes are swollen and painful, yet I still can’t fall asleep. I sit back down at my desk, thinking about something from the past, or something in the present…

In the still of the night, only a crescent moon hangs in the sky. Look up, and pray. May it be beautiful tonight, its splendor boundless. Remember these last moments of remembrance.

I touched my bare shoulder, watching it gradually turn bluish from the cold. In the mirror, my sharp collarbone stared back at me.

Perhaps it’s inappropriate to think of so many things at such a moment. But this play is only one-tenth of the whole drama, so what harm is there in adding this extra segment?

I dialed your number, but your phone was still off. No one answered at home. Besides the dial tone, there was only deathly silence. Your avatar on QQ remained gray. I tried to log into your email, but all I got were garbled characters. All those letters I wrote, filled with pain and sorrow, had sunk without a trace. I could no longer find any way to contact you. You really forgot me so easily.

One month, two months, one year, two years. How long has it been since I heard from you? You vanished so quietly, from our love, from right under my nose, without a trace. You silently deserted, leaving me alone on this empty journey, looking around, lost and helpless.

I’m still thinking about our old conversations.

“What would happen if someone suddenly disappeared one day?”

“who?”

“Someone will look for it.”

“People will look for them, but will they give up after a long time?”

“Yes, but there are always exceptions.”

“This exception, however, is as rare as a plane crash.”

“Exceptions are rare, but they will always happen.”

I always thought I would be the one causing instability in our relationship, but I never imagined that you would be the one to suddenly disappear. I’m trying to convince myself to accept this fact. However, I still can’t believe that you just left me like this; the pain of being suddenly emptied out keeps spreading and won’t stop.

Your sudden disappearance, without saying goodbye, without even leaving a word, made me think I should cry or shed tears, but I just continue with my daily routine.

I trampled the shadows of time beneath my feet, crushing one after another those simple yet broken joys, leaving only empty loneliness and desire. They occasionally emitted desperate cries. These strange sensations filled my eardrums, erecting a barrier between me and the novelty of the outside world.

To it, I am blind. So I still walk with my head held high and high spirits. In my gradually fermenting youth, I watch my face in the mirror bloom into withered and decaying flowers. The lost luster is like the paint peeling off the back of the mirror, making it look wrinkled and smudged.

Time passed day by day, and I knew I was still living in the past, never having the courage to lift myself out of it. All my courage and hope seemed to vanish on some day in that year, whether it was a sunny day or a rainy day. From then on, they rotted away like insects that died in summer, a monotonous ending with no beginning of rebirth.

I’ve always viewed your disappearance as an accident, and I’d rather believe that your abrupt departure was for some other reason. I know that deep down, there’s still a subconscious hope that one day you’ll suddenly reappear before me.

This hope lingered faintly in my heart. I haven’t moved or changed my phone number since then. I’m just afraid—afraid that one day he’ll suddenly come back and won’t be able to find me.

Yet, how long those days of waiting were! I passed them by without even realizing it, sustained by a near-desperate wait. Perhaps I had been driving there for too long, gradually forgetting the original purpose of these days, this monotonous repetition, and what I was actually waiting for.

Someone who will never appear, or perhaps this repetition has long become a habit of mine, deeply intertwined with every step, every moment, and every minute of my life.