Rebirth: Truth Does Not Dig Coal

As a "person" without memory, I retain the most instinctive self-awareness.I want to know who I am and why I am here.

Two consecutive strange places, the only point of intersection is seeing the same person.I think this person should be related to me.

I call him "The Painter".

There is a high probability that the answer to my question can be found in the artist.There is also the mobile phone that is bundled with me, and the number on it is shrinking synchronously with the change of the electronic watch.

I don't know what happens when all three numbers go to zero at the same time, and I don't like to pin my hopes on the unknown.In view of the fact that the last world collapsed without warning, I have to rely on the existing conditions to find the answer, preferably before returning to zero.

It's just that it's no use worrying.I can't do anything with a painter.

During the day, the painter does not go out and hardly eats anything.He behaved silently and indifferently to the environment.The TV that was lying on the ground continued to play the picture, and no one helped it upright, and no one watched it.The painter just smokes, smokes non-stop, and drinks.

When there is nothing in the stomach, drinking is a painful thing. Just looking at the state of the painter, he seems to have lost the sense of pain.When the body responds instead of the brain, the painter will go to the bathroom and vomit as if he just woke up.He retched very hard, and there was nothing in his stomach except alcohol. Strong stress would cause body cramps, and this process was very painful.After the end, the painter raised his head. He gasped to calm down the feeling of vomiting, and his eyes were only fixed on a point in the void.At this time, he will rarely show some emotions, and he is full of ferocity, just like an evil ghost.

Most of the time, the painter does not make any sound.

And me, I don't have the mind to watch the crooked picture on TV, I can only watch the time passing on the top of the phone.

55: 35: 27

55: 35: 26

Got nothing.

The ashtray on the table was full of cigarette butts, the artist came back from the bathroom, sat on the sofa in a state of exhaustion, and spread his hands on both sides of the back of the sofa.The living room was filled with smoke, and there was a dim lamp next to it.The two of us sat side by side under the lamp, and the painter silently looked at the ceiling without saying a word.I was equally silent and he couldn't see me.

All day, the painter does nothing, and I sit with him.I watched him slowly and casually light a new cigarette, the sparks from the cigarette butt gathered between his left fingers breathed with his lung cavity, like an orange snowflake in the dark night.

I looked away, unusually, feeling powerless.Nearly an hour later, the painter picked up his phone.

My eyes follow the past.

Since my arrival, this is the first time that the painter took the initiative to open the phone.He skillfully entered the password, 08, and after entering the two numbers in the middle, the painter paused with his thumb.He twirled the tobacco rod and waited for a while before continuing to type, 18.

The lock screen of the mobile phone was unlocked, and the artist clicked into the mobile phone photo album with his thumb.

A lot of photos, very messy.There are mostly landscapes in the album, but no portraits.The painter turned up a few pages, and then his thumb paused on a messy diagram of miscellaneous objects.As if he had flipped through it countless times, he seemed to have a feeling for what appeared next from memory.

After a few seconds, the painter's finger slid down slowly, and the first portrait of the figure appeared in the downward direction.It's a photo of friends.

When I first turned to this photo, the painter's left hand holding the cigarette trembled a few times uncontrollably, and his lips trembled accordingly.He seemed to have been severely burned by this photo, and even though he was mentally prepared, there was still a distinct pain response in the movement.

There are three men in the photo, a white man on the left, a black man on the right, and an Asian in the middle.The three of them were probably friends, shoulder to shoulder, in their 20s, standing on the street full of bright English signboards.The Asian man in the middle seems to be the protagonist of this photo. He is quite tall, smiling very lively and arrogant for the camera.He gestured for a pistol, pressing it against his slightly raised jaw, which meant to be cool.

The painter raised his head after only a glance.Holding the mobile phone in his right hand, the muscles on his face twitched, and the index finger and thumb of his left hand kept shaking, as if he couldn't hold the cigarette until it reached his mouth, and the smoke couldn't be sucked in.He let out a short breath from his throat, and then rubbed the burning cigarette butt into his fingers, his knuckles turned white, and the bright orange snowflake finally burned out in the palm of his hand.

The hot pain really happened, and this pain offset part of the artist's spirituality until the left arm no longer trembled.

The painter let go of his left hand, and the broken and twisted tobacco rod fell to the ground.He looked calmer, unaware of the scalding marks on his palms.The painter lit a new cigarette, smoked for a while, and continued to look at his phone.

Judging from the photo, the phone belongs to the young man posing with a pistol.

