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A few hours later, near dawn, Aaron found himself handcuffed.

"Why did you go to Melody and set fire to it?"

"I just burned paper money, how could there be arson?"

"You almost burned the house, and you still said no! Burning paper money? Did you burn five catties or ten catties?"

The same police station, the same two police officers, the same self-righteous tone.Aaron turned his head away in disdain, looking at his handcuffed wrists.

It's not that he has no memory of what happened the night before, but he is worried that no one will believe him even if he tells it.

Or it should be said that what confused him was not the process from breaking up with Xiao Min the night before until he was arrested and sent to the police station, but his confusion about memory itself.

Like huge and heavy white cumulus clouds piled up in his vague consciousness, each cloud is just a few strands of cotton wool in layers, and now he wants to recount what happened next night last night, he feels like driving The plane rushed towards the cloud layer, opening a temporary flight path. In a blink of an eye, the clouds condensed again, and the path immediately disappeared without a trace and returned to the original chaos.What is left after the memories will always be the cloud of mist that cannot be removed or dispelled.

"Did someone tell you to do this?" another officer interjected.

"If you are someone who instigates revenge with grievances, it is not just a crime of public danger. I warn you!"

In fact, there is no need to answer these boring questions, Aaron told himself.

That's right, he remembered that he was burning paper money, and he was alone.

It was still dark, but there was no movement in the bar at that time...

So what happened a little earlier?

He remembered seeing the wandering spirits still guarding the gate of MELODY as they did a few days ago.

They are always standing.

They are like candles waiting to be lit in the dark night when the lights of nearby stores are gradually dimming.They are used to standing and waiting like this.

Sorry, I am late--

He ran all the way and was still panting, knowing that no one would respond, he still shouted loudly to the dull faces he was familiar with but whose names he didn't know.

They appeared every night, but it was strange that they didn't open their mouths. He only opened the door to let them in when there were relatively few people passing by in the alley after one or two o'clock in the morning.After they all left voluntarily at around five in the morning, he quietly went to lock the iron gate.

No one noticed that Aaron had acted so strangely in the past week.

Opened the big lock, pulled up the iron gate, and watched them pass silently and slowly, and walked into the dark room where Aaron never wanted to know what time and space it was.Then, just as he was about to pull down the iron door again, he realized that there was still one still in place.He didn't have to look back to know who it was.Every time that person appeared, Aaron would have the same premonition, and could feel the gaze from behind...

Don't hide anymore, I know who you are, Aaron said.

The dissatisfaction and entanglement that had been suppressed in my heart for a week was close to breaking point at that moment.Unexpectedly, this time, he actually heard the other party's positive answer.

Don't want to go in and have a look?

●

In the early morning and late at night when there were still sixteen hours left before meeting Yao, I felt inexplicably uneasy.Tossing and turning on the bed and unable to fall asleep, the sense of uncertainty in my heart increased with the jumping numbers on the electronic clock.

Was it because meeting Yao made me nervous?

No, on the contrary, it's more like that some invisible force is preparing to start a counterattack after thinking that all the cleared past has been thrown into the trash bag.In the bags of garbage, some secrets were struggling restlessly, making screams that mocked and threatened me.

When should it be hidden?When should I confess again?This is a knowledge that I will never learn in my life.I was able to come out and stand on the stage and put in a failed gay call; but I have not been able to tell anyone how I became an AIDS carrier.This secret has co-existed with me ever since Ah Chong fled the country with his lover.

If Yao really doesn't know that I haven't contacted me at all these years and quit pop music because of this matter, should I continue to pretend?

After one cabinet comes out, there will be another cabinet. It seems that only by constantly exposing oneself can one feel one's innocence. The legitimacy of existence is always paradoxically based on the confession to the world.Maybe the other party thinks it's none of my business at all, and it doesn't hurt most of the same kind in the slightest, and they firmly believe in the sense of existence obtained in exchange for confession.

Coming out has never been about being honest or not, and it has been misunderstood for so many years.

