Dusty cardboard boxes
The weekend sun streamed through the blinds, cutting thin strips of light across the storage room floor. Lin Weixi knelt among the pile of old cardboard boxes, ready to execute the tidying-up plan that had been delayed for half a year. Dust danced in the beam of light, like particles of time.
Her hand paused as it touched the cardboard box with the school emblem printed on it. The tape had become brittle, breaking with the slightest tug. The first thing that caught her eye was the dark green diary, its brass lock long rusted and its cover creased with wrinkles.
She flipped open the title page, and the handwriting from her high school days was so immature it made her smile: "September 3rd, sunny. He wore a blue shirt today." The ink was mingled with the then-popular highlighter, and cartoon stickers were stuck to the corners. She flipped through the pages calmly, as if reading someone else's story.
The ginkgo leaf bookmark slipped from her physics notebook, its veins as brittle as cicada wings. It was there, tucked into the textbook he'd returned in the autumn of his sophomore year of high school. She'd secretly treasured it then, but now the petiole crumbled to dust at the slightest touch. She carefully tucked the remains into an envelope, as if handling an archaeological artifact.
At the bottom of the box lay a stack of his handwritten notes, bound with a rubber band. The pages had yellowed. A crooked rocket was drawn next to a math formula, and "This exam" was marked next to a chemical equation. She recalled her heartbeat as she stayed up all night copying those notes, and now only a distant warmth remained.
At the bottom lay a tin box containing a thousand paper cranes and unsent Christmas cards. The handwriting on the card, "Wishing you a bright future," was identical to the one he'd later written in his address book. She picked up a failed paper crane, its wings still bearing the marks of unwillingness from that year.
The sounds of children playing and chasing each other drifted through the storage room window. She placed the diary back at the bottom of the box, arranging it neatly with the other mementos. As she closed the lid, dust rose gently, then slowly settled in the sunlight.
The cardboard box was pushed into the deepest corner of the storage room, alongside other old things. She locked the door, and the sound of the key turning was like the end of an era.
Back in her study, she found a newly arrived photography magazine spread out on the table. Photos of the Antarctic ice sheet shone with a cool luster in the morning light. She turned on her computer and began writing a new field trip plan.
As the setting sun streamed in through the window, she had already sorted through all the documents. The desk was pristine, with only a pot of green plants swaying gently in the evening breeze.
As the night deepened, she received a call from her editor-in-chief. After hanging up, she looked out the window at the city lights and suddenly remembered the unspoken words and the cautious love in the cardboard box.
But now she is even more looking forward to her trip to Antarctica next week, where there are new stories waiting to be recorded and new light and shadow waiting to be captured.
Before bed, she opened a new notebook and wrote an outline for her field trip on the first page. Before the ink dried, she paused and drew a small star at the bottom of the page—not the one in the Milky Way, but the morning star above the snowy plains.
The cardboard box remained silent deep in the storage room, like a shipwreck in the deep sea, carrying the passion of youth, sleeping peacefully beneath the sands of time. And a new journey was setting sail in the morning light.
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