There are not many portraits.It seems that the phone owner is not interested in taking pictures.There are fewer single-person photos, group photos with snow-capped mountains, photos with strange-shaped buildings, and most of them are photos with friends.The owner of the mobile phone seems to be in good physical condition, and his smile is usually real and contagious. He just likes to show off, and he likes to challenge difficult movements in sports capture. It can be seen that this person is relatively active in life.There are also a few photos that were captured by someone with this mobile phone, and they are also one of the few single photos.One of them is on the subway platform, with a tall and straight silhouette, with a daily sports bag on one shoulder, pay attention to the moment you are attracted, look in the direction of the phone, and your face is defenseless.

Turning to this photo, the artist fell into a kind of still thought, his thumb stuck to the corner of the phone screen.He put down his phone, looked at the messy cigarette butts, and then at the halo spread on the floor.

The painter breathes through his nose, and his breathing is gradually difficult and trembling.He lowered his head, as if overwhelmed, and then his fingers curled up in pain.

I watched the wound on the artist's left hand burst open, and some blood dripped down.I remembered the bright orange snowflake in the dark night just now.

This phone stuck with me.

If, the mobile phone in front of the artist is mine.Then the immature-looking man in the photo should be me.

The first problem is solved.

But I don't know what is the relationship between me and the painter.

And it is unbearable for me to fall into such insurmountable pain as a painter.

I sat close to the light source, and the painter lay on the other side of the sofa from the backlight.He buried himself in the messy blanket, motionless as if he didn't exist.I stood up and there was no shadow of me on the ground.

I went to the edge of the curtain and peered through the little uncovered edge.The apartment we live in is a very modern high-rise, and the location is more prosperous.I counted up the floors of the apartment building in the same community opposite, repeated the calculation several times, and confirmed that I was on the 25th floor.

I looked into the room again, thinking about how I could say something to him.If this cell phone is really mine, and there is a reason why the painter is acting like this, then I have to make him not be so depressed.

At least, live like a human being.

I tried to change the traces of the liquid on the ground, but to no avail, all material things would pass through my consciousness.I tried to manipulate the mobile phone held by the artist again, but nothing happened.Until I saw the tattoo on the artist's left index finger.

A string of incomprehensible words with unknown meaning.However, on the surface of the tattoo, there was a trace of golden aura that was only slightly higher than the hair.

If it weren't for the almost complete darkness at this angle, the distance I observed was close enough.It is impossible for me to see this little light.It's not part of the painter's body, I don't know what that is.

When I touched the point of light with my hand, a familiar brute force came, and then I walked into the artist's consciousness.

I'm lying on an operating table.

No doctor, no one.I sat up, the cold light hit me, and I was the only one in the room.He was wearing a surgical gown, his hair was shaved, and he was wearing a hat. His bare hands and feet were bloodless and pale.

Then I realized it wasn't an operating table, it was a mortuary bed.

And I, I am a living corpse.

It's not even the most unrealistic.

The most unrealistic thing is that I can feel that there is no blood flow in my body, there is a heart in my body, and it has stopped beating.But outside my clothes, there is another beating heart.

Clang powerful, beating and contracting smoothly.Even outside the body, it can still be seen that this is a very healthy heart.

I stepped off the mortuary bed, the glass was black all around, and there was only a door that is common in hospitals in front of me.

I think back to everything that just happened.

When I came into contact with that golden light, I walked into the artist's consciousness.The painter is sleeping, so here is his dream.

Together with the last unconventional painting world, it is also his dream.

No wonder.

Dreams are the manifestation of the subconscious mind, so it is no wonder that there is no sense of logic and reality at all.

It's a pity that I was probably not a person who was engaged in the psychological industry before I was alive. I don't understand dreams, and I don't know what to do with the subconscious.

All I know is that whatever happens next cannot be explained by logic.People cannot perceive their own subconscious in a waking state, and what I have done here, with a high probability, can only be kept in the subconscious by the dream owner.

I can't interpret dreams logically, and I can't measure the subconscious mind rationally.

I tried to push open the only door in front of me, but it didn't work.Then came the sound of footsteps behind the door.

The door opened, and to my surprise, it was a skeleton who opened the door.

A skeleton that looked a lot shorter than me, exuded the light of a tragic defeat, facing a corpse like me that had just stepped down from the mortuary bed, and its heart was still beating outside the body, it was impossible to say who was more frightening for a while.

But this skeleton is obviously timid than me, it is afraid of me.The moment he saw me, the skeleton took two steps back and sat down on the other side of the bed.Only then did I realize that there was a bed behind the door.

Look again, behind the skeleton is a rose-colored wall, a suite of a high-end hotel, with dark red blood-like lace edges and scars all over the wall.It is deliberately created to be charming and ambiguous, but if you look closely, it is very dull, like a murder scene.

I looked away from the skeleton, looked to the side, and saw the painter.