Admitting that he is gay does not mean that he is an honest person who will not hide his AIDS, drug addiction or other secrets such as sleeping with other people's boyfriends.Coming out is necessary because it increases the chances of courtship. Once both of them reveal their identities, they don’t have to bother to suspect each other’s sexuality. They can also hold carnivals for coming out and take to the streets.

Is it because I was lonely that I desperately stood up in public?

In the parade we all become brave and optimistic, but when the tide of loneliness rises and there is only one person left at the end of the world, everything becomes scary, even ourselves.The person you can't beat the most is actually yourself.

A guy I met in an AIDS group consultation, after a sudden acute pneumonia, asked me to go to his house to collect his pornographic magazines and rubber dildo, because his sister was visiting him from the south.You have to return my things when I leave the hospital, he said.What's on his mind is his secret collection of ejaculatory pleasures.

Those rubber dildos that can't come out made me realize.

Humans are not by nature an honest animal.Without lies, it is like losing the defense mechanism for survival, and even the motivation to live is lost.

In order to avoid others seeing through my secrets and shame, I must work hard to live well, to defend all kinds of dark entanglements in my heart, and to protect all my shady things from leaking out.Grasping the secrets that you dare not let go often determines the blessings, misfortunes, honors and disgraces of life.The most worrying thing for the accidental and sudden death before dying is that the things that should be destroyed have not been destroyed yet.

Before leaving, what should be destroyed but not destroyed more completely?

He quickly turned over from the bed, got out of bed, turned on the light, took out a pen and paper, and began to sit in front of the old desk that was used from junior high school to university, trying to completely silence the teasing that was hidden in the garbage bag.

Yao, do you still remember

As soon as I wrote these words, my hand was already trembling to the point where I couldn't hold the pen.

Yao, do you still remember the Dafang Sauna, which was located in front of the Taipei Railway Station and hadn’t been burned down by the fire?

One Sunday afternoon, in the midst of the unimaginable rubbing of shoulders there, I felt a familiar figure wandering down the corridor.In my memory, everything happened too fast. After all, the vision was too dim. The moment the figure flashed, a small door of a compartment was quickly closed.

But I'm sure it was you that I saw that afternoon.

Go to the closed door and listen to the movement inside through the wooden board.After a while, three or four eavesdroppers who were as bored as me began to gather at the door.

On the other side of the door, you are panting regularly and rhythmically, like an air pump being constantly stepped on.

What you need is the pleasure of being invaded, and I didn't realize it until that afternoon.The bitter expectation of you is no different from a fly crawling on a glass ball that it has no way to enter.The physical search and call between men and women is actually more like a hedgehog keeping warm.

Of course I understand the kind of pleasure you need. It is a kind of joy of the same body while being conquered by the penis, but also immersed in the illusion of having the same magnificent penis.

You should not forget what happened in the unmanned classroom in the first year of high school, right?I was so nervous that I almost fainted that I couldn't have any aftertaste at all.I, who had no real sexual experience at that time, had so stupidly believed that as long as there is a mutual affection between men and men, it is the bud of love.

This kind of ghost hitting the wall will repeat itself again and again when I meet more objects that fascinate me.There is no love at first sight in the love between a man and a man, because seeing is not enough, unless it is in a place like a sauna, you can go straight to the point without shame or tweaking.On the contrary, the more people they want to associate with, the less they dare to express it directly to each other. They have to go to bed to be sure, to continue to try, and even to give up.Going to so many beds is not to have endless energy to vent, but to seek a stable arm, so you have to fuck again and again, or get fucked again and again...

That afternoon, in the stuffy sauna, an overdue answer finally broke free from the layers of shame.On the corridor, three or four furtive figures were like cockroaches shaking their tentacles, testing the sensitive areas of each other's skin.

The door in the middle separates reality and fantasy, I am inside the door, and I am also outside the door.

