It was late afternoon that day, probably in a dream. I can't remember much, Belide.
You asked me to fill a basket with lemons, cucumbers, bitter orange, various spices, and sweets. All I can remember is that the temperature was just right that afternoon, and the sunlight coming through the glass window was dazzling white. Or maybe it's because I've had a bit of flavoured wine and my mind is little giddiness.
I extremely love the moment when I walked through the halls of the house to find you. Mother is sitting with aunt playing cards; they are surrounded by the unique scent of rouge, beautiful as a baroque oil painting.
I am anxious as hell; I just want to see you.
P2
Belide, do you know Molly?
Molly has a Monkey Duke Dad. He is dressed in a black, straight suit with a red and white striped tie, and holds an elaborate mahogany crutch with a floral metal inlaid rim. He was so thick and hairy that he looked funny and unapproachable.
But Molly doesn't look happy at all, here's a picture of her when she was 10-year-old. She seemed to be desperate to escape, with the Monkey Duke holding her hand tightly. Molly looked very sad as if she was dead.
P3
You walked out of the water that day. The smooth white skin seems bathed in the silvery glow of the moon, so soft and glowing with divine light. The undried droplets of water sliding down your body like a tear. Your girlish, fleshy arms float gently in the air in tiny curves.
The water droplets are flung through the air by you; the time freezes. And you just cut my heart open unawares. You devil, Belide! you have taken over my body in such a dominant and unquestionable way. Because of you, my soul will bear the commandments of God. But what has become clearer and clearer to me in my endless painful struggle and repentance is-- I want to see you, I want you to still be here.
P4
Belide, I visited Mr. Cat, K, many years after you left.
I knocked on the door alone, but unlike what we had guessed, K was not alone. He had two daughters, twin daughters. They opened the door for me.
They look almost identical and beautiful, one of them wearing a black round hat, a white wool scarf and a dark striped jumper. The other was just the opposite, wearing a white hat and a black wool dress with a thin white material cotton jacket underneath. K sitting on a round stool, with a black blindfold over one eye. He looked at his two daughters with a smile.
The two daughters are almost 16 or 17 years old. I think of you when I see them.
P5
I had a dream that day in which I saw you lying on top of a big sewing machine. You are the only one in the large room.
Afternoon sunlight filtering through the cracks in the half-open white glass doors. Outside it looks scorching, as if it’s the heat of the day, and the blazing light melts everything in sight. The world appears a hazy white, as if even the only moisture left on the surface is being evaporated bit by bit. But the interior is cold, accompanied by a bone-chilling coolness, and the light-coloured tiled floor glows grey-blue.
You were lying motionless on the sewing machine, which was surprisingly larger than you, with your shoes neatly off to one side and a nice evening cap. You seem to be caught in a beautiful dream, and as if you are solemnly welcoming death. You don't move at all, Belide. The thought that you were greeting death at that very moment woke me from my dream.
P6
I remember one day braving the cold to go up the mountain and pick lingonberries back from the snow.
I don't like snow. It’s a mysterious and unpredictable substance that has not yet taken root in the earth. I hate the blinding white light of snow, which buries the landscape. Snow so cold; it refuses life. I also know that snow covers life and protects it, but life cannot be revived until the snow has melted. I would, therefore, prefer the snow to be grey, dirty, and semi-melting, almost like rain watering the plants.
"Please don't say that," Jurken said to me, “The snow only changes to a sad face when it melts because love too warmly. You like love so much that you want the snow to be in a half-melted. Actually, snow only looks very beautiful when it’s complacent."
P7
I went to the beach in autumn, carried with my worn-out backpack.
It was an extremely vast ocean, so far away that I could not see the edge of sea and sky. In the middle of the sea stood a huge rock, the waves lapping against it in a circular motion.
The sound of the waves rustled, but the more I stared at them, the more I felt the slowness of time. I walked on the beach, alone in the empty landscape, and I felt the passage of life. The waves gradually slow down, from a huge wave at the end of the sky to a sigh. This sigh is wrapped in all the sorrow and thoughts that turn into white foam and seep into the sand.
The boulder stands there, eternal in the face of the wind, rain, and the passage of time. Will the lonely stone, have a wave to talk to it?
Belide, have you ever been as lonely as it is, can you hear the thoughts I send to you hidden in the waves at the other end of the dark world?
