Shaving | 剃须

The smell of childhood, over and over. In sunlight, dust like weeds bursts into bloom, then falls. Your shirtfront— when did it cease to be wet with tears? And the sounds of companions?

—they are an unassuming sheet of paper, crumpled into a ball or torn apart. The traces in the paper have long since become, through folds once neatly made, a paper crane, spreading wings, soaring high, nestling against your arm again.

Sleep, then wake. Outside, by the window— should have been woken by playmates. A gentle stroke across the diary, words sprouting like stubble, sparse, dishevelled, unwashed— childhood friends or passersby. The razor wipes all away; yet stubble sprouts again, unbidden.