- Dream\ ˈdrēm \n. often attributive: Wanting more.
For a while in my life, I would have the same dream once every few months.
In the dream, I gaze up into the night sky and can always find some ever-morphing shapes glittering over there. Slowly, they float around in the boundless space in an indifferent manner. I gape at the celestial bodies as strong and alien emotions swim to the surface. Like a paper lantern carried away by steady currents of dark water, I start trembling, until swallowed entirely by waves of feelings as intense as they are ineffably mystical and beyond comprehension.
The very last time I dreamed of the same scene, I woke up and immediately texted Jackie about it. But I stumbled over my words. My words are only mine, after all. How do you expect the invention of humans to capture the truth of something they are not meant to be a part of?
Nonetheless, Jackie reassured me that what I was trying to get at was perhaps one of those things most worthy of such an attempt. He said: “You know what, Anqi, last semester I dreamed of climbing a mountain. I started from somewhere deep in the woods in the foothills. When I reached the top I saw a vast, green plain. There stood a quaint, ancient university campus stretching all the way to meet the higher hills in the horizon…Those mountain ranges were also covered by broad-leaved evergreen forests. There was no end in sight…”
The way Jackie’s portrayed each detail of his dream reminded me of an old, wise dragon, radiating an aura of peace and profundity.
But there should be a lot more to that.
I want to be taken off guard, threatened, shaken, subjugated, at the mercy of something that holds supreme power over me. Even if it only lasts for a transitory second. Even if what’s left of awe is only melancholy, intensified.
“I’m afraid that I’m...”
“I’m afraid too.” Jackie shrugged.
2. Worker-Bee \ ˈwər-kər ˈbē\n.: One of us.
“Do you know that the worker bees share 75% genes with their siblings, because they inherit 50% of the Queen’s DNA, and 100% of the drone, which produces identical sperm cells? Worker bees of the same sub-family are called super-sisters. These super-sisters collaborate and work in tandem in a highly efficient manner. ”
What am I?
One of us. Like the worker bees bred by the same Queen and drone, sharing with one another one set of features, one kind of labor, even this one particular thought. Perhaps every piece of us is a tiny genetic code making up the gigantic body of history, our collective consciousness shaped by the universal nutrients it feeds on.
“There’s nothing that belongs uniquely to one individual. ”
“That means even if one of us is killed, we are still there, and will be there, as always, right?”
“But, in the same manner, if one of us is killed, the whole of us is dead. ”
For each breath we take we inhale the deaths before us and after us, exhale the lives before us and after us.
No wonder we are exhausted.
3. Time\ˈtīm\n.: A project’s progress bar.
In the sprawl of man-made concrete and steel serving man-made purposes, time is no longer measured by astronomical phenomena, but rather a project’s progress bar.
1s,
1s, 1s,
1s, 1s, 1s,
1s, 1s, 1s, 1s…
1s, 1s, 1s, 1s, 1s…
1s, 1s, 1s, 1s, 1s, 1s…
See how fast and steadfast it goes, at a pace of one time per time? Before long it will populate an entire spreadsheet.
Hard work pays off, they say.
Life is short, carpe diem, you only live once, yada yada, the same people say.
4. Elusive\ē-ˈlü-siv\adj.: It is flower, but not flower, fog, but not fog.
As expected, at one point, the dream started to frequent me less and less often. Until eventually I realized I could never trace back to the surging feelings anymore. The way I am telling you about it now is but another attempt at delineating its remains — the lifeless, weathered, conceptual remains.
There’s an ancient Chinese poem about something so elusive that it is flower, but not flower, fog, but not fog. When it comes it is like a spring dream, as wistful as it sounds. When it’s gone it is like the morning clouds, nowhere to be found. The poem never specifies what it is.
