It has been a long time since I felt this kind of loss.
This morning seemed no different from yesterday morning, but things changed when the upstairs suddenly started renovating. The huge mechanical waves felt like they were penetrating my soul, breaking down every cell in my body. The construction worker said, "It will take at least three more days." Because this is an old house, he needs to break all the original floor tiles and replace them with new ones. After that, maybe he will paint the walls or put up wallpaper, or maybe it will be a different style. I don't know, and I don't really care. All I know is that my originally dull and boring life has become even worse.
After surviving the morning on the verge of collapse and finishing the meal I cooked myself due to the epidemic, I decided to go out. I took my laptop and looked for a coffee shop or bookstore to get some work done. I walked through several streets, but all the coffee shops, bookstores, and libraries were closed, places where I had no right to enter. I lost my way and ended up going to the park.
The park was cordoned off, seemingly to prevent people from gathering. There were also patrols, but they didn't stop me. So I walked into the park's grove and sat on a cold stone bench in the still chilly spring breeze. Because I was wearing a mask, I couldn't smell the scent of spring, but the swaying leaves made this longing suddenly urgent. There were other people walking their dogs or taking photos around me, and I didn't think anyone would mind, so I took off my mask and took a deep breath. It wasn't the smell of my own odor that filled my long-isolated home, but the natural scent. It wasn't fragrant or foul, but it could penetrate my lungs and heart, creating a sense of "hope" or "joy" in the neural currents and chemical reactions.
At this moment, a drone with a loudspeaker gradually flew closer, broadcasting messages from the public security department, reminding people to wear masks and not to gather. These warnings brought me back to reality - I still needed to work and make money, living meaninglessly.
I took out my laptop and started typing on the stone table. I was proficient in this kind of work, so it wasn't difficult, but the spring breeze gradually froze my fingers, taking away my warmth. The cooled blood was sent back to my heart to be reheated, and then it took my body heat out to offer it to the spring breeze. This cycle made me feel cold.
When the body becomes cold, the consciousness is also affected, and memories seep through, awakening things that I don't want to remember from the past. Feel it! You damn life. Regret it! Your foolish decisions. Give up! Your vain dreams.
My eyes lost focus, and the computer screen turned into a blurry halo, then disintegrated into fragmented and randomly fluctuating pieces, turning into an infinite galaxy. I'm just a bug, I remembered, a mass of organic matter synthesized from the remnants of stellar explosions, something meaningless and worthless, and even the so-called self-consciousness seems to be nothing more than a dream, a side effect of biochemical reactions and quantum mechanisms.
I don't know how long it passed, maybe billions of years, but it felt more like thirty minutes. I closed my laptop and watched seven or eight dogs socializing on the grass in another corner of the park, releasing their natural energy. Then I looked up at the sky and saw a drone flying through the gaps in the trees, and also saw a red meteor slowly falling.
What a spectacle! I took out my newly bought phone to take a picture, but when I finally zoomed in, I saw a person standing on that meteor! Or at least it looked like a person.
That thing that looked like a person actually looked like a woman, with long hair and a full chest. I saw her seemingly shouting, but I couldn't hear any sound. I stared at her mouth, trying hard to recognize the message she wanted to convey, but I forgot to click the shutter. When I finally thought I knew what she was shouting, I was surprised and dropped my phone on the ground, capturing an image of a plastic fork.
I picked up my phone and wanted to take another shot, but the red meteor had already disappeared, probably crashed somewhere, becoming someone's fortune or trouble. I recalled what she shouted and couldn't help but sigh, "Tomorrow will be the same!"
I hung my backpack on my shoulder, put my hands in my pockets, and walked towards home. It was almost 6 o'clock in the afternoon, and the construction upstairs should be almost finished.