When the morning light flooded through the glass windows of the rescue station, he always liked to sit on the old wicker chair and flip through the yellowed photo album. The first page shows him as a teenager, holding a camera and squatting next to a stray dog. In the camera, the boy is tiptoeing to add cat food to the stray cat's food bowl. The grass clippings on his clothes and the mud spots on his trouser legs are like unspoken codes.
Later, there were many fragments in the photo album: his scrapped interview script, with his revised sketches on the back; the camera he couldn't repair, but he replaced it with a new lens; he carried him to the hospital on a rainstorm night, and their footprints were like a trail of water at the door of the emergency room, like an awkward but fresh flower.
Later, on the last page of the photo album, there was a faded movie ticket stub, dated from the day they decided to rebuild the aid station. There are small words on the back of the ticket, which he wrote, "He who picks up light is also a person who chases light." Next to it, he drew a crooked sun, and the light fell right on his name.
The wind blew over the window sill, and the ginkgo leaf specimen at the foot of the album trembled slightly. They picked it up last fall. He said, "A leaf hides a year's scenery." He smiled and accepted it, "A page of the album hides a lifetime of light."
