The Song of a Small Town

I have an older brother. He isn’t my biological brother. I chose him as my brother.

His name is Gu Wang. For a long time, whenever I said his name, it felt like I was saying, “Gu Wang! Gu Wang!” Looking back, then forgetting.

My brother means the world to me. During my teenage years, he was a sunflower in my dreams, and the nightmare that woke me suddenly in the middle of the night.

I often wonder if I’m in love with him.

But our lives were never meant to be intertwined.

My brother is stubborn, and I’m the giggling little tagalong who follows behind him.

I don’t know when my brother came to live in my heart. I often gaze at his handsome profile with a melancholy expression.

I’ll forget time, and the stories time once told us.

But perhaps my brother will forget those memories too.

From the moment I met him, my life became vibrant with color.

Even though they were all people who walked through the darkness, even though their cold tears and boiling blood were often tangled together,

I didn’t seem to hate them.

Perhaps I was never a good child to begin with.

But they spent their whole lives showing what kindness meant, even though they seemed like a band of ruthless villains.

Their warmth melted the cold inside me. They suddenly spread their arms wide. Were they embracing the past, or soaring through the sky of the future?

My name is Ji Yun. I’m probably just a wisp of cloud in the summer sky.

I embrace the sky, but often forget to look down at the earth. Perhaps I’m a rootless plant,

one that will die beneath the summer sun when the season arrives.