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墨書 Inktalez
Years have passed again. I can no longer recall exactly how many. Time has lost its measure for me, marked only by the cycle of day and night.
My hair has turned mostly white, and my back has begun to hunch. Walking down the street, I probably look much older than my actual age. My body is not what it used to be; I often feel pain here and discomfort there, but I am too lazy to go to the hospital. What difference would it make? With Wan Wan gone, my life feels like it’s just lingering on.
At work, I applied for early retirement. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do the job anymore; I simply had no desire to continue. Every day spent surrounded by those documents and people felt like looking through frosted glass—everything was blurred and indistinct. After retiring, the days stretched out even longer and felt emptier.
I still live in the same house. Wan Wan’s room remains just as it was when she left. I go in there every day to sit for a while, dust the table, and tidy up the few books on the shelf. The clean Thermos cup still sits on her bedside table, like some kind of sacrificial offering for atonement.
Every week, I visit her grave, rain or shine. On the way, I buy a bouquet of white flowers—sometimes daisies, sometimes lilies.
When I reach her grave, I lay down the flowers and pull out the weeds around it. Then I sit there in silence. In the past, I would always want to say something to her; now it seems I don’t even have the strength to speak. What could I say? I've apologized a thousand times; she can’t hear me. Should I tell her that I regret it? That regret is already etched into my bones—whether I say it or not, it remains there, day and night.
Sometimes I sit there for an entire afternoon until the sun sets and the cemetery caretaker comes to urge me to leave. Then I rise slowly like a puppet with its strings cut and walk away.
My brother Jianjun occasionally calls to check on me, but I can hear the indifference and helplessness in his voice. Perhaps he thinks there’s no hope left for me; he’s merely fulfilling a familial obligation. Our contact has dwindled more and more.
As for former colleagues and friends, we’ve long since lost touch. During holidays, I hardly receive even a group text with well wishes.
I am alone in this empty house, guarding the charred ruins deep within my heart.
In the dead of night, insomnia remains my constant companion. I sit on the sofa in the living room with the lights off, staring at the distant lights outside my window. Sometimes, I take out Wan Wan’s diary and read it again by the faint light of my phone. Those words are etched in my memory, yet each time I read them, my heart still aches as if cut by a knife.
The pain is deserved; it serves as a reminder of how reckless and blind I once was.
I often think about what could have been—if only… But as soon as that thought arises, it is drowned by boundless despair. In this world, “if only” is utterly useless. When you’ve made mistakes and lost someone, that’s it.
Now I understand how precious a father-daughter bond is—a rare connection that I personally buried. With my indifference and neglect, I built an ice wall in my daughter’s heart, ultimately silencing her cries for help.
The fire has long since extinguished; only ashes remain. And so, I will forever guard this cold remnant, burning alone in endless regret until the day I turn to ashes myself.
This is my ending—a solitary fate.
I raise my hand to touch where my heart lies. It feels hollow inside, echoing with endless pain.
Wan Wan… Dad was wrong… truly… It’s too late…
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