The painter was naked from the upper body, sitting on a soft sofa facing the door with long hands and long legs.There was no stubble on his face, presumptuous and lazy, he looked at me lifelessly, his eyes were like firecrackers soaked in cold water.There was a huge and bloody hole in his left chest, and the blood dripped down the contours of the abdominal muscles, and flowed to the vague edge of the trousers, leaving small dark red bloodstains.

From the moment the painter saw me, the heart that didn't belong to me curled up in pain.The painter put one hand to his lips and began to smile, as if this pain did not belong to him.

I walked up to the painter and looked at his left hand, which was clean without any burn scars.The index finger tattoo is gone, replaced by a broken iron ring with mottled paintwork and the same inscription as the tattoo.

The artist doesn't seem surprised that I'm dressed up like he's not surprised that there's a moving skeleton next to him.I went to the sofa next to the artist and sat down next to him, as if at home.With such a bloody scene in front of me, I didn't know what kind of role I was playing here. I took off my hat and tried to scratch my hair with some annoyance, but I touched my bald head.

On the right side of the skull, I felt a bumpy crumb that didn't look like a living head.This touch is a bit unsatisfactory.I withdrew my hand and wanted to put the hat on again, when the painter's hand stretched out beside me.The painter's right palm is wide and thick, covering my exposed head wound, as if holding a chick that has just been born and has not fully grown.

The painter asked me in a strange but calm tone, "Does it hurt?"

I was silent, and my eyes stopped on the bleeding hole in the painter's left chest.The heart on my chest curled up in agony like a dying bug.I asked him, "What about you?"

The painter did not speak.

The situation changed in a flash, and I thought the painter woke up, but he hasn't.

In a trance, I saw someone smiling at me, and when I got closer, it was still a painter.The road under my feet is like a common road in the campus, and the bauhinia flowers on one side of the hillside are as bright as oil paintings.The painter sat casually on the side of the road with a cigarette in his left hand. He was looking at me with strange and gentle eyes, as if he was waiting for me, but he didn’t seem to know me.

I walked towards the painter, and the painter held out his left hand to me, and the plaques with dreams began to fall off around it.The ring on his left hand suddenly ignited like a fire. The fire was so intense that it distorted the space, and the dream quickly faded.It is the painter who is about to wake up.

I said to the painter, "Be more ventilated at home."

The painter didn't respond.

I then said, "At least take a shower."

The painter didn't respond.

I said, "Do you still know who I am?"

The painter didn't respond.

The dream has almost faded to white, and the way of waking up this time is much gentler than the last time.I had no choice but to clamp the artist's shoulders at the last moment.The painter lost his conceptual smile, and fell into a state of short-term amazement just like last time, and the dream was instantly crumbling.I finally asked the artist, "Tell me what is carved on your hand."

The painter looked at me almost absent-mindedly.His lips moved slightly, silently reading a few syllables.The next moment, the dream disintegrated, and I was "invited" out again.

The painter has not yet opened his eyes, he is staying on the edge of the subconscious, and will not wake up.And I, I stared at the tattoo on the artist's left hand, on which there was a faint golden light flashing.

When the artist suddenly opened his eyes, the golden light disappeared, like the subconscious hidden deep in his mind.

The painter stumbled towards the toilet, eyes dazed as if he was suffocating, and then lay down by the sink and vomited painfully.

The phone stays where it is.I sat on the sofa and recalled the dream just now.

The heart that grew outside the body, the hole in the painter's left chest.And the last sentence of the dream.Silently in the painter's mouth was a French phrase, "Allumerlebougie".Thanks to the communication of consciousness in the dream, the language is not difficult, and I still understand it.

That French phrase means, light a candle.

When the painter fell asleep, his subconscious mind controlled his brain, and he would dream. At this time, a little light would emerge from the tattoo on his left hand. The shape of the light was indeed somewhat like the flame on the outermost edge of a candle.When I come into contact with this light, I will be pulled into the painter's subconscious dream, but he can't understand what I say, because what I want to express is the thinking logic under the waking ideology, and the subconscious will not accept it.

However, at the last moment, the subconscious mind was about to hide, and when I asked the painter that sentence again, he answered me.At this point the painter may realize that he is dreaming.Just like people sometimes have lucid dreams.I don't know if he will be aware of my existence.He probably dreams of me often, and may think that this question and answer is just a part of the dream.

Okay, light a candle?

What does it mean to light a candle, and why does he want to engrave these words on his hand?

If there is hair, I must be grabbing it in annoyance at this moment.

Then the painter came back from the bathroom, fell back to the sofa, and touched the phone with his body.

I see numbers floating above the phone.

43: 37: 22

There are less than two days left.