Chap 12: [WSIT?] - Patient (2)

Smoke. Suddenly there was a lot of smoke. Gray and white smoke rose from nowhere, covering every corner of my world.

From my nose, mouth, ears, smoke wriggled into my chest, like an army of foreign invaders violently expelling the air in my body, compressing the internal organs, constantly expanding the territory. I was like a balloon doll that was constantly being pumped with smoke, inflated into a gray mass.

Just as I was about to explode, an invisible force shoved me forward.

I dashed into a cold granite wall, hurried after it, running aimlessly for my life.

Then in the distance I saw a gap of light. I walked over and pushed the door open.

And I woke up in a white hospital bed.

I hissed. A fierce cough came like a bombardment of the pharynx, the intestines and liver seemed to be pulled back. A nurse came up to me, lifted my chin, sprayed me, and instructed me to calm my breathing.

Someone told me it was after the car accident.

And that I was in a coma in a hospital bed for a year.

Turns out that world really isn't real.

Family. Sunflower. The myths of the wild. All unreal.

Someone also told me that all the hospital fees are deducted from the money Tung Bach will give me.

It also means that Tung Bach is dead.

Once there was an angel who came to be with me, but then left me and returned to a sunny and windy paradise, full of his songs and lyrics.

His grave is laid out simply at the edge of the cemetery. On the beer there is a picture of him, his smile so peaceful. It was a rare moment in his life when he actually smiled. The photo I took for him that day, didn't expect it to be used today for this purpose.

This son has spent most of his life mourning for others, fulfilling for others.

If you have made such a choice, please leave with peace of mind, I will do it for you. From now on, I will keep my regrets for you alive.

I went back to the motel room to find they were knocking down to the second floor. The owner said that this house has been sold, he is preparing to live with his family and children.

- A friend of Bach's helped move the two children's belongings. The one who took care of the funeral. Wait for her to look for a bit, they have left a phone number for me.

                

I sat in the car, closed the document, looked at the trees gliding in front of my eyes, passed the welcome gate and was out of this city. The old lawyer sitting on the other side, holding the briefcase in his body, seemed to have fallen asleep.

I looked at the road sign, realizing we were entering the precincts of a beautiful town. Although I have never been to this town, in my memory this is not a strange town. I have heard a lot of people tell stories and sing songs about this town, and have wanted to visit for many years but never had the opportunity. Sometimes I even thought that I had no relationship with this town, three years ago when Tung Bach had to go on a business trip for half a month, I planned to come here, also packed my luggage, and finally because of a recurring stomach disease, I had to go on a business trip. cancel. I leaned slightly out of the window to have a closer look, suddenly remembered the sentence: "In my life, I have been to every corner of the earth, this is a close horizon, but far away because never went there.” Even though I haven't even made it to the corners of this country yet, I still feel a strange sympathy welling up in my heart for Nhi. If I had understood this earlier, I wouldn't have let Tung Bach explain to my throat to save me from passing the graduation exam. Well, maybe compared to me, Tung Bach will sympathize with Nhi more. But I don't know if Tung Bach ever aspired to come to this town, even though he quietly bought a house here. The lawyer said Tung Bach built a newlywed house here for me, but I don't believe he ever intended to live in that house together in the future. It's more like a break-up than a marriage proposal.

The car gradually entered the heart of the town, more and more green and blue scenery came into view. Contrary to our bustling city, nearby is a small town of peaceful and peaceful beauty, surrounded by rolling mountains on one side, and immense blue sea on the other. This place has the mossy ancient features of the streets, like it has always been since the 90s of the last century; just had a very fresh taste of the atmosphere. This town is like an old girl who has begun to sit idly and sing clouds flying across the sky, her hair is long, her eyelids are sad, the skirt of her shirt is fluttering in the wind. Clear, graceful, dreamy. Pictures, poems, songs about her beauty I have seen and admired many times. But at this moment I understand, there are artifacts so beautiful that no pen, bow or even lens can describe them all, can only go to the place and admire with their own eyes, and be overwhelmed, passion.

