I woke up at the end of my seventeenth year, and the dawn breeze that leaked in through the crack of the window was like a cool fish, brushing against my ankles exposed outside the quilt. The fallen pistils of the paulownia trees outside the window were half an inch thick, and the air was filled with a bitter-sweet aroma, mixed with the dry smell left by the sheets after being exposed to the sun, similar to the title page of an old book. The whole world was quietly submerged in the gray-blue morning mist, except for the beating of my heartbeat on my young bones in my chest, as if I was waiting for a tsunami that would never come.
I always like to hide here. Pull the heavy quilt over your head and shut out all the dazzling skylight, the playful laughter and curses in the corridor, the unfinished formulas on the blackboard, and the mock test rankings posted on the bulletin board in the corridor. This soft ball of velvet is the cocoon I weave for myself, isolating me from all the world that needs me to show up, need me to respond, and needs me to fight my way out. Here I open my eyes and count the dust embedded in the cracks in the roof. Here I listen over and over again to the lyrics in the Walkman whose cassette has changed due to wear and tear. Here I take out the love letter I had hidden for half a year and read it again. My fingertips brush against the wrinkled edge of the paper, like touching the corner of clothes that I will never touch.
I thought this was my utopia. It was the private space I stole during my turbulent adolescence, allowing me to hide and digest all the unspeakable defeats: the math answer sheet that I failed in the exam, the drawings that were blown away by the wind and fell at the feet of my love rival, the unspoken goodbyes at the breakup dinner, the figure that I could never wait for at the milk tea shop at the school gate. All the sharp, sharp fragments that made my palms bleed were smoothed away as soon as they fell into this warm softness.
Purpose: Prose novel