They, Poems Written in the Years

This story may take a little judgment and reflection to read, because some things are realistic, yet true. What should love and life look like? Who can really say? There is no good or bad in life, and no rehearsals or arrangements. It all comes down to personal choices. What once seemed so difficult may seem like nothing much when you look back years later.

I have a story. Do you have a drink?

Not really. We were just sitting in a roadside cafe on a rainy day, as a torrential downpour approached, drinking coffee and talking amid the cafe’s gentle music and the enticing roasted aroma of the coffee. We discussed the past, then began to venture a little into their secrets.

It was all like a love letter the past had left in their lives, waiting for me to write it and waiting to be opened. Or like a series of love poems, bitter, tangled, yet leaving a sweet aftertaste, achingly tender.

That year, one of them was a recent college graduate, while the other was a nearly forty-year-old married woman with a child who had “run away from her wedding.”

They seemed to have met by sheer coincidence, yet also seemed destined to become colleagues. As time passed, the older woman indulged in her own way, whether intentionally or not, while the younger one schemed with careful intent. Each pursued her goal in her own world, pretending to be prey while secretly being the hunter.

They both thought they were hunters, but in the end, they became each other’s prey.

“..., Song Chen, could you have a little more ambition? What on earth is going through your head all day?” Li Xi poked Song Chen lightly in the temple and chuckled.

“I can’t help it. This is all the ambition I have. You’re all I can think about~”