"I’ll put up a card," he tried to smile.
She nodded and jumped away from the rock like a crazy daredevil-showing off.
On a whim, he turned and shouted "Hey Gloria!" before she ran out of hearing.
She turned around and waited while keeping her arms balanced.
"Don’t forget me! Take care of yourself! " He tried not to be so heavy as if it was no big deal to let the sentence drift into the water
She nodded and waved and said something, but he couldn’t hear her. Then she crossed the lawn next to the lighthouse and disappeared behind the arc of the tower wall.
The fish mouth at the bottom of the water bit the little red crab, and the crab struggled very slowly, as if it were lost in thought and didn’t want to escape.
16 Ghost Birds
The lighthouse stands in the fog and reflects the same reflection. The beach is dark and cold. They throw the boat into the shallow water. The gravel rubs against the hull and the waves curl slightly, as if the meaning is unclear. Asking about the lighthouse, the ghost bird’s memory doesn’t match. Because the side is burned by the flame, the scorch marks extend all the way to the top, and the lamp holder inside is still out of the platform window. With the traces left by human beings for many years, this lighthouse has a magical feeling. Now it is just their boat. If it is not the simplest function, it is a small fortress haunted by ghosts for everyone.
"It was burned by the border commander," Grace told them, "because they couldn’t understand it-and the log in it."
But the ghost bird sensed grace’s hesitation in her tone, and she still refused to disclose what happened in the lighthouse, what kind of slaughter happened, and what was attacking them in the ocean.
Grace can at best partially explain the origin of the orange flag, which was brought by the border commander to identify what she could understand. Maybe the commander wanted to distinguish the real illusion. If so, she failed, and even the common thistle was labeled. If there was enough time, she might identify the whole world.
Ghost birds imagine that if they walk into the light room and open the trap door at this moment, as biologists did many years ago, they may see that the logs are still intact and restored to their original appearance. Will the light reflected from these static words affect their thinking, pollute their dreams and trap them forever? Or is there a pile of ashes in there now? Ghost birds don’t want to find out.
It’s evening now, and they left the island early in the morning. Grace has a big ship in her possession, but the biologist has not appeared again from the dock. However, the main manager is still searching the water surface nervously and anxiously. If there is danger, the ghost bird will soon have a presentiment of him. She dare not tell him that biologists are traveling in the ocean at the moment and passing through the water deeper and wider than when they go to the lighthouse.
They hobbled onto the beach and headed for the lighthouse, choosing the route to avoid snipers. Grace believed that everyone was dead or long gone, but there was always danger. Maybe nothing appeared from the sea, whether ghosts or other monsters might emerge from the sea, similar to biologists but not so kind.
They set off from the edge of the sand dune and arrived at the grassy lawn beside the lighthouse. They stayed for a moment. There were nettles and tangled blackberry plants. For them, they were full of thorns, but they were a natural shelter for wrens and sparrows. They sang happily in the bushes, and the gloomy light was not harmonious. The ghost birds of thistle grass everywhere looked like natural microphones, and the round heads were full of thorns, so they searched and lost their voices instead of sowing them scattered.
The door has been broken, and the darkness beckons them. There will be flickering lights in the gray sky overhead, which makes the manager particularly uneasy. He can’t stand still, and he doesn’t want to let the ghost bird and Grace stand still. The ghost bird can see the light coming out of his body like a circle of jagged daggers. She thinks to herself that she will wait until they reach the lighthouse and wonder if he can keep himself. Maybe there are no supernatural objects shuttling back and forth in the sky.
"There’s no need to go," said Grace.
"Not even a little curious?"
"Do you also like walking in morgues and crematoria?"
Ghost bird still evaluates her. Does Grace want to go with them because she expects the ghost bird to be a secret weapon or for other purposes? She knows that with Grace, she rarely has a chance to talk privately with the manager-all conversations have to be conducted by three people, which makes her uneasy because she knows Grace better than the manager.
"I don’t want to go," said the manager. "I don’t want to. I hope to cross the wide area and reach my destination as soon as possible."
"There seems to be no one here," Grace said. "The small area seems to weaken the opponent."
Yes, it’s a bit cold to say this, but it’s really a good thing. However, the manager looks at Grace’s eyes and expresses his feelings in other ways. Although this belongs to the mechanism of the outside world, it is punished here.
"Well, let me add some hidden things," Grace said, and then threw the biologist’s journal and Yu Island narrative into the open front door.
The manager stared at the darkness of the room as if she had committed a terrible crime and he wanted to correct it, but Grace White, the ghost bird, wanted to free everyone.
"The environment here needs no human intervention." Ghost Bird remembers that there was a sentence in a college class, which lingered in her mind after the biologist moved to the city, and she thought of it again when she watched the honeybee poles running around in that field. This sentence refers to the urban landscape, but biologists will interpret it and describe the nature less, which can be called the wild part because human beings have caused too many changes to the world, and even the area can’t be completely eliminated, except for shrubs and Woods, which are invasive species, artificial paths leave models. Paste imprinting will also have an impact on the terrain. "The only way to solve environmental problems is to ignore it, which means that we will collapse." This is a sentence in a biologist’s paper, but it left a deep impression on her mind, so now the ghost bird remembers it clearly. Even if it is analyzed from a distance, it still emits a kind of power, just like a thousand eyes staring at her in memory.
