A Short Story
Five years before she had seen her friend off at the long-distance coach station
and wish her happiness and success. C had got on. You could tell that within one second from the way she talked, acted, and looked at you. Few people in her life had talents and ambitions like C and even fewer would go for it out of varied
hindrance and conservation. C had always a resolute air and she had deserved to win. It was something to have a friend like that.
Her thoughts have been rumbling along even since she heard C was about to come and visit her at the teahouse near her house. She was a great friend of C. They once stayed together a lot before C left the town for good. They had great fun. They both liked to read and regularly went to one of their common friends’ house
to borrow books. Their friend was genteel and unreservedly showed them his book
collections. Once, she remembered, when they left their friend’s house, the sunset was waning, and in the flickering twilight their hearts were throbbed with
fulfillment and thrill.
As she sat at her desk in the hospital, where she had worked for five years, she
thought what changes those five years had brought. C, whom she had known in the
backward town, had become one that she personally would have wanted to become.
Now her friend came back to visit her, what impression would she leave her friend? Sitting there, she pursued her reverie persistently and ardently.
Five years before she had made the decision to marry her schoolmate, which diverged her life from her friend’s to a path that her friend deemed mundane and full of trifles. Looking around her, she suddenly realized that she had sit in the
same office for five years, which was one thousand eight hundred twenty five days exactly. She was started by the immensely big number.
Her desk and chair wore a stagnant look now. The varnish on the surface had gradually lost its original luster. She turned from the dust-covered windowpanes to
the outside hospital yard. The glow of a later autumn sunset covered the parti-
colored leaves on the ground and cast a somber hue on nurses and patients on their wheelchairs in the yard. She looked at the scenes and thought of life persistently; and, as always happened whenever she thought of life, became melancholy.
The clock on the office wall struck five and this interrupted her thoughts. She
arranged the remaining work and took leave of her office afterwards. Outside on
the streets a horde of children populated the street. The sun had gone down and
the air became bleak. The din made by school kids started to annoy her as she walked along. It butted in her thoughts from time to time, which made her concentration impossible. She walked deftly along and soon arrived at the corner, where
the teahouse was situated at. Looking inside from the grass door, she found C had already arrived.
C looked no much difference in comparison to five years ago. Energetic and confident, time hadn’t pulled her down a bit. Sitting down and putting aside her handbag, she ordered a glass of orange juice and a small portion of vegetable salad. The doctor had told her to pay more attention to her diet. She had become tired so easily lately. Looking at her friend, she found time hadn’t done any harm to her friend. She hadn’t altered much, still keen on literature, still faithful in endeavors and ideals, and still YOUNG. She felt something bitter in her
mouth.
C elaborated her traveling experiences during the past years and jollied her up
from time to time. She was persuaded to drink wine with her friend. And after a
few cups of wine she felt something was throbbing within her. Was she really getting old and lagged behind by the times? She was only one year older than C after all. She suddenly had a desire to start all over again. She wanted to yell, break, and laugh. She thought of those up-beating literature works she had read years before. The aspiration for success suddenly grabbed her tight. She felt like her chest would burn and burst at any minute. Yes, it wasn’t too late after all. It was only but a deferring dream.
She couldn’t remember how much she had drunk with her friend in the teahouse. When she walked out of the teahouse, the night had permeated in the whole area. Her friend insisted on escorting her home but got rejected. She wanted to be left
alone. The bleak breeze awaked her a bit on the way. But the talk between her friend and her was still stirring in the air. She urged herself to move along this time. Press life. Don’t let it pull yourself down, always look for something
new in your life.
Stepping into the house, turning on the light, she threw herself onto the bed. Her husband had cuddled the baby to sleep. On the ground diapers left everywhere.
The air was stinky with baby’s piss and left-over food in the kitchen, which made her sick. I have got to work soon. The baby will possibly wake up soon. It needs milk. She heard her husband’s voice by her side. And she saw he was looking at her sulkingly. She suddenly remembered she should have brought home milk
for the baby. And she should have come home earlier. He had told her that he had to go to work early.
Looking at the man under the dim bulk light, she suddenly felt everything became
unreal. She couldn’t believe that she had married with this man, who was sulking and only giving her short answers, for five whole years. And she couldn’t believe, in the mean and decrepit looking house, she had buried behind five years’
golden time without any marks worth mentioning. He had promised her a lot of things but hadn't realized any. She saw him putting on his oily jacket and heard him slap the door and ride away on his squeaky bicycle. The baby started to cry at the faw side of the bedroom. Huddling herself in the cover, tears of remorse started to her eyes.
(The End)