P8
The sea never loses its saltiness, but unfortunately my lips have aged and I can't taste it anymore. How is it that I did not go and breathe the air of the sea when my soul longed for the salty taste? Which wine can intoxicate me nowadays?
Belide! When your soul smiles at me with joy, rejoice! When your lips are still fit for kissing, when your embrace is still pleasurable, satisfy your desire to love!
You will think and say this for sure:
The delicious fruit is right in front of you, heavy, weighing down the branches and overwhelming them. My mouth was also right on delicious fruits, but my lips were tightly closed and my hands were closed in prayer, unable to reach over. My soul and flesh endured a desperate burning thirst. Time also passes desperately.
P9
At the end of the world, there will be a giraffe.
The dark sky seemed to drip with water, the trees all turned black, deadly silent like burnt carbon. There was not a single breeze and the whole world was unusually silent.
I guess this is what the end of the world looks like, we are still alive but the world is dead. The trees, the currents, the breeze, the mountains, everything stops breathing.
Only we and a frightened giraffe, we are at the end of our doom, in frozen time- like awakening from a dream, looking at each other.
P10
There is a machine wheel always running in the barn.
I saw it yesterday, the machine wheel was beating rape seeds and all I could see was chaff flying around, the seeds rolling to the ground and the dust choking. A woman is pushing a mill and two pretty little boys are collecting seeds in their bare feet.
I wept, simply because there were no more words to say. Sadness is nothing but low enthusiasm.
P11
Height of summer, in a neighbour's orchard, I saw a little boy. It was a boy I had never seen before who had come to the town for the first time.
The cicadas are deafening in the trees and the ground is hot as hell. The manicured garden lawn has just been sprayed with a mist of water, which has not yet evaporated into pearls that look like rivers of stars pouring into the grass under the refraction of the sun. The smell of fruit and mint leaves wafting through the air.
The little boy is standing upside down in the garden. He wears baggy striped trousers. His two legs twist nimbly and two arms look as cute as round little carrots.
Belide, that lazy afternoon when the adults were off, but I was fascinated by watching the little boy. I feel like I'm dreaming, as if it's a dream from my childhood-- dreams of an older us swaying in a rocking chair while the children play on the lawn. Did you ever imagine this same scene back then?
P12
Belide, I want to talk to you about moment.
Do you understand the power of momentary presence? It’s not the remembrance of death that does not adequately evaluate this briefest of moment of your life. Don't you see that without the gloomy, dark background of death to set the scene, each moment could not be revealed, not even in a single glimmer of admiration?
After you left, I made a habit of it: always separating each moment from my whole life in order to obtain a separate and complete joy. I'm so used to concentrating a completely special kind of happiness in this moment that I don't recognise myself when I look back on it.
P13
Mr. Clown's City Theatre opens. Shall we go and see it together, Belide?
A round stage is circled in a vacant lot of an abandoned factory. A red and white caravan is parked in the middle as a makeshift stage. The caravan has been converted to open up on the side facing the spectators, and a display sign with text, decorated with comical neon lights, hangs above the roof. A dividing line is drawn from the sides of the bodywork to enclose the performance area, encircled by a rope with a string of small red and white flags.
I was too early and there were no visitors at this time, so I went to the side kiosk to try and get an ice cream to beat the heat. It occurred to me that I should also buy you a vanilla-flavoured cone, which used to be your favourite.
P14
A sea of flowers, an endless sea of flowers, blue and purple hydrangeas clustered around me, while the endless fields of the past connected to the depression of distant mountains. Surrounded by this beautiful wonderland, melancholy slowly enveloped me. There is no place for human in heaven and earth. I could no longer imagine how it would ever wake up, the dog wailing desperately, and it would never be light again.
Tossing and turning, Belide, will you do this or that? Will you go to the garden where there is no one else? Will you run to the beach to bathe? Will you pick the grey oranges in the moonlight? Will you notice and reassure the dog?
P15
When the happiness passes the limit, tears will be shed.
I remember taking the train one night and walking to the open window, just to savour the breeze. I close my eyes, not to rest, but to experience. The evening breeze was still hot after a long day of sweltering heat, but it felt cool and soothing on my fiery eyelids.
