He leaned his head against the glass window of the train, which lurched and vibrated along with it, turning his head upside down a little. The brown cowhide suitcase sat beside him, silent.
The window swept past an abandoned gas station, and a dusty red car was parked in front of the pumps, left behind by the train traveling at 300 kilometers an hour.
He stared blankly out the window at the abandoned towns that swept by every now and then on the Gobi Desert. Since the train tracks ran parallel to the abandoned Highway 5, it was not uncommon to see towns die along the way.
Another abandoned utility pole swept by outside the window, broken wires falling to the ground, the exposed wires looking like blood flowing out of veins. The dark crows stood on the pole, cocking their heads as they watched the white train speed by.
"The crow's eyes are red oh!" The childish female voice sounded in his head again.
He shook his head helplessly, trying to shake the childish voice out of his head, but it firmly grasped its most sensitive nerves, pulling him into his memories:
"Look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look!" The six-year-old girl with the mushroom haircut took his hand and pointed to the crow on the roof of the red-tipped house and called out.
"What's weird about it, but it's all black and a bunch of it." He puffed out his chest in a grown-up manner.
The little girl's mouth rose unhappily, and her fleshy little hand pulled him forward a few more steps, stubbornly pointing at the crow on the roof, "It's just not the same! You see it does look strange!"
He cocked his head and stared at the crow for a long time, and the crow cocked its head and stared at him for a long time, the air overflowing with the smell of lemonade.
"Where is it, why can't I tell?" He craned his head to look at the girl's big star-like eyes, still not seeing anything different.
The little girl, anxious, pulled him to run to a place very close to the house, pointed to the raven ambling in his ear, whispered, especially mysterious, "The crow's eyes are red!"
"Ah!"
"They're red like rubies! It's especially, especially pretty!" The little girl let go of him and spun around with her hands open, her pink dress blooming like a little flower, her smiling face shining in the sun.
Memory is fixed in this moment. The little girl in the pink dress with the mushroom haircut, him in his summer dress and the sunshine in the square, the crows on the red spiked house, and the smell of lemonade filling the air and the shouts of the pancake stall auntie all framed into a single painting
Two
He stepped out of the station, and was greeted by a hot, dusty wind, which made his coat rattle.
He headed down an old abandoned highway. The wind ran past him, mixing with the sand and dust and waste paper blowing the dry bushes that lined the road to the ground. He squinted in the sandy wind and stared at the steel-blue city ahead of him.
It was his hometown.
The steel-blue city stood silent at the end of the road, where he had been born, nestled in the middle of the Gobi where cacti, red willows, tumbleweeds, and dead trees grew.
The city had risen overnight a long time ago, thanks to the discovery of oil and iron ore, but had fallen overnight, rising and falling so abruptly.
He kept his head down as he continued to walk towards the city, the shadows of flying eagles skimming across the ground, the scorching sunlight transferring heat to the parched earth like the heat emanating from his beating heart.
"Damn." He cursed under his breath as the memories came flooding back to him:
The room seemed bright and spacious with the sunlight of a summer afternoon shining through the wide floor-to-ceiling windows, the floor was dappled with tree shadows, and the peach-scented wind blew across the room, the pure white screens undulating like ocean waves.
He sat on his knees next to the white king-sized bed in the room, the wooden floor cool and cozy.
She was lying on her back on the queen-sized bed, half of her body poking out of it.
She clutched his hand tightly to her beating chest.
"Raven's eyes are red, a jewel-like red oh." She squinted languidly like a cat, her eyes smiling.
He rested his head gently against hers, inhaling y the scent of peach on him.
"Yes, raven eyes are red, a jewel-like red."
She brushed her hand over the fine downy hairs that had just grown on his lips, his brown eyes sparkling.
"Like stars." She thought.
His exhaled throat moved, and the hands she held tightly became hot. And her chest began to beat violently, her palms transferring searing heat.
He raised his hand to pin up a strand of her broken hair, gently lifted her small chin, trembled and closed his eyes, and his burning lips gently covered her warm and soft lips.
It was a minty kiss. That's right, it is that summer mint grass flavor, cool and bitter, but concentrated all the beauty of summer.
Outside the window, the wind suddenly picked up.
Three
He walked through the city's ruins, everywhere you can see the exposed steel and broken concrete walls, full of depression.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to find the scent of the city that he knew so well. But he couldn't find anything, and he had to keep his head down, carrying his heavy suitcase and navigating the cracked roads by memory.
