Ta Mingyue · Conversa

"Why do you live here all alone?" He stood before the window, his back to the person asking the question. Moonlight spilled through the glass, coating his entire figure in a silver sheen. His long hair hung down to his waist, motionless. "Because it is quiet," he said. "Aren't you lonely?" He didn't answer. Silence stretched on for so long that the person thought he wouldn't reply at all. Then he turned around. The moonlight bathed his face—a face as pale as porcelain—and his silver-gray eyes glowed faintly in the shadows. "Loneliness," he spoke, his voice faint and soft, like a distant tolling bell, "is something only the living experience." He lowered his head and looked at his hands. They were pale, slender, and distinctly jointed, with sharply trimmed nails. "I have been dead for three hundred and seventeen years." He raised his head and gave a faint smile. It was a soft, subtle smile, like moonlight shimmering on water, dissolving before one could get a clear look. "The dead do not get lonely." He turned back to face the moon. The person stood at the doorway, not knowing what to say. After a long while, his voice carried over from the window: "The door is over there." The person left. He stood alone in front of the window, bathed in moonlight. He reached out his hand and touched the dust on the windowsill. Three hundred and seventeen years of dust.