The same-sex initiative and passivity are neither due to personality, nor are roles determined by differences in body size between tall and thin.Unlike men and women who are always like teasing love across the mountain, people of the same sex are too aware of the same equipment as each other, and the giving or receiving of the other party cannot be separated from their own sexual fantasies.The sympathy between the flesh and blood can lead to pleasure.I even think that this kind of sex with multiple avatars at the same time is a task that needs more highly evolved brain cells to perform. If you don't pay attention, the information will be confused, and it will end in frustration.

The truth finally came to light that none of us were fit for the almost sadistic No. 1 role that left the other side dazed and panting in such persistent pain.

At that time, I was outside the door, imagining the scene of you lying on the dirty mattress, raising your legs to be obscenely drilled by others, a tingling and horrifying chill came from me His back ran all the way to his dantian.The puddle of my ejaculation dripped on the cold plastic floor outside the door. When you finished your work and stepped out, would you step on it without paying attention?

In Dafang, which has been burned down in a fire in the future, I saw a different future for our kind.

Your secrets may have been buried together with the generosity of ashes.

My secrets are still running like viruses in my blood, and the weaker I am, the stronger they are.

●

A flash in the pan counts as a night.But the dream is too long, repeated again and again.

He thought he was just having a dream.

However, he still clearly remembered his anger and fear at that moment, and when he looked into the door, the world where light and shadow gradually began to float ambiguously.

How did he get in that door?How long has he been in there? …Then the flames burst into flames in front of his eyes, and the flames danced like a big tree swaying in a strong wind, and the heat rolled up in the darkness covered his face, and the dream boiled like this...

that door.

If not walking through that door.

The moment I walked into that door, I knew that although the location of the object in the bar was the same as when I visited it a few days ago, it was already a different time and space.

The field of vision began to shrink, as if a thick layer of Vaseline had been applied to the outer edge of the mirror surface of the camera lens, and things out of focus were only molten shadows shaking.And the light in the focal point is only equivalent to thirty candles of powerlessness.The dim vision brought about psychological dullness and lack of oxygen, which made the sound of my breathing very clear.

At first, he thought that his hearing was degrading along with his vision, but after a while, he realized that the world he entered was indeed silent.

Youhun sat on the high chairs at the bar one by one, still not speaking, their faces still pale and dull.Just sitting, like a prop, without thoughts and without emotions.

And what surprised him the most was when he slowly—subconsciously he slowed down all his movements, as if there was a dimly lit candle burning in his hand, fearing that it might be blown out by the wind at any time and let him Falling into endless darkness——slowly moving his gaze from the front of the bar to the back of the bar, what he saw was Andy mixing drinks.And while mixing drinks, he was talking to himself with a vivid expression to the unresponsive bar guests.

He couldn't hear Andy's voice, or it was muted at all.

But Andy kept talking, not even noticing his presence.

He thought to himself whose dream is this?

Is it Andy's?or his?Could it be that they appeared in each other's dreams?

He walked to the bar, like an old customer who was already familiar with the place, sat down among the suits of different years and different cuts, and began to slowly think about what was going on.

Perhaps not all the ways people know the world and themselves are correct, this was a thought he had never had before last night.However, everyone also accepted that those statements were not true.Aaron suspects that it is not that no one has ever discovered the loopholes in those statements.Just like him, he also got through a certain gap unintentionally, and walked into that space that had never been discovered before.

But can a trivial supermarket cashier shake anything?How could he say to the two policemen who were interrogating him, you know what?We have always believed in textbooks that dreams are immaterial, reality is material, soul is immaterial, and space is material. In fact, they are all wrong!

For example, in our dreams there are often faces that we do not know at all, or even have the impression that we have met.Who are these strangers in the dream?Why did we never continue to ask about this matter after we woke up?

●

I arrived at the newly opened International Hotel located in the Xinyi planning area half an hour earlier, with the old cassette wrapped last night under my arm. All of them had happy smiles on their faces after walking into this fashionable and luxurious paradise on earth. I just calmly let them flaunt indifferently in front of me.

