It's summer night, 10: 30 in the evening. Its fragrance appears instantly, and then disappears quickly. Like a dragonfly, the ripples spread away immediately, but I can't hide it from my sensitive sense of smell. Walking out of the living room, I said to my mother, "The epiphyllum is blooming." I have seen four buds at noon, so although I am not sure how many have opened now, at least one can be sure. This seems to be a secret that I have mastered for many years. On the balcony, there is only one flower-obviously it is too light, so it looks darker there, which can better hide its naked and delicate figure and don't want people to see its shame. I still twist the flowerpot to face the light in the living room and bring a chair to sit down, so that I can see it clearly and talk to it. I tried my best to search for some sentences to describe it, describe it, and raise it to a poetic height-as in previous years, I will pour the thick ink of words on its white petals. But how can it be awkward? Can't find the right word at the moment, or are you tired?
In the past, I loved to get close to it: sniffing with my nose, touching with my hands and making tea, but I was afraid to smoke for fear of disturbing its fragrance. Once, I even moved the audio equipment out of the balcony and put on a guqin music to match its shape, color and taste, and at the same time fantasized that there was a beam of moonlight shining on the flowers. All these grand rituals are recorded in detail in the old articles. Therefore, I have been flattering it, and it should be grateful to me, close to me and introduce me as a confidant! Why does it suddenly seem that there is a strange feeling between me and it, which makes me restrain and makes it restrain? Seeing it, I began to feel a little timid, and I felt it was a little timid. I can turn my head a little and slow down somewhere else; It can't, so it has to continue to be exposed to the light and shake its body slightly. This body is more than 50 pink petals: the bottom is relatively small and spreads out; The one near the center is compact and thick, and the more it gathers, the more dense it becomes. It's like you want to hide the most shy part. The pink velvet core extending from the center just reaches the petal mouth, which seems to be the source of the whole epiphyllum fragrance, and it is also a focus that wants to resist the human eye but cannot defy the power of the night. Those petals-I can imagine them as simple hands or veils-were originally closed, but even if they were opened, they were still a little timid and afraid. Is this because of my unnatural expression? Maybe I shouldn't read it, let alone write it?
Over the years, I'm really tired of writing, and I hesitate between giving up writing and writing. It is an expectation, even an extravagant hope, to think of all the manners at the beginning. The grander the manners, the more luxurious the words, and the more exposed all the secrets to the public in the name of aesthetics. Rather than boasting about epiphyllum, we are taking the opportunity to praise ourselves. All the words used are exhausted, and the epiphyllum is also from the balcony, from a corner to the front desk, to the public in an old article. Didn't it just change from a virgin to a social butterfly through my hand? Everyone can peek at it through my words, see its shame, smell its fragrance, and even squeeze into it with their hands and all their imaginations and enter its body. So that people finally immersed themselves in pleasure and forgot my existence; So that I ended up bored, not honored.
Is this the reason that makes it very tired? Watch and watch, and you can't get an answer. I twisted the flowerpot again and faced the darkness it longed for. In this way, I can only see its vague back. Its waist shook and finally calmed down. The night does not "expose" or "not expose" its figure, it is even a curtain that covers its body. This process has finally resumed, and it is no longer a watch and a watch. I got a hint: I can only take a look at it casually in the future, and I don't even feel tempted, so sometimes I will smell its fragrance unconsciously. In that restored time and space, it shamelessly opened its petals and released its own fragrance-perhaps not fragrance, but smell, which was a real tacit understanding with it as the night slowly advanced; I should retreat in the middle of it, that is to say, I know my meanness, my smallness, my unnaturalness, my creation, my past blasphemy against it, and let it return to its original love bed. When the night is deepest, it is also the busiest time. In the past, I even regarded it as an orgasm, but now I know it is between it and the night. Its silent ecstasy should be expressed by self-withering before the dawn. I think only then can I pick up its remains from the leaves with my hands.
I thought it was the only job it acquiesced in me doing for it. It promised to continue to live in my flowerpot and on my balcony, and asked me to make sure that my words about it were over. It gave me a responsibility to bury it after dawn before others noticed it.
Brief introduction of the author
Shanghe, whose real name is Lv Ming, is a professional writer in Guangdong Youth College of Literature. His works have been published in Harvest, People's Literature, Shanghai Literature and Flower City. He has won People's Literature, the first Qin Mu Prose Award of Guangdong Province, the New Works Award of Guangdong Writers Association, and the short literature of Taiwan Times.