I'll Make the World Noisy for You

Song Cici stood off to one side, hesitating, when a boy named Mu Errong came running over and typed a message for her to read: “Want me to come with you? If there are two of us, the embarrassment will be cut in half.”

She nodded.

When the bungee cord snapped taut, he howled behind her for ten seconds, sounding awful, like a dog whose tail had been stepped on. She couldn’t hear him, but the vibrations against her back made her laugh.

After that, he came to her apartment building every day. He brought ribs and rice from the cafeteria, wontons from a street stall, and a whistle and plastic bags to teach her to listen to birdsong and the sound of water. He had more to say than anyone could ever fit into a day, while she barely spoke at all. From then on, he appeared in every picture she painted: mouth wide open, crouched by the river, or clumsily chopping vegetables.

She filled one sketchbook after another. On the last page, she wrote a few words: “I’m willing to sit beside you on that train. You can drive.”

He read it three times, then pressed the sketchbook to his chest without looking up.

Later, the train set off.

More and more stones gathered on the windowsill, more and more paintings covered the walls, and a little girl named Mu Ting joined their family.

Song Cici held an art exhibition. The final painting showed two little figures on a bungee-jumping platform.

On the card beside it, he had written: “That day, she couldn’t hear me shouting. But she said that seeing my mouth open made her feel less afraid.”

She added a line: “He sounded awful, but she laughed.”

That was enough.