We stopped at a house in a small street lined with gray trees covered with numerous drooping pink and yellow threads. Outside the house is a circle of stone fences meticulously arranged by countless pebbles, inside protruding a segment are hibiscus flower branches with many colorful flowers, some red, some dark pink, some pink. beige, there is gold. The gate is made of perforated metal in the style of European fairy tales. Handing me the key, seeing that I lingered and didn't open the door right away, the lawyer attentively handed over the rest of the necessary things, advised a few things, then got in the car to leave, anyway everything that needed to be said was said before departed.

The car was out of sight and I turned to open the door. The lock has a silver bell attached, it jingle every time you touch it. I slowly pushed the gate to enter the paved path, seeing to the left were neat vegetable beds, to the right were flower beds and a wooden swing. I came and sat down, only to find out that the tiny tree next to it was an acorn tree, really meticulous. I pushed my foot lightly, thinking idly.

After sitting for a while, I opened the door and entered the house. The house is small, but the interior is delicately decorated, creating a cozy and gentle feeling. All the utensils were carefully prepared to my liking, but they were all new. The lawyer said that 2 months after I had an accident, there was a fire in the warehouse where he was, and all the equipment from before was no longer available. But in this house nothing is lacking. If it was true that Tung Bach had put up this place by himself, then from the beginning he had no intention of giving any space for those old things.

I understand what you mean, don't want me to live in the memories with you.

However, it doesn't do much for him to think like that, his memory is not in those things, but in my heart.

Good luck can replace this heart.

I remember his gentle eyes when he looked at my painting and asked:

- Is it your dream house?

- Yes, you look, it looks very cozy, isn't it?

- Then we save money to build a house, okay?

Since then we've been putting money in the box every day, only four years as of last year.

Four years for a house, that's too fast. No wonder he's been working like this for a few years.

Suddenly, a terrifying thought popped into my mind.

Could it be that the day of departure was planned long before I thought?

Is it possible that the day this house was completed, was also the day he officially gave the death sentence for himself?

I nervously put the disc the lawyer put into the player, only to find that there was only a song inside, and there was no last word.

“Forget me, keep living, my beloved

I wish all the best for you

Forget me, but you know, I'll never forget you”

It's a sad song.

On the square black-and-white TV, I saw a cat fixed in a sealed box. The dim light, grainy, monstrously blurred image of this old TV made my heart uneasy.

Suddenly the cat moved a little, I was surprised to find that there were two cats on top of each other. One wiggly, the other motionless.

Then the TV vibrated continuously, causing shrill squeaks. I approached with my hand to smack it, the image gradually became clear again. The cat was gone, replaced by a girl, in a familiar scene I couldn't remember. She was sprawled out in a puddle of liquid that was still spreading. On the TV there was only a pool of black around her, but I knew it was blood, must have been a horrible scarlet color. Then, like a cat, she moved her body, revealing two girls lying on top of each other. One girl remained motionless, the other gradually lifted herself up, kneeling in place, the way she moved was terrifyingly sluggish, as if there were no bones. In the TV, suddenly there was crying, a lot of crying, from far and near, lamenting, tragic. Then she jerked her head up, staring resentfully beyond the screen. After the jolt passed, I discovered that she looked exactly like me.

I woke up and realized I was dreaming again.

Oddly enough, most people forget their dreams as soon as they wake up, at least don't remember the full content, yet I'm part of the rest.

I know I've seen two cats on top of each other and where the other scene is.

But in the end, where is it?

That day, when the apple in my hand fell, it seemed for a split second that time stopped. For that split second I felt like I had a flash of electricity go through my head, but I didn't catch it, letting it go again.

                

In front of my house appeared a paper box. Inside the paper box is a smaller paper box. Inside the smaller paper box is an even smaller paper box. In the even smaller paper box was a delicate wooden box. Pandora's box. In Pandora's box, there is a dead cat.

I woke up startled, suddenly remembering where I had seen those two cats. It was in an experiment I saw on TV, the Schrodinger cat. In that experiment, the cat in the box simultaneously existed in two states, alive and dead. If you open the box, the cat will definitely die. If you don't open the box, you will never know the result. In physics they call it quantum superposition.

I wonder, am I just like that cat, forever stuck in superposition states, and at the same time existing in the midst of so many world lines but not really in any of them? star?

