Time Remembers

Memories are like old times printed on translucent film. We were so young then.

Luo Yan, a girl born in the 1990s, was as ordinary as they come, yet she was always surrounded by top students. She tried desperately to join their ranks, but the labels of impatience and not being smart enough followed her everywhere.

Mumu and Cheng Yi, from her elementary school days, and Li Wenxuan, from high school: each of them shone with brilliance. They all seemed so far beyond her, yet she pursued them tirelessly, right up until graduation.

When circumstances beyond anyone's control made Cheng Yi disappear from her life for a long time, they finally met again only for him to leave for a foreign country twelve time zones away. When she had finally graduated from high school, Mumu, too, went to America without looking back. Even Li Wenxuan, who she had always thought would never leave her, got into the country's top university. They were now worlds apart, and at last began to drift away from each other.

Finally, one day, she followed in their footsteps across the ocean, only to discover that even if people who have lost touch look up at the same sky, it is still hard for them to meet again.

The poems of youth, too, slowly came to an end with the passing of time and the helpless process of growing up.

Goodbye, past. Hello, youth.

Dedicated to our undying youth, before the first generation of people born in the 1990s turns twenty-five.