As they walked towards the land, large objects gradually disappeared, revealing more indelible details. A row of black swamp eagles skimmed over the water, and a swimming water snake raised tiny ripples. The tall grass seemed to bend its hair, but it was also pleasing to the eye.
She was content to be silent, but Grace and the manager were not.
"I want to take a hot bath," the manager said. "I hate being itchy all over."
"Boil water" Grace said as if it could solve two problems at the same time, as if the manager wanted to talk too much and he should consider something more meaningful.
"Not the same thing"
"I want the roof of the Southern Bureau to overlook the forest," said Grace.
"Have you ever done that? How to get there? "
"The building manager asked us to go to me and the director to make a plan."
Grace has a lump in her throat, like some kind of invisible ghost bird lost in thought. Does she want anything? It was so short that she couldn’t think of what she wanted. Their conversation seemed so far away that she thought about what to do if she met a crawler. Is Grace’s motive of lurking undercover older than that of the Southern Bureau and the region? Should she be loyal to the former director or to the little girl playing on the black reef next to the lighthouse when she was a child? Who works for the lighthouse keeper? It would be much better if everyone had an identity, but they are not that simple.
Perhaps the biologist’s final response is the most important thing, and all her letters are comforting descriptions of expectations, which is an inherent response of human beings, just like the last delay before giving the correct answer. Perhaps to some extent, the accumulation of many logs in the lighthouse for many years proves that language is so meaningful, which is not only for the region, but also suitable for all kinds of communication at all times, because the words are too sad and disappointing, and whether the theory is limited or the concept is not enough to express clearly. Even the crawler can’t change the fact that he writes horrible sentences.
In the past, there was a question that no one could answer, and everyone felt the pressure in different ways. If the land under their feet came from some distant place, what was the real area of the earth?
This concept was invented by Grace. Obviously, she has been thinking about it for several years, perhaps troubled and depressed.
"This is it," the manager replied-his tone was blank and his eyes were wandering. "This is where we are." However, he is not stupid and must know that Grace is right.
"Through that door is the area," Grace said. "Walking into the border is another place. No one knows where it is."
Grace doesn’t doubt in her tone, and it doesn’t matter whether they believe that quality is a kind of indifference, as if the area exhausted her, and she is also realistic and knows that no one will like her conclusion
But the ghost bird knows what she saw in the passage to the area. She suspects that all the junk and bodies are real, not imaginary in her mind. She also suspects that something will pass through the 20-foot-high door. The general manager once described the door to her, but now it can’t be found. What else will pass through the door now? Her idea is that there is nothing, because if there were, it would have happened long ago.
The lake in the swamp shows perfect dark blue, and the surrounding low Woods reflect realistic reflections. They are covered with mud boots, and a lot of sediments and plant roots stir up a smell similar to fresh hay.
The manager kept his balance several times and leaned against the ghost bird’s body. She almost leaned down in front of him to burn. On a gloomy day, something invisible to others shuttled back and forth, but the ghost bird was not surprised.
17 director
One day in the spring, when you take a break, you think while stepping on the courtyard tiles. You see a strange man crouching by the swamp lake, with his hands hunched, but you can’t see what to do. Your first reaction is to call security. However, through his slim figure and black head, you recognize him as Viterbi, wearing brown clothes, navy pants and a pair of leather shoes.
Does Viterbi play in the mud, what does he wash or hold? Even from a distance, you can see that his expression is as precise as a jeweler at hand.
I can tell you that you should keep quiet and walk slowly, and be careful of falling branches and dead leaves. Viterbi was scared. Viterbi was scared by the past. You wanted to reveal you bit by bit. However, halfway through, he turned around and said hello to you, and then he continued to do other things, so you stepped up.
As always, the Woods are gloomy, as if many hunchback priests have long moss. What’s more, Hu Grace said, "It’s like a group of chronic drug addicts who are exhausted." Viterbi made a few tiny and slow ripples on the water surface. When you left, you leaned over and watched from behind him, and your reflection spread in circles, shaking in the gloomy luster.
Viterbi washes a brown mouse.
He held the mouse’s thumb and forefinger carefully but firmly around the mouse’s head and forelimbs, while the tail, hind legs and pale abdomen spread out in his palm. I don’t know if the mouse was hypnotized or was unusually quiet for other reasons. Viterbi scooped up water from his right hand and poured it on the mouse, then reached out his little finger to rub the water into the lower abdomen and fur on his side, and then daubed his cheeks and head.
Viterbi embroidered a W with a small white towel and gold thread on her left arm? He grabbed his arm towel and gently wiped the mouse’s head with a small corner, while the mouse’s small black eyes stared at the distance. Viterbi almost feverishly and meticulously wiped the pink front paws one by one, and then wiped the back paws and slender tails. Viterbi’s hands looked a bit like mice, although it was ridiculous, but they seemed to have a common ancestor.