Could it be that the closer I get to the moment when I get off the bus in life, my heart also rarely begins to appear incomparably open?Then I put away my criticism of these people's hypocrisy, and even developed a rare bit of empathy? Isn't that what I was 30 years ago?What kind of places I went to, who I met, these things are always connected in my heart to reflect the ups and downs of self-worth.It can't be said that such a life is worthless, but all parties need to keep changing new faces.One day they will be like me, standing at the entrance of the party only to realize that their clothes and expressions are out of place.Everyone who has ever run a party will have that day.Back then, when the record industry was thriving and prosperous, I used to walk like a wind.But finally, thankfully, these are no longer my troubles.

Walking down the lobby of a hotel with a cardboard box, I feel like a sneaky terrorist waiting to drop a ticking time bomb in this capitalist paradise.

Why do you want to go out with this burden, I can't remember the original motivation.Severe insomnia the night before, but fell into a series of incoherent dreams after dawn.Perhaps in some dream an improvised bomb was actually placed in the box.Standing in the middle of the hall at this moment, watching everyone around me run amok as if they had installed an automatic navigation system in their body, only I had no sense of direction at all, and subconsciously changed the cardboard box that was originally under my armpit into my arms. my chest.

Fortunately, there is still this little weight that makes me feel solid and safe, otherwise I might be like a little foam churned up by the waves, which may evaporate at any time.

Stepped into the elevator with a group of young men in their twenties.The boys' hairstyles and clothes were carefully matched, and they were talking about a group of girls they met in a nightclub last night.The turning point of the times is fully manifested in these fashionable young men.If it was back then, it would be no wonder that such a coquettish and contrived outfit would not be regarded as gay by others.But now?Could it be that there is no one hiding among them?At their age, didn't I also flirt with girls among boys?

Although the induction failed, he still took advantage of the boys' inattention and inhaled a few wisps of smell from them.It was cologne, shaving water and pomade, mixed with a little leather and chewing gum to form a kind of urban and male molecule, which marked their territory with this smell wherever they went.Just as I was squeezed into the corner of the elevator car by these plump little wolves like an old wolf, I heard a pleasant and polite voice.

——Hey, which floor do you want to go to?

The shiny metal walls of the four walls reflected the innocent smile of the young man who asked the question, completely oblivious to the fact that a middle-aged man was busy browsing each of them's Adam's apple and crotch a second ago.

—Oh...um...Casablanca Restaurant, let me see which floor is that—?

In a panic, I put the paper box back under my armpit, and was about to reach into my coat to take out the note, but the other party had already pressed the number button for the sixth floor for me.

--Thanks.I said it quietly, not wanting to draw too much attention.The two button-like lights on the [-]th and [-]th floors are on, and they appear far and wide among the double rows of buttons on the [-]th floor, as if marking the different positions of me and them that are several generations apart.

I don't know if the other party has heard my thank you, and he has already returned to his group to continue talking.I have nothing to do with them again, except for a short question just now.

What will be on the twentieth floor?What is hidden in this building like the giant tower of Babel?

Is it possible that there is a certain floor that everyone never knew about?

Everyone only knows the floor they are going to.Everyone is only responsible for the zone floor they are assigned to.Everyone sleeps, makes love, eats, or meets and goes to work on their own floor.No one will know what is going on on each of the thirty floors.Everyone just followed the signal and believed that he got out of the elevator on the floor he thought.

What if the floor lights in the elevator are deliberately confused?How can you count which floor you are on inside a skyscraper, if not because the sign says so?

We can only trust the signs.

Someone has made a sorting label, and someone will follow it.No one wants to walk into a ghost floor without a building number.

The receptionist in a black suit and bow tie stood at the door of the restaurant.

— Do you have a reservation?

While asking questions, I could not help but look curiously at the package that was held in front of my chest.

——My surname is Zhong...

After speaking, I realized that I didn't answer the question at all.But the other party nodded in satisfaction with the answer and led me into the restaurant.

——Oh yes, Mr. Chung.Yao Legislature has arrived, your way please.Want to help you hang up your coat?

It has been many years since I have walked into such a high-end restaurant, and I feel a little overwhelmed by the hospitality and kindness of the other party.Embarrassed, I took off the worn overcoat that hadn't been washed for many years, and I could smell a musty smell when I got close.After the other party took the coat, his gaze remained on the bundle wrapped in tape in a mess in my hand.

