What happened to Isaac?

One of Xavier's punishments required him to keep an eye on Isaac, but now that he had lost the succubus, no one came to trouble him.This should have been a relief, but he did feel at a loss.

In the past, every time he woke up in the middle of the night, he used to ring the bell to call Isaac over, and Isaac would go downstairs in a daze to warm him a cup of milk, sit by the bed and play cards with him, his eyes narrowed so that he could barely see the green in it, But never asked why Xavier woke him up at three in the morning.

The moonlight in those nights was not very clear. Xavier only remembered that the table lamp on the desk was a trembling grain, Isaac's red hair seemed to be burning, and the crackling sound in the fireplace was so warm.

really weird.Xavier feels that part of Isaac is still hidden in every corner of the house until now, such as the eyes of Daisy sometimes looking at the guest room, the tiger tooth-shaped dent on the silver fork, the window sill of the guest room, and the imprint of hemp rope on the beam .Xavier would see Isaac in these places, and he just flashed by.

This guy is almost illiterate, how can he apply for a new body?He likes to eat sweet things so much, if he eats low-quality granulated sugar somewhere in the future, will he think of his days in Kensington?

After Isaac left, Xavier began to think about him frequently.

After a while, the life disrupted by Isaac was finally back on track.Xavier would occasionally hear news about Isaac from his demon friends. He heard that this guy had followed a gang leader, but nothing happened, and he still owed a [-]-word report for applying for a new body, which made him Can't help but beam with joy.Gordon said that he looked like a shadowy ghost who couldn't see his ex-wife after divorce, and Xavier was so angry that he stopped drinking tea with him for a long time.

In mid-March, Li Qiming, who hadn't been in touch for a long time, wrote an obituary. His mother passed away and was buried on Friday. Xavier pushed back his plan to attend the funeral.In the evening of the same day, before he even had time to change his black tie, he hurried to the pier and boarded a cruise ship bound for the United States to handle business matters in person.

There is a talented pianist on this cruise ship. He was born on the ship and has never been on land. He has never learned the piano for a day, but he is quite famous.After dinner, Xavier also listened to one at the ball, and used the time of two dances to get acquainted with an American lady who was traveling alone.She called him Don Juan very affectionately, and when she heard that Xavier was a businessman traveling around, she talked to him about how the decoration on the Orient Express compared with this cruise ship and so on.

Xavier was annoyed and felt that he was not playing well, but the woman seemed to like his casual appearance.He doesn't hate her, but he just doesn't understand how anyone in the world likes jazz, and the high, long notes of the trumpet give him a migraine.Xavier spent more than a dozen pounds, and asked the band to stay only for the piano solo, drink with red wine until slightly tipsy, and go straight back to the room.

The breathing of a cruise ship is like ups and downs, and the waves make him drowsy, but he always sleeps restlessly.

Lying in bed, he thought back to the morning's funeral.How many screws screwed into the coffin, how far did he walk to the cemetery, and the color of the field? He always noticed these details, including the complex expression of Li Qiming walking beside him.

When the priest recited the eulogy, Li Qiming asked Xavier in a low voice: "Are there people who don't exist in the world?" Xavier told him it was impossible.Of course, there are many fake identities, but there must be a living person behind them, otherwise what's the point of fabricating identities?

"She shouldn't have died," Li Qiming said.

Xavier said that things are impermanent.He wondered if this would be too indifferent, so he quickly added a sentence of condolences.

"I mean, can a person who doesn't have a stomach disease suddenly get a stomach disease and die?"

Xavier glanced at Li Qiming in surprise, he would not know what the words were alluding to.He was about to ask further, but Li Qiming shook his head and stopped talking.His expression was so calm that it was almost cold, but Xavier clearly saw that even the fine lines at the corners of his eyes were stained with wet marks.

What happened?It was hard for Xavier not to think about it.At around 01:30 in the morning, the cruise ship was completely quiet, and the sound of the waves was blocked by the portholes.

He lit the lamp, walked around the room, and found a collection of long letters written by Wilde to his lover from the drawer of the bedside table. There were bound hard covers at the front and back, covering the title of the book, and he did not know who left it. of?This sign, when you open it, you can see that one of the paragraphs has been specially marked:

"The ultimate secret in this world is man himself. Even if he weighs the sun, measures the distance to the moon, and draws a star map all over the sky, there is still man himself. Who can calculate the orbit of his soul?"

Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?Xavier drank a cup of tea and lay back on the bed, his thoughts were preoccupied by these words.He started thinking about that succubus again, wondering what he was doing now?

I wonder what Xavier is doing now?

Isaac lay on a stack of newspapers, thinking of him too.

The face that I had managed to remember before was almost forgotten.He remembered things better than faces, Xavier's Chevrolet, Xavier's house.

He remembered where every piece of furniture was, the patterns on the plates, the pair of polychrome ponies on the table, one of which he broke, but Xavier didn't ask him to pay.

There are two bay windows embedded in the study. He often basks in the sun on the window sill, and sometimes Xavier reads to him.This angel seems to like reading books very much. Most of the books on the wall are in English, but some are in French.The characters of the French are very strange, the letter O wears a hat on the head; when reading r, it seems to be gargling, Mozahot, Salleholi.Who are these two, the painters?

Xavier spoke a little French, but he had a knack for speaking any language like Cockney English, and was such a Kensington gentleman that he couldn't even speak the native dialect well.

Alas... Xavier and Isaac were so far apart, but they both sighed almost at the same time.

Isaac raised his hand and pinched the moon between his fingers: Why are you so sad?

**

Sea transportation has always been slow, and Xavier went to the infirmary to get seasickness medicine dozens of times along the way.One morning, he heard from a sailor that he could dock on the same day, so he was looking forward to disembarking all day.

It was already evening near the shore, and the weather at sea was not good, so we could only faintly see the silhouettes of tall buildings on the other side.More and more people flocked to the deck, talking about the United States after World War I with different accents, and some people in the second and third class just flung themselves on the railing, staring at the lighthouse light for a long time.

Xavier also came outside, squinting his eyes, looking in the direction they pointed.Thin white mist floats on the sea, birds fly by tall buildings, and there are stereotyped stories behind every window, screaming, noise, and loud laughter; ribbons are wrapped around the hair, and the chaotic dance steps never stop.

What an extravagant scene, it's ridiculous.Xavier thinks back to the days when he clinged to the rich and powerful, from a redneck with an accent to a playboy, as if it was a flash.

The first time I accidentally knocked down a rich lady on the street was just a coincidence, and then he caught her wrist in a mysterious way, and the two eyes collided - Xavier's eyes were so blue, she didn't break away for a moment.

Later, some wives eloped with him boldly, taking advantage of no one around to offer sweet kisses; the older wives provided him with education and taught him how to meet men and women in high society.Xavier has a very harmless face, so their husbands are not defensive about him, and the trust is sometimes exceeded, revealing another kind of probing covetousness.He was to them both a son and a lover, an incest beyond sensuality.

It took him a long time to understand that this was not a personal charm, but a capital unique to young and beautiful men.It just so happens that youth is so cheap to angels that they don't even have to lock their portraits in the attic.

Human life is short and difficult, just like a boat floating on the sea, which will be wiped away by the waves at any time.Half a century later, the group of people Xavier first knew passed away one after another; another half century later, the guys who were younger than him also entered the twilight.There are always people who are desperately shaking their oars to catch up with the lights on the pier, but those people on the shore also never hold fate in their hands.

woo-

The roar of steam turbines interrupted his thoughts.Xavier took the suitcase he had already packed and went to the deck. Before leaving the room, he thought about the book in the bedside table. It was properly packed but abandoned. What is the title of the book under the cover?Be sure to check out the bookstore.

After a while, the cruise ship docked, and Xavier walked out of the room holding the suitcase. There were crowds of people on the deck, and the noise was endless.He didn't have time to say goodbye to the American lady—just as he was about to take off his hat to say hello, he caught a glimpse of a succubus tail in the crowd below from the corner of his eye.

Xavier almost jumped off the gangway, and he didn't know when the hat was out of his hands; it was the most crowded time, and he was caught in the crowd, pushed to the shore with eyes full of different kinds of heads, and almost immediately lost up.

After finally squeezing into the open space, he suddenly realized that something was missing from his hands. Turning his head, he saw that the hat had drifted away on the water like a boat.Xavier realized how absurd the subconscious action was just now, almost making him feel ashamed.

He asked himself in his mind: What's wrong with you, Xavier?Does he really care that much, Xavier?

*The book in the nightstand: "From the Deep" Wilde, the excerpts appearing in this article are my own translations.

Next door "Isaac Is Not Well" updated the branch line, which is more serious, if you can't accept it, just pretend it doesn't exist.