I remember sitting on an ancient tomb surrounded by cypresses one evening. As in the garden of the Muses of Acre, chatting leisurely while chewing on rose petals. How many nights!
P16
The world has two ends. Grass at this end, snow at the other. Life at this end, soul at the other.
I'm sitting at this end of the grass looking towards you. Belide, I see you; I see a fig tree growing in the middle of a blanket of snow. It’s low and awkward. The leaves are gently blown by an unknown breeze and the dew wavers on the pointed eaves of the leaves. It was my heart blew the wind to you, to the fig tree of your soul.
In the circular wishing pool, we meet once again. The two ends of the world are connected in a special way and I can feel the energy of your life. O thou wonderful soul, reflecting unusually brightly on the snow-capped sky.
P17
Zombie bride, zombie bride?
Are you closing to me? Is the elegant lady with the black flaring brimmed evening hat now you? I can't quite see you in front of me, but I feel the warmth of you gradually approaching me. Your shadow changes into one, two, three ......
Suddenly, I discovered with trepidation the narrowness of time and the fact that it has only one dimension. Time, instead of the wide track I had hoped for, but a line. My various desires ran on it, and bound to trample each other.
P18
Belide, do you remember that day in that gorge?
That day in that gorge I kissed your cheek for the first time, and in that moment, you taught me the true meaning of life. Since then, I have never believed in sin again.
Everything comes and goes in its time, and the world can never know how much effort we have made to become interested in life.
In the waterfall of that gorge, we are like Elisha who raised the son of Japhetha2-- we were lying prone, eye to eye, hand to hand, our bodies pressed together. My great, radiant heart clings to your still muddled soul. Forehead to forehead, hot hand to cold hand, my heart is pounding......
I do everything in my power to make you happy and to give birth to you in life. Belide, that's all the passion of my heart, take it from me! Belide, I want to teach you to be passionate and spontaneous! Belide, only by the troubles and joys that our souls cannot send, our flesh can be saved.
P19
Flat-bottomed canoe, low-hanging sky. Sometimes it falls on us as warm rain. The smell of silt emanates from the water plants, The stems of the grass rustling. The water is deep and the bubbling of the blue spring is invisible. All is silent. In this secluded countryside, this natural trumpet-shaped puddle. The fountain looks like a waterspout opening papyrus.
You're wearing a lake blue velvet dress, With a starry river of quicksand glittering around waist. The wind blows, the hem of your skirt flutters in the wind.
That day we strolled along the beach as the sea breeze gently lapped the waves onto the sand. Our car drove sideways into the sea, soaked to the skin, and we swam from the sea to the shore. The sun was blazing hot that day and the clothes dried out quickly. We just strolled along the beach; the water glistening in the sunlight.
Belide, you suddenly said to me, "Don't be wise, be loving."
P21
Some nights I felt so frenzied that I even believed in my soul, and at one point I felt as if it was about to break away from my body.
Life unfolds, like a glass full of ice water, a glass that is covered with vapour. A patient with a high fever holds his hands and tries to drink it, so he drinks it all in one go-- the water is so refreshing, while the fever is burning and thirsty.
I felt like I was on the beach on that summer day, with nothing around me and not a single tourist in sight. I was wandering on the beach when suddenly I saw three athletic hounds darting past me, and immediately afterwards the world fell back into solitude, and nothing more appeared, or even faded away.
How long is the illusory happiness of the soul to be sought?
P22
"The smallest moment is stronger than death, which is but a permit for other lives." --Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries was playing in the open-air cinema and I thought so watching the Isak in the film.
Grey and overcast clouds envelop this suburban field. At sunset, the sky flushes blue and purple, while the horizon at the end of the fields retains a hint of orange and yellow.
The autumn wind praises and the fragrance of the outdoors is dense. At night, even the dust on the road becomes extremely light, and the slightest breeze sends it flying through the sky.
P23
The Grim Reaper walks up in a white, weirdly plush outfit. From the side he looks exactly like a balsam pear or an ostrich egg. Holding a clock without hands, he approaches us step by step.
Death, it's not hilarious at all, and we are desperately joking about it only to hide our fears.
Death...... I do think that until the moment of death, the fear tends to pass. The senses become dull and everything else we have to know becomes a complete blur. The world grows pale, and then there is no regret in leaving.
