志异 Draft by Drama box december 2013 (english) | Page 23

hate have begun to throw out their myriad tentacles to invade
my peace; and these emotions will, I fear, continue to keep my
mind in the state of turmoil that I now experience. Oh! If I
could but recapture a short moment of that blessed oblivion!”
The lady flipped her book close, and I thought I heard
the pages of history flip close as well. It sounded
very much like a deep sigh. I said, ‘Poor Hua-Tzu,
once he became aware of preservation and destruction,
gain and loss, sorrow and joy, love and hate, he
forgot to forget. He never really did manage to forget
all distinctions. He was trapped, not because he could
remember, but trapped by his own self.’
The lady remained silent, and I too had nothing
more to say. Even though it was a bright, sunny day,
and there was no breeze, it was not at all hot or
stuffy. I took another sip of the coffee, and was
suddenly unsure if the lady in black actually did
exist, or if it was not her but Hua-Tzu's melancholic
wife who sat in front of me. I was uncertain if it
was I who listened to Hua-Tzu's story, or if it was
actually Hua-Tzu who had listened to the lady in
black. Perhaps, I was not drinking coffee, but wine —
I cannot remember. In the movie Ashes of Time, Leslie
Cheung lamented, after drinking a special lacuna wine
given by his lover: ‘It was a joke she played on me. 
For the more you wish to forget, the more it will
stick in your mind …’
It was a bright, sunny day… but I might have
really forgotten who was there and what actually
happened.