凤凰末节

• The Past Buy - [第十家-微型小说]

  2009-12-21

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    Almost a hundred bucks are still left in his pocket. "There must be something wrong." he becomes afraid.

    For every single day in his recent repeated life, Jeff kept peculiar budget control behaviour. It was not about saving. On the contrary, he had to make out a punctual spending solution every day. At least 250 bucks must be used up within every 24-hour.

    It used to be too strange for him to take in all the uncommon changes related to money spending. Until being brought back, though unbelievable at first, to the very day when his salary promotion was rejected, he got to believe that they were all real.

    That day he did everything same as usual: got up at 7:00 a.m., stuffed by junks, crushed in the subway, and rushed to where the time-money exchange deal meaninglessly made. There in the office, buried unaware till 7:00 p.m., he knew that nothing exact had happened on him. It had been inactive of him to figure that why his memory always seemed to be lost in the routine.

    "No!" Suzanne shouted, rising her voice loud enough to shock every "nothing" that was wasting time out of her office, "Everyone should know it, no matter how long he has served here, or how hard-working he says he is. Figure tells everything. You achieve great figures, you No.1. Not words, not serving years. That's ridiculous! Figures, give me figures!"

    He shouldn't mistake which day that talk happened on. He termed his life as "repeated" because the contents of it had been getting nearly unchanged ever since he got his first job. But he could never imagine that a certain situation in his life could appear twice with every detail exactly alike. Every word, every tone and every accent were completely the replicas of what had existed three weeks ago and would have not re-appeared——after the first rejection, he hadn't mentioned a word with his salary again, let alone Suzanne. 

    For the first time, he kept his brain working in the office, trying to found acceptable reasons. But the impossibility of existence would not be proved until his ex-girlfriend called for a dinner.

    "So, any improvement?"...

    "Got flunked, huh?"...

    "Why are you so silent?"...

    "Look, Jeff, look, I think there's a big problem between us. I love you. That's why it is I that have proposed our marriage. But see what you've done? You do nothing. You are not even willing to talk to me. I don't like the way you reply, no."

    "Is that so difficult, Jeff? To ask for more payment you deserve. I've given you too much patience, Jeff, too much time and patience giving for our love...I doubt if it makes any sense..."

    ..."Oh, God! Can't you say something? Are you dumb?"...

    "Ok, ok. It's gonna end. We are over."

    She left. Yes. She did it just like what had happened on the evening of the day following his first rejection, the cause of which began with her request for a marriage house.

    Three weeks ago, they had broken up. There was no more contact for the whole three-week. But this evening, after his weird second rejection, unexpectedly she called and made the decision, which had already got into effect for three weeks.

    Then the next three weeks, Jeff became particularly mindful of every detail around him. In fact, he traced back quite a number of irrational changes that had coincidentally happened before the re-rejection and re-breaking up day. And all the changes, which were not time's repeating but its going-back, were finally found to be driven by 250 bucks.

    "踏破铁鞋无觅处，得来全不费工夫."This was the last Chinese idiom Alick had taught him. Just like what the philosophical idiom says, it seemed to be a law that even if your iron-made shoes are trod broken, you still can't reach the right place to find what you want, but it usually happens to appear at the time you make no efforts at all.

    Jeff tried best to get explanation but failed. At the moment he was giving up, he overheard the talk.

    "You know, in Chinese, figures usually have something to do with irony."

    "Like what?"

    "猪头三，'pig head three' in Shanghai dialect."

    "What does that mean?"

    "Refers to a person who knows nothing about the proper and polite way to treat people and to be treated either."

    "That's funny. What else?"

    "二，'two' in Northern dialect, which is used to ironize one's stupidity. Sometimes, 二 and 猪头三 share the same meaning. It depends on different contexts and purposes in use. And 二百五，'250', can be put in the same way."

    Alick was a traveler from China and stayed in this city teaching Chinese to earn his next travel's money. From him, two questions of Jeff were later answered both for why 250 and for why bucks——actually they were the same thing.

    In another word, Jeff mastered the secret to turn time back at his personal will. If he used up just 250 bucks in a day, he became able to let his tomorrow be the day before yesterday. And if he kept doing this, the time would go back in a quicker speed with much more pasts emerging together like "rejection and re-breaking up" joining in one day. However, tomorrow wouldn't change if the cost was either lower or higher than 250 in the time limit.

    Now Jeff can't understand why a 250 buy is being handicapped. He gets into a panic for fear of losing his power. The time has been drawn back to too early days that 250 bucks are too much to be finished with only 24 hours as the range.

  (The End)

  (Writing started around 1:00 a.m., on Dec. 15)
  菊十二少 发表于16:23:30 | 阅读全文 | 评论 0 | 编辑 | 分享 0