But actually for ordinary people like me, open or not open, the result is not much different. If not opened, such a sealed box, the cat will also die. Its death, sooner or later.

Someone is staring at me.

This alarm bell rang in my head.

I was scared to ignore it, but the bells in my head kept ringing. I reached out and touched the silver knife under my belt, straining to peer into the dark corners of the room.

And I saw a figure with long hair.

- Ah!!!

I groaned and stood up. My hands were empty, and I quickly turned over my pillow, the silver knife still lying there. I looked around, surrounded by the soft light of the golden moon outside the window. Turned out to be a dream. Dream in dream.

I suddenly felt tired. Dreams and reality have overlapped like thick wool on the shirt I'm wearing, unable to separate.

                

- This Sunday, our class has a meeting.

In a large conference room, people gathered very crowded, talking and laughing. After a few rounds of beer, we started telling old stories. Some of them make me laugh and reminisce at the same time. But there are so many things that I have no recollection of. Everyone swarmed around me, the class asked, the class suggested, seeing that I still didn't remember, they started to seem disinterested, the atmosphere suddenly became monstrously oppressive. I couldn't stand it, used the excuse to go to the bathroom and quietly left.

Outside is evil. The sky seemed to have been accidentally dipped into a bucket of iridescent dye, patches of red, orange, blue, indigo, and purple were mixing together like an unreal painting. The vast space is like soaking in the last sunlight of the day, turning a yellowish color. As soon as I saw this color, I knew it was a dream again.

The colors in my dreams always overwhelm me. It's like when you look at the everyday world through a stained glass, sometimes it's reddish brown, sometimes yellowish, sometimes blue-gray, sometimes blue, all pale and faded, sometimes making people I feel like I'm lost in the movies of the past.

There is always something scary about people in dreams. It's them, but it's not them. It's like hiding under the skins of familiar shapes are strangers, with a malicious dimension.

The sunset in the dream gradually turned off, the sky and earth turned a gray-blue color. I kept walking along the street, past the quiet, slightly dark temple deep in the rows of tall noodles, came across a grassy hillside, heard the smell of soil and weeds spreading through my windpipe. I kept walking and going, but I didn't meet anyone, not even a shadow of a person. I looked around, the four directions and eight directions did not see an end. A sense of directionlessness drags down my steps. Know when to wake up.

After a long time, I finally woke up. But the panic in the dream had not yet withdrawn from his chest.

Night after night, dream after dream. It seems that dreams have life, they turn into golden threads that wrap around my weak tree of life, strand after strand, getting tighter and tighter. With each passing day, I see the color of reality getting a little fuzzy. A few months ago I was still in that world, hearing everyone say this world is fake. These past few months I woke up suddenly in this world, having to accept that everything that happened in the other world was fake. Real things like that. There's no guarantee I won't suddenly go back to that world a few months later, finding out that these days were just a dream, or maybe going to another world again, having to hear other crazy things. . My senses, my memories, if such real things can be faked, what else can this brain not do? If things that are so real can't be trusted, what's wrong with this life? Is life from beginning to end just an illusion of the brain?

Maybe one day I will wake up in a giant liquid cocoon, connected to the system by countless wires, realizing that everything I've experienced since birth is a fantasy in my brain. the set. But if there is such a day, I hope I can be like Neo, opening my eyes means truly escaping the matrix, confirming the final truth of the world.

                

- Chak! The knife and the apple fell on the table. I sucked my finger, trying to find a jar of MSG to sprinkle on to stop the bleeding. But the blood irritated my sleeping throat, and a dry cough hit.

With one hand I cupped the skin around my neck, the other stretched out to keep the blood out as little as possible. But the bright red blood drops like ripe apples on the branches, unable to withstand the gravity of the Earth, fell from my fingers, pounding on the table, shooting out in the shape of thorns.

I remember it!

The place where the other two girls lay in a pool of blood was right below that building.

My heart trembled.

That day I stepped back, fell backwards. If there really was such a world, that image would be my death.

And crying. Crying heavy like the Marble Mountains, and my heart is a monkey learning to bend under the mountain.