"There's the pancake stand, there's the game room, there's the bookstore, there's the fountain with the statue of a man and a horse, there's the flower beds, there's the swings, there's the alleyway that leads to the school, there's the green mailbox, and there's ......"
He closed his eyes, and little by little in his mind, he restored the city to the way it was back then. It was bustling, lively, and full of earthly atmosphere. His nose also found the scent he was familiar with back then, little by little, along with his memories.
The aroma of pancakes, the sweet and sour smell of lemonade, and the cool mint flavor of summer afternoons.
And - the smell of peach on her. It was as if he could touch her, her long smooth hair, her warm skin and lightly fluttering eyelashes, and - those warm, soft lips.
"Her eyes, bright and penetrating, like jewels and like stars."
His eyes snapped open, and his outstretched hands grasped only a handful of air.
He shook his head in disappointment; there was no pancake stand, no game room, no bookstore, nothing that he had ever known; all that was here were crumbling walls, rusty billboards that creaked in the wind, and an empty city in the middle of nowhere.
He sat dejectedly on the crumbling stone chair next to him.
"We abandoned it, and we killed it with our own hands." Tears slipped from the corners of his tightly closed eyes:
"Do you really have to go?" She took his hand, moisture welling up in her eyes again, the tip of her nose red from crying.
He gritted his teeth and pulled his hand out of his palm, "I have no choice."
"Can't we stay? We can always live here, we can we can start a family together, we can raise our children together, we can ......"
"Stop it!" He interrupted her drily "Haven't you recognized reality yet? This city is hopeless, the technology it has always relied on is worthless in the face of new technology! It is going to be obsolete eventually, what is the way out of staying here!"
She froze for half a second, "So you're really giving it up to pursue your future?"
"Not me, all of them! Most of the people in this city have moved away, it's obsolete! There is no way out of staying here!" He paused, "Why don't you come with me too, we can fight together to have a better future."
"But it's home, it's our family home! How can we give it up?" She pleaded, "Stay, we can save it."
"But it's old! Broken! Useless! You recognize reality, it's nothing but a victim of its time!" He yelled at her, his voice echoing through the large station. People like him who were about to give up and flee the city stopped their hurried steps to look at them in surprise, and the air was suddenly heavy with silence.
She looked into his eyes, and the moisture in them coalesced into beads that slid down, smashing crystal flowers on her shoes. The light in her eyes shattered as the tears fell.
She smiled ruefully and took a few steps back.
"I will keep it." She paused, "Do you remember what color the raven's eyes were?" Her voice was hoarse.
He opened his mouth and did not answer.
She turned resolutely, no longer with a trace of attachment.
He watched her distant figure from behind her and murmured, "It is red, ruby red, like the red dress you wear today, bright and moving."
From then on, the sky was the limit.
Four
He was lying on the bed in the dilapidated great room, in the corner of which a gray and grey spider was quietly making its web.
The bed was worn, with springs and stains popping out everywhere. In one corner of the room, things representing his various honors and titles were dumped out of a brown cowhide suitcase, curling and crackling in the bright flames.
The pristine white screened windows of the day were covered in dust and became grimy. The huge floor-to-ceiling windows were also covered in a thick layer of sand and dust.
As the sun was setting, golden-red light shone in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and covered the room. The wind mixed with dust poured in through the broken hole in the floor-to-ceiling window, making a whimpering sound; the dust was swept up in the light of the setting sun and danced languidly in the air; the dead tree branches outside the window were pulled out in the setting sun in very, very long shadows, casting on the opposite side of the window, laying out strange shapes, like open-mouthed graffiti, or hideous claws and teeth.
He looked out the window, and the whole city was wrapped in the red light of the setting sun, the shadows of the taller buildings drawn out long, long, long, long, reflecting strange shapes on the ground, and on other buildings. The whole city was silent, with only the wind traveling forlornly among the crumbling walls in it. Occasionally two stray cats scurried out of the shadows of the buildings, trailing long shadows across the cracked streets.
He closed his eyes and remembered a quote he had once read in a book, "A young man sleeps suddenly in the middle of the city, with thousands of people in the streets and in the sea, just waiting for that one person to wake him up and bring him back to life in the light of the setting sun and the rising sun."
He picked up the corner of his mouth and closed his eyes lightly, feeling the breath of life drain out of the opening in his wrist, like a ruby red spring flowing in a lonely line in the light of the setting sun.
"I, too, am about to fall asleep suddenly in this city, where ten thousand people are empty, and the sea has changed, but no one will wake me up, and I will awaken in the darkness, and in the darkness I will embrace you with the eyes of the stars.
I, for one, am home."