In the summer of 2022, an anonymous package was sent to Su Nian—twelve photos of Hainan coastline, one for each year from 2010 to 2021. The first one she opened showed the lighthouse in Houhai; the eleventh one showed the corals on the seabed of Wuzhizhou Island. The corals came to life, as if she had never left.
In the summer of 2009, 18-year-old Su Nian met Lu Shixu in Houhai.
She taught her how to surf and how to see the world through a film camera. They pointed out the constellations on the sea, fell asleep on each other's shoulders on the train around the island, and lit candles and sang Li songs on typhoon nights. At the top of Luhuitou Mountain, Lu Shixu held her hand, and the sound of the shutter nailed that moment into time.
Before leaving, she gave Su Nian a shell.
"We will meet again when the tide grinds the shells into sand."
Su Nian waited for twelve years.
The shells were ground into sand. Lu Shixu didn't come back.
Su Nian chased a roll of undeveloped film and discovered the truth - when the woman left twelve years ago, her hands were already shaking. She didn't go to the Southern Hemisphere and she didn't photograph whales. During the twelve long years, she went from standing to using crutches, from using crutches to sitting in a wheelchair, from sitting in a wheelchair to being unable to hold the camera anymore, but she pressed the shutter for Su Nian every year.
The last negative showed the side face of eighteen-year-old Su Nian asleep in the afternoon. There is a line written on the back:
"I want you to stay forever in the summer when I don't know the pain."
The tide comes and goes, comes and goes. Some people leave when the tide goes out, but the sea remembers everyone who hugged it.
Thirty-year-old Su Nian stood under the lighthouse. The sea breeze blew from the sea, bringing with it a salty, warm, and hug-like temperature. She closed her eyes -
It turns out that the meaning of shells ground into sand is: when I disappear, you will know how much I love you.
Intention: Time cannot save anyone, but love can extend a person's disappearance into a lifetime. The real farewell is not the word "goodbye", but after she leaves, you find that she has left herself to you at every moment without your knowledge. About waiting, about obsession, about the courage to wait where you know you won't be able to wait - and that the sea will remember everything.
