Farewell to the Waves
Winter arrived early and suddenly in Stuttgart. When the fjord began to freeze over, Lin Weixi received the postcard. It was sandwiched between a pile of letters and magazines, so plain that it was almost overlooked. It was not until she was tidying up her desk that she discovered this greeting from Oslo Airport.
The starry sky pattern on the postcard looked familiar. Turning to the back, she was stunned by the words:
"Thank you for letting me be a light in other people's lives. Best wishes."
The handwriting was familiar to her, like the physics notes she'd marked in high school, each stroke measured with restraint. She stood at the window of the observatory, the aurora shimmering green across the sky, but the postcard in her hand burned brighter than any other light.
Shen Siyu's video call came at just the right time. On the other side of the screen, her best friend was holding her child, and in the background was the sound of Zhou Xu busy in the kitchen.
"Wei Xi...Chen Wang came to see us a while ago." Shen Siyu's voice was a little hesitant. "He saw your diary."
Amidst the child's babbling voice, Lin Weixi slowly understood the whole story. It turned out that the sudden trip to Norway was not a coincidence, but a belated response.
At low tide in the evening, she walked toward the beach carrying the iron box. The box contained the thoughts of her entire youth, and each page of the diary was as fragile as a cicada's wing.
Sitting on the rocks, she began to tear the pages one by one. The first page was from the beginning of her freshman year of high school, the handwriting still with a childish curve: "Today I became his deskmate, I was so nervous that I couldn't speak." The paper swirled in the sea breeze and gently fell on the waves.
October 12, 2009
"When he was helping me pick up my homework book, his fingers touched mine."
The paper was swept away by the waves, and the ink slowly spread in the sea water.
November 30, 2011
"The list of recommended players has been posted, and there's a 238-point gap between us."
The tide came and took away the page of paper filled with numbers.
She paused when she reached the page about the art festival. The photocopy had yellowed, but the figure she had deliberately left in the corner was still clear. This piece of paper was heavier than the others and floated on the surface of the sea for a moment before sinking.
What gave her the most pause was her college diary. Those carefully planned "chance encounters," those late nights spent waiting in the library—now that she thought about it, it seemed both naive and persistent. She gently let go of them, watching them fly away like white doves toward the sea.
When the tin box was empty, the sun was just sinking below the horizon. She remembered the words on the postcard—"Be the light in someone else's life." It turned out that her carefully cherished loves had once been treasured.
The sea breeze blew across her cheeks, carrying a salty scent. She closed her eyes and heard the sounds of her sixteen years: the chirping of cicadas in the classroom, the thud of a basketball hitting the ground, and the "thank you" he said when he borrowed her eraser.
When she opened her eyes again, the last page of her diary was drifting away. Before the ink faded, she could make out the words: "If parallel lines are destined not to intersect, at least we once shared the same ray of sunshine."
She stood up, her canvas shoes sinking into the wet sand. The light at the observatory in the distance came on, like the light she'd always left on for her in her childhood classroom. But this time, she turned and headed towards the path along the ridge, not looking back.
When she returned to the cabin, the aurora warning light was flashing. She turned on her computer and began writing a new observation report. She typed "Annual Northern Lights Observation Summary" into the document name field, then thought for a moment, deleted it, and changed it to "New Lights."
Outside the window, the stars began to appear. She received an email from her editor-in-chief, asking if she would renew her contract to stay in Norway. Before replying, she clicked on Chen Wang's WeChat Moments—the latest update was a photo of a Princeton laboratory with the caption: "Some endings are new beginnings."
She hit the reply button: "Applying to extend my stay for two years."
After successfully sending the postcard, she tucked the starry sky postcard into her workbook. The ink had dried, but the words "Thank you" still shimmered like stardust under the light.
As the moonlight streamed into the cabin, she wrote on a new page in her diary:
"The true farewell is not to forget, but to move on with blessings."
This time, the pen tip did not hesitate.
As morning arrived, she emerged from the cabin, camera on her back. She left a trail of clear footprints in the snow, leading to the end of the fjord. There, a new aurora borealis unfolded across the night sky, more brilliant than ever before.
And where her camera is pointing is the vaster starry sky.
--end
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