To You in the Twenty-Fifth Time Zone

Preface There are twenty-four time zones on Earth. From the zero time zone to the east 12th zone, from the west 12th zone to the zero time zone, time is like an ouroboros, going round and round, seamlessly. Human beings use this set of rules to cut day and night into even pieces, so that there is a common noon between New York and London, and a common dusk between Tokyo and Sydney. There is no twenty-fifth time zone. No one can live one hour slower than everyone else forever. But I loved someone, and she lived there. ——Shen Yu, written on the prime meridian of Greenwich Observatory