As the Sun Goes Down (BE)

Dear S:

I hope this letter finds you well. Please forgive me for addressing you so presumptuously as S.

The first word I heard you say was Sol, and I grew fond of calling you that. Only later did I learn that you had been speaking Spanish, and that Sol means sun.

From then on, you became my one and only sun.

You probably don't know this, but I quietly fell for you at first sight.

That day, you stood in the sunlight at the stairwell landing, but I didn't even have the courage to say hello, even though we were so close.

Over the next three years, I came close to you many, many times, but I only dared to lower my eyes and brush past you.

I once resolved to set a deadline for my unrequited love.

Before the deadline arrived, I would tell you that I loved you.

Unfortunately, an accident forced me to leave Xiwu.

On the day I left, I sat on a long-distance bus and listened to "While Your Lips Are Still Red" over and over.

It was the song you once sang at the New Year's performance.

As I gazed at the brilliant sun outside the bus window, I thought that on the day the college entrance exams ended, I would listen to that song, take that same bus, and return to Xiwu to see you, the boy who shone like the sun in my desolate youth.

But dear S, I never made it to that day.

I died that summer, just before the college entrance exams.

A murder buried me and the love I never got to confess to you.

To this day, my bones still lie buried somewhere the sunlight cannot reach.

But it's all right. The murderer will be caught soon.

And the diary that disappeared along with me will surely see the light of day again.

Dear S, please forgive me for disturbing you so presumptuously.

You are no longer the sun of just one person. You are the sun for so many people.

I have already fallen from the sun.

If, if one day you receive my diary, please remember that one beautiful night, as you sang with your headphones on, a glimmer in your eyes scattered a sky full of sparks for a girl.

And that was the most beautiful moment of her life.

Wishing you well,

X

Reader's guide:

1. Bad ending. Pay attention. Another version of the blurb will be posted on Weibo.

2. Third person, a short mystery about unrequited love, written for fun and self-indulgence. The title comes from Pablo Neruda's poem "Light from the Rest of the Fire."

Blurb archived on 04/19/2023

Theme: Think it over again