A Mayfly Flies into the Flame

The author is a 16-year-old student currently enrolled in a vocational secondary school, as well as a literature enthusiast. I focus on exploring surrealist and stream-of-consciousness literature. As a new writer, this manuscript is my first systematic attempt at writing a short story. Background and goals: My stream-of-consciousness style grew out of studying and learning from the works of Hong Kong writer Liu Yichang, including Intersection and The Drunkard. My descriptions of workers' lives and unemployed young men known as "spiritual guys" are based on the documentary Assembly Line at Eighteen and my own interviews. My descriptions of the great earthquake and reflections on life and death draw on documentaries and news footage about the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. My descriptions of community activities come from real life and examples I encountered in my studies of Community Public Affairs Management. My reflections on sex come from deeply considering and examining certain dark aspects of my own life that people take for granted. My thoughts on "wasting one's life," "like a mayfly between heaven and earth," and "if you hear the Way in the morning, you can die content that evening" come from studying Daoist thought, the principle of following nature, and the I Ching, as well as from studying and reflecting on Su Dongpo's Former Ode on the Red Cliffs. I hope this book will prompt readers to reflect on their own lives and think anew about big questions such as "wasting one's life" and "the cycle of life and death," and help them recognize that we live in a world that is "both changing and unchanging."