funeral

He left, leaving very cleanly.

The rain was falling in dense, gray veils, covering the entire world.

The funeral was so quiet that the only sound was the rustling of raindrops hitting the soil and leaves, like a continuous whisper between heaven and earth.

There were very few people standing there, only about ten in total. Most of them were neighbors who came and went on a daily basis and friends of Zhou Yu. They each held a black umbrella, like a few drifting, heavy mushrooms.

I clearly remember that he liked brightness, but the small box seemed too plain, with a dull wooden color and no carvings.

It lies in my arms, waiting for its final descent. Zhou Yu sleeps inside. I know he sleeps inside.

Three days ago, he was in the kitchen, standing on tiptoe to reach the mung beans on the top of the cabinet, saying he wanted to cook porridge and complaining that I had lost weight again.

Now, he has become that lazy person, falling asleep day after day.

I didn't cry.

My eyes were dry, even a little sore, and I just stared at the small pit, the edges of the soil turned dark brown by the rain.

A profound sense of unreality gripped me, as if all this were just a poorly choreographed play, and I was an actor who had forgotten my lines and could only stand there frozen on the stage. The mountain's voice carried through the humid air, carrying a rain-soaked, hazy solemnity as it read a standard eulogy.

Mentioning Zhou Yu's "kindness," "hard work," and "cleverness," it floated lightly, like a withered flower, soaking the soil as it fell, without a sound.

I heard a suppressed sniffing sound behind me. It was Aunt Liu from the unit next door. Zhou Yu often helped her catch cats.

Her sadness is concrete and has the warmth of human life.

And inside my chest, there was only a blank emptiness. I tried to salvage some of the grief I deserved from this emptiness, but even my fingertips were numb.

The rain fell a little faster, hitting the black umbrella like a countdown.

I remembered that last night when I was sorting out Zhou Yu’s belongings, I found a small hardcover notebook under his pillow.

It was very old, with the edges and corners badly worn, revealing the grayish-white paper core inside.

I had never seen this notebook before. Opening it, I saw Zhou Yu's handwriting, which progressed from immature to proficient, with fragments recorded intermittently.

I didn't look at it carefully. My consciousness was captured and I had no energy to think about anything else.

"September 3rd, sunny. My stomach feels uncomfortable today, so he braved the rain to bring me porridge..." It should be something like that.

…

"Unwilling to accept."

These three words were like three thin needles, piercing into my numb heart unexpectedly.

I always thought I was satisfied, but it just kept getting into my chest for no reason.

There is a trace of "reluctance" hidden in my heart that belongs to me and has never been expressed.

Had I never really tried to understand him, for fear of offending him?

Did I just accept his love out of habit, as naturally as breathing air, never thinking that this air would disappear one day?

Have I forgotten that besides being a "lover", he is also himself.

It's time to bury him.

The box fell slowly and heavily into the damp and cold pit.

The workers lifted the stone slabs, and they fell to the ground with a dull but solid sound.

Boom.

That sound was like a heavy key that suddenly opened a tightly closed door in my heart.

Not wailing, not hysterics.

Just a silent collapse.

Starting from the deepest part of the heart, the cracks spread like a spider web, instantly covering the entire chest cavity.

The cold, belated pain came like a tsunami, overwhelming me. My vision suddenly blurred. It wasn't rain, but boiling liquid that had finally broken through the dam and surged out, mixing with the icy rain and rolling down recklessly.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

Only his shoulders were shaking violently and uncontrollably.

It turns out that sadness is not an emotion, it is a physical pain that grips your heart, tears your lungs, and drains all your strength.

Zhou Yu left.

The person who would hold my cold hands in his arms and blow on them, the person who always said on the phone "It's okay, everything is fine, you go ahead and do your own thing" after being hurt, the person who hid his own ideals and pursuits behind the identity of "lover" is gone.

The soil fell shovel by shovel, gradually covering the plain box and blocking the rectangular black hole.

Finally, over the years, the traces were smoothed out by time.

The rain is still falling, finely and densely, silently wetting the newly turned soil, the tombstones, the world, and me who is silently "crying" in the world.

The crowd began to disperse silently, and the footsteps sounded heavy and hurried in the mud.

No one came to disturb me.

I stood alone in the increasingly heavy rain, looking at the pile of wet mud that was gradually forming, and for the first time I clearly realized:

Without him, I lost the world.

From now on, I am the only one who will be exposed to the wind and rain in this world.