Ultimately, people will die. You say that if we can die more than once, then maybe it's okay to get used to it.
P24
That time I missed you excessively, I fell off my horse and passed out. I didn't feel a thing, didn't know about the collision, the fall, and what followed until I woke up ......
I looked at the sky, there were a few stars, a black crow flew by, and a bit of green grass and trees. My initial feeling was a wonderful moment, and it was because of all this that I was still aware of my own existence. In this moment I was given a new lease of life, as if all the objects I saw enriched my relaxed existence.
I was fully immersed, neither in pain, nor in fear or unease. Meh no big deal, I just enthralled and succumbed ......
P25
I saw the one pure white swan in front of my dazed eyes, lying there, unmoving in the dark hut. But its wings still appear to be in flight. Suddenly, I thought of myself as I once was.
My youth was dark, not having tasted the salt of the earth or the sea. I tried my best to fake life for fear that it wouldn't look like my self-portrait in the first place, which was ridiculous.
Until I met you, Belide. I began to think: "By what God, by what ideal can forbid me to live as I wish?"
P26 Belide, I want to talk to you about waiting.
In the pollen-filled season of the cone-bearing trees, Cigarettes, terraces, autumn ......
I remembered that you had walked slowly towards me in that white dress with black polka dots, in that early autumn season. I chased after you, trying to catch you, and you turned and ran away.
You come and go in my heart, filling up and winding around. This never-ending torment!
P27
The night waits in bursts, not knowing what it’s waiting for.
What pleased me that day seemed to be something like love, but not love, at least not the kind of love we talk about and seek. It may have come from a sense of aesthetics/beauty, that feeling not from two specific people, but from my mind. If I had to explain it, it would simply be the passion caused by the light. Can you feel this?
I’m going to pull the canes and branches down into the garden, I’m going to cry with emotion in a small bush full of birds chirping like a birdcage, I’m going to cry until dusk, Crying, Until the night gives the mysterious spring a golden colour, Until it becomes deep and unpredictable.
I remember your delicate feet again, your tiny fingers with their yellow nail polish, your bulbous legs and that tiny bruise on your knee.
P28
When the happiness passes the limit, tears will be shed.
Conversely, once the pain has gone beyond its limits, we are at a loss and fall into eternal loneliness.
In Granada, I went to the Genelaliv Terrace and did not see the planted oleanders in flower. At the Grand Cemetery of Pisa and the Little Hermitage of St Mark's, I wanted to see the roses, but that didn't happen either.
What would life be like if it had colour? You say you love red, the colour of passionate romance and sadness. But I think that life is a boundless blue with no beginning and no end. It's just the blue that fills it all up.
P29
It has always been the case that when the Grim Reaper comes, one has to put on mourning clothes. But why, when I wear it, he didn’t come.
I put on my mourning clothes, the funeral of my only friend. I was unintentionally possessed by my soul and forgot to react and left in confuion, being and time. Suddenly, I discovered with trepidation the narrowness of time and the fact that it has only one dimension. Time is not the wide track I had hoped for, but a line.
I woke up early in the morning to a nightmare: the Grim Reaper was not the coffin that fell to the ground in Bergman's film, nor was it myself that emerged from it. She was tied to a large pentagram at the amusement park, with small light bulbs lit up around her. She lunged at me suddenly, blindfolded, and I woke up in a cold sweat.
P30
I don’t like elephants. Although they are very kind, I still can't like them.
P31
The afternoon of that day was heavy and extremely exhausting. The spirit, however, soars high. The autumn breeze outside the house blows the spiky bands of decoration on the streets.
I shouted aloud in sorrow. To me, all of humanity looks like a sick person, tossing and turning in bed, trying to rest but unable to sleep. Our desires traverse many worlds and are never fulfilled. I shouted in the empty room, climbed the tower, wailed along dry and cracked embankments.
P32
I can't say whether it's sorrow or ecstasy, sometimes I really want to immerse myself in something.
The sky was overcast but a little warm this morning. I was despondent; I can't say what it was. A twinge of suicidal thoughts swept through my mind, but I had no intention of complaining. I'm not trying to threaten anyone, it's a completely morbid whimsy that doesn't get in the way and doesn't "break" anything, it just fits in with the mood and the silence of this morning.
