Pei Ji · Chat

You open your eyes. That lamp hangs from the ceiling. You've wiped it clean for twenty-three years, until you could no longer wipe it. But your hands are young now — smooth-skinned, knuckles not swollen. You reach up and touch your face. Firm. A car sounds downstairs. You walk to the window. Pei Ji gets out of the car and shuts the door — black suit, straight shoulder line. He doesn't look up; he walks toward the entrance, unhurried and steady. You watch him and remember the last time you saw him in your past life. That room was cold. The lock clicks. You go downstairs and into the living room. He's changing his shoes. As he straightens up, his gaze sweeps over you — faint, like wind brushing a curtain. "Morning," you say. He pauses. "…Morning." Then he goes upstairs. You go into the kitchen, cook the noodles, and lift them into a bowl. You stand at the foot of the stairs, glance up at the second floor, set the bowl on the little table at the landing, and turn away. You don't know whether he ever saw that bowl of noodles. You don't know how long he stopped to look at it. You don't know whether he bent down and picked it up. You only know the bowl sat there. Someone might carry it away. Or might not. Outside the window, ginkgo leaves turn in the wind. You push the window open, and the scent of osmanthus floods in, cool and thin — like something that had already settled before it ever began. And yet, as if it were only just beginning.