——No, I'll take this myself! ——

It was as if I was suddenly stopped by a duty officer when passing through the customs. I heard my answer revealed inexplicable guilt and nervousness.Since I entered the restaurant, I have noticed along the way that the appearance of holding this broken cardboard box has attracted many people's doubts and surprises.I am worried that the service staff will insist that I leave the things or even report for security.I don't want to make a fool of myself in a place where you can see that there are established unspoken rules everywhere.

Carrying this box of old cassettes with me seems to be just for an indescribable sense of security. I haven't seen each other for 20 years, there must be too many gaps that cannot be filled in a one-on-one meeting.That cardboard box was like a friend I was traveling with tonight, pretending to be some friend Yao and I knew together.It is also because there is still an indescribable lingering feeling in my heart, which makes me inseparable from the paper box in my hand.

I was the only one among the three who was old and unaccompanied.

Only now did I realize that the souvenir I had prepared was too weird, and Yao Taizao might feel that this was the last intention.I regret that I didn't think clearly beforehand, but now I have given up the idea of ​​asking Yao to accept it, and I don't even want to take that bag back with me.

Handed over the carton, in exchange for a metal number plate.

For some reason, it reminded me of the number I had received when my mother's ashes were deposited in the temple.

The name of the restaurant Casablanca is precisely because of the old movie ①, and the decoration completely replicates the North African-style club in the movie. The only difference is that there is an extra frame of a huge movie still. The classic lens facing each other.The service staff led me through the lush green palms and the elegant black grand piano, and stopped at the door of the secret box with white floor-to-ceiling shutter doors as partitions.

Before I was mentally prepared, the white wooden door opened in one fell swoop.

——Yao Liwei, your guest has arrived.

The person sitting alone inside was obviously in deep thought, but when he was suddenly interrupted by the announcement, a momentary blankness appeared on his face.The moment our eyes met, Yao Jing and I maintained a dramatic silence as if we had rehearsed beforehand, and neither of us made a sound.

Once, Yao was a sporty boy with broad shoulders and a square face, but the outline of the person in front of him was vague, but he had become a middle-aged man who could not describe any specific features.Instead of the suit and high-spirited look I expected, the man was wearing a simple black turtleneck sweater (maybe this is called low-key luxury?) and a baseball cap (to cover up the sparseness). Can’t do it on the top of the head?), sitting on the seat and looking at the expression of the old classmate, looking sad and helpless.

Is it because my changes are far more exaggerated than I thought, that's why Yao was so shocked that he couldn't even forget the social greeting of getting up and shaking hands?If it hadn't been for the service staff who had pulled away the seat opposite Yao Zheng, I would have the urge to turn around immediately.Like a rash intruder, subconsciously wanting to escape from Yao's eyes, as if trying to see through me, with puzzled but surprised gazes.

That's Yao right.

If you pass by on the street, maybe you won't teach me to stop and recognize each other.

The copy is worn out, the picture is yellowed, everything is familiar but also strange.It's as if an actor in an old movie sees himself on the screen 30 years later.Whether it is the shooting process in memory or the final product in front of the screening, it is equally surprising.

——It's time to drink.

Yao first ordered the service staff, then turned to me and asked:

—Do you eat beef?The steak here is famous.

Unexpectedly, this was the opening remarks of our first meeting after 20 years.

The waiter opened a new bottle of red wine priced at [-] yuan from the owner's private cellar for us.Watching their wine glasses being slowly filled, I decided to break the silence.

——I don’t understand why people say memory is like wine. The fermentation and brewing process of wine can now be almost completely controlled by humans.But when the memory is opened, the taste often surprises us, it is not what we expected, right?

I held up the wine glass with slightly trembling hands, held it to my nose to inhale the dark red aroma deeply, and said "good wine" repeatedly in admiration.

Yao Wei squeezed out a smile at me without comment.

①? That is, "Casablanca", a love movie released in the United States in 1942.