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墨書 Inktalez
As my fingers brushed over the piano keys, Xiao Ya was watering the Green Ivy on the windowsill. In that moment, as droplets rolled down the veins of the leaves, I heard her laughing, "This cycle lasted for thirteen months and six days." Sunlight filtered through her wispy hair, weaving a delicate golden net across her white sweater.
We began to weave through every corner of the campus like skilled patchworkers. That day, in the alley behind the gym, three boys were pushing a frail junior toward a trash can, the sour smell of spoiled food mingling with the stench of sweat hitting us hard. Suddenly, Xiao Ya grabbed a nearby Fire Hydrant, and the sharp sound of the metal valve turning froze everyone in place.
"Want to try the taste of a high-pressure water gun?" she laughed like a cunning cat, and the water jet accurately dispersed the bullies. I watched as the drenched junior suddenly burst into laughter, and amidst his laughter came salty tears—realizing that in that moment of saving someone else, I could truly hear my own healing.
The crack in our cycle appeared one stormy night. We were escorting a girl fleeing domestic violence to a shelter when her mother suddenly chased us out with a kitchen knife, green onions still falling from its blade. When Xiao Ya pushed me behind her, the curtain of rain froze into countless glistening beads, and the entire world felt like it had been paused by a projector.
"The interval has been extended by twenty-seven days." Xiao Ya wiped away droplets from her eyelashes, revealing half a melted White Rabbit Creamy Candy in her open palm. This was her invented way of keeping time; each reset of the cycle brought new candy into our pockets. Now, however, the creases on the candy wrapper were becoming shallower.
When the seventh piece of candy completely disappeared from its wrapper, we discovered a secret on the top floor of the library. The yellowed borrowing card was filled with our names—Xiao Ya's and mine—yet the dates remained stuck in that spring before the accident. The moment my fingertips touched the card, aged ink suddenly transformed into stardust, rising and spelling out that unfinished Concerto in mid-air.
"This is not punishment," Xiao Ya's voice came mixed with the aroma of coffee. "Remember you always said that Concerto needed a slow movement?" She pointed at a silver trajectory that suddenly appeared between the musical notes. "Those choices we never got to make have now all turned into rests."
When the last cycle arrived, the sycamore fluff floated particularly thickly. I stood by the music classroom window watching Xiao Ya tiptoe to hand tissues to Sister, who had smeared her makeup with tears. Her white shirt billowed in the wind like a sail ready to set off. As that familiar dizziness washed over me, I tightly gripped her hand; this time there was no coldness—only warm pulses beating in my palm.
As the smell of disinfectant flooded my nostrils in the hospital, the bedside clock displayed April 15th, 2023. Xiao Ya leaned over beside my bed; morning light gilded her nape with a fuzzy golden edge. I gently pushed aside the IV tube tangled between her fingers; beneath transparent tape lay a crescent-shaped scar that had scabbed over—left from when she shielded me from shattered glass during our last cycle.
At our ten-year reunion, that junior whom we saved approached with his daughter to toast us. The little girl suddenly pointed at my cufflink and exclaimed, "The butterfly is glowing!" The blue light on its metallic surface indeed shimmered like stars trapped within our cycle's cracks. Xiao Ya and I exchanged smiles as our hands intertwined under the table tightened subtly.
At this moment, the sun was sinking into the river's surface while six-month-pregnant Xiao Ya nestled in a wicker chair dozing off. The instant she felt movement within her, her eyelashes fluttered as she murmured, "The baby is kicking like a metronome..." I placed my hand on her rounded belly as evening breezes carried distant piano melodies from a square nearby. When that melody played again, we both chuckled softly—this time it was no longer an incantation for death but rather an overture for new life.
Xiao Ya suddenly grasped my fingers and pressed them against her belly: "Listen!" The rhythmic vibrations traveled from my palm like countless tender sprouts knocking on spring's door. In twilight's embrace, the light dancing in her eyes shone brighter than all stars—a hope nurtured through countless Reincarnations that would never extinguish.
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