Midnight

When I'm extremely sleepy, I seem to be able to feel the concentration of the carbon dioxide I'm exhaling, and my eyelids open and close with the rhythm of my breath, as if time has frozen. I drag my heavy legs in a static void, unable to see the end, not knowing where I came from, wriggling in the darkness. Then, in the distance, the metallic clang of a retractable gate being pulled shut brutally shatters the illusion before me, dragging me forcibly from one unknown to another. I see the eyes of a person who has leapt from the top of a building — those complex eyes growing dimmer and dimmer as death rapidly approaches. In an instant, the soul, with all its radiant life, vanishes into the distant sky.

Insomnia is, more or less, just like this.

Between dreaming and waking, there is a barrier. The body is on the other side, but the mind still lingers in the daytime vision—feeling the heavy shackles of hell on one side, immersed in the bitter sea of memory on the other, struggling desperately on one side, lost and confused on the other. The pen in hand is like the judge's command, drawing closer to the deadline, growing more and more ferocious. Suddenly, the childhood moonlight comes to mind, the shooting star outside the window. The withered oaths are like autumn leaves, scattering across the ground in sighs. I had hoped that every word spoken would become a monument of life, but the loser's epitaph is always nothing but lies. So be it—this world was always a children's fairy tale; we are all a dream of God. No matter how the world quarrels or how peaceful it is, when the dream wakes, it is all a joke. Whether moral or legal, whether despicable or just, before divine revelation, it is all false.

Some say that if you approach a romance with the dignity of life itself, the outcome is bound to fail. At that time, I blew smoke rings, thinking of the way you smile. But the truth always catches your brow at an unguarded moment, then you suddenly realize — you were born at the wrong time, you are a wrong you, you wrongly believe you have nothing wrong, but in the end everyone will prove your wrongness. Being a person is like planting a tree: you must first firm the root and nurture the base, only then can the branches flourish. Gambling your life on it is putting the cart before the horse; loving with your dignity is a blank check. This is not a simple reality. Once you enter this game, you must abide by its rules; otherwise, please quietly leave.

Everything about a person is founded on life. Cherishing yourself is both a responsibility and the foundation of survival.