The length of a story in Xihai Town

At the end of August, it has been nearly a month since I came to the town, and I have a lot of emotions in my heart. In this small town that had been away for four years, the rain in early autumn continued for several days, and the weather gradually became cooler. I flipped through the book at hand and saw the title "May the story be far away in the horizon and you sleep beside me" written on the cover. When I saw the word "story", I suddenly remembered that I was thinking about writing a text about the story a few months ago. , simply start writing now.

I used to think that stories were the traces of the passing years, just like the breeze that blows away the dust, and the passing of the stream leaving ditches, deep or shallow, obvious or dim, always. Something will be left behind. However, this does not seem to be the case. The dust blown by the wind will be stranded in the ditch. Day after day, the dust covers the ditch where the stream flows, and the ditch hides the dust brought by the wind... In the end, there will be no trace. Leave. So I understand that the reason why a story is called a story is just because the people in the story do not forget.

I often tell a friend that she owes me a story. I don't know where to start this topic, it seems that I have been talking about it since I met her. Later, I didn't see her for several years. As time went by, I thought from the bottom of my heart that this story would become as long as the years, so what was "a story" at the beginning became "a long story" now. I told her: "You owe me a long story."

Not long ago she sent me a postcard, which she sent from the ancient city of L during her trip. After many twists and turns, more than half a month later, I finally got the envelope from my roommate. She said: "My story is very short. The phrase 'meeting the right person at the wrong time' may have finished my story." The "long story" I have been thinking about for a long time cannot be reconciled. The earth has come to an end, and it is inevitable to feel disappointed in my heart. So I felt something in my heart, and I thought about the length of the story.

The afternoon before I left the town, I went to the state library in the town to shoot time-lapse footage. The sunlight shines through the window and through the gaps between the bookshelves, and is reflected on the ground in mottled patterns. The light moves and the shadows move, making it very quiet. A young lady who looked like a staff member came over to inquire, maybe out of curiosity. I briefly explained a few words and started chatting with her. She asked me if I felt that Xihai Town had changed since four years ago. I thought about it for a long time but didn't seem to think that the town had changed much, so I answered that Xihai Town is still the same town as before. Roads are still where roads should be, and trees are still where trees should be. I have only lived in the town for one year and been away for another four years. The only impressions of the town are the roads and trees. What I remember vividly are just the stories of the town and the people in them that remain in my memory. So the story is The pros and cons may lie in the people in the story.

As I write this, I want to say a lot of things in my heart, but I don’t know how to type them out on the keyboard. I have been thinking about it for a long time and still can’t figure it out, so I stopped writing this article. After more than half a year, I suddenly remembered that I still had this unfinished story. I finally dug it out from the corner of my hard drive and read it again and again. I found that I still couldn’t squeeze out even a single word, so I put together this pile of incomplete and scattered words. Send it to a friend. Later, based on her suggestions, I made some changes, deleting the complicated and simplifying it.

She said that the story has no length, only the depth of it retained in the memory. Some stories are very long and last for several years, but in the end I don’t want to recall them anymore. Some stories may only be the length of a one-time encounter, but they make people think of them many times and recall them in various ways. These words made me suddenly realize that the passage of time will always leave deep and shallow marks in my memory, and the length of the story is no longer important. The answer she gave was perfect. It seems that I no longer have to think about the length of a story. This article originated from her, and it is indeed perfect for her to end it here.

I started writing this article at the end of August, and it is now nine months long. It has been inactive for more than half a year. It was really difficult to write. Fortunately, everyone is happy and the ending is perfect. Maybe it's because I'm too pretentious and have thousands of words stuck in my throat with no place to go. In this way, we will know that the length of a story does not matter, true love can be worth thousands of words, and everything about love only comes from the heart.