She Who Searches

Annie Xiyang Xu

Edited by Jiaqi (Julia) Peng Designed by Hannah Hu

[00:00:00]

“Let me tell you a story,” The afternoon sun falls through the crack of the old dirty curtain, as though to split her face in half. “Once upon a time in the Ming Dynasty, two men met each other on their way to take the national exam that could change their life. The young one fell sick and had to stop. The other took care of him. They made a promise that in one year, they will meet each other at the sick man’s house. On the day of reunion, the younger guy waited expectantly. But the other man still had not arrived. ‘It’s been such a long time. He must have forgotten.’ said the sick man’s wife. ‘No, he won’t.’ In the middle of the night, the older one arrived, shirt torn and hair messy, with a single yellow chrysanthemum on his placket. The two friends talked and talked. When the morning sun hit the door, the older friend disappeared. He told his younger companion that last night before arriving, he was sick and weak and far away, so he took his own life thinking that a ghost could travel thousands of miles a night without constraint. The younger man watched the ghost of his friend fade away, and cried for seven days and seven nights straight.”

[3:00:00-3:30:59]

It is 3 am and I just woke up from a dream reminding me of her. I don’t dream about her often. But whenever I did, she always told the same story. Two men, one promise. One waited, the other arrived as a ghost. Is that a threat? I stand up to pour myself a glass of water, a promise fizzing on my tongue. I did make a promise with her a long time ago. We were in high school and had just become close friends. I switched next to her after the girl who previously sat next to me went on sick leave and she just came back from her last year abroad in Japan. I suppose we hit it off immediately, or else why would I promise to meet her in ten years on the school playground? Ten years, I remember that, but not the year to add on from, like an equation with no left side, like an equation with nothing left. I take a sip of water and try hard to recall her face. She was about my height, short hair, tanned and sporty. When she was amused, the air around her vibrated like they were also moved. When I told her a joke, she used to laugh so hard that everyone in class turned around to look at us. 52 pairs of inquiring eyes.

I glance into the glass to find my reflection. I attempt to laugh the same way she did, joyous and carefree with wrinkles webbing from the corner of my eyes. I scrunch my nose to perfect the mimesis. In the absence of a good joke, I think of her instead. To me, she was always both loving and provoking. I grab the glass and sit by the computer. On the desktop sits an old folder. I kept everything from high school there for the fear of needing future references. Tonight is the night. I remembered typing the date and time of our reunion into my phone and the information must be uploaded somewhere onto the cloud. I lost that phone on a rainy day. Trying to balance my umbrella, I dropped it in a muddy puddle. I superstitiously put it in a bag of rice but it never worked again. Funny, on rainy days, she used to step into puddles on the school playground just to splash water on me. What an omen.

[3:31:00-4:00:59]

It is 3:31 and I am sinking into the couch, attempting to come up with keywords that might help me locate the memo with the date. I knew it wouldn’t be simple because I was never a fan of simplicity. It was maybe the fondness of theatrics that drew us together. Two men, one promise. It sounds like a story she would have told me. I type her name in the search bar. A couple documents show up. One of them is a story we wrote together. It was published in the school magazine. Two friends parted with each other, promising to meet again. One went north, the other south. Years went by, when they finally met each other, they were shocked to see how they have turned into what each other hated the most. They laughed and went their own merry way. The timeliness is uncanny, like she planned it, sending a shiver down my spine. It is so odd seeing her name next to mine. I take a deep breath in and say the three characters of her name out loud. Once, twice, three times. The syllables roll back and forth on my tongue like hard-to-swallow hot soup. Nothing happens. No sudden phone calls or incoming emails. I look over my shoulders. Sometimes, the third time brings no charm. I tried the word “playground”, hoping that I had at least noted down the meeting place when I made the bold promise. Still nothing but a few photos. She was in one of them, looking unusually coy with a very pink ribbon in her hair. Holding my right hand, she pressed her cheek against mine. Pink was not for her, nor was that particular shyness in her eyes. Looking through old photos brings back nostalgic feelings. I put on a song from my high school days and a pot of coffee. The night is still young.

It is officially four o’clock and I have spent almost half an hour looking for a promise I once made with a girl who wasn’t even my best friend. We were close but we drifted apart. For what I cannot remember. It just happened one day—no more late night text messages, or recess emotional moments. We moved on our own merry way like we had exhausted all that we could ever talk about. To be fair, we did talk a lot. Like, a lot. The milk forms a funny swirl in the coffee like an unsettled face. My finger slides around the edge of the mug, feeling the steam wetting the tip. Where is she now? Does she even remember the promise? I feel the impulse to click open all the subfolders, documents, photos. It has to be somewhere. A note, a single note proving that she was once very important to me, to the point that I made a promise to see her again in ten years. So I did. I click on everything I see. The more I click, the more I realize her presence has been ghostly. She was in a total of 14 photos and her name was mentioned mostly in class pictures and the digital yearbook. She didn’t even leave a note for me upon graduation. “We are beyond explanations and expectations.” She used to say heavy words so lightly like it was only normal. But I expect my explanation now. The coffee grew cold due to my negligence. I pick up my phone and text L. L is a good friend. In fact, L was my best friend. “Have you heard from her?” “Nope, not lately. Are you crazy? Go to bed! It’s like three am!” Am I crazy? I do wonder. For a second I thought she was more like an idea to me—I wrote it down a long time ago on a piece of paper, hoping to develop it further, only to misplace it, miss it and forget it. The sick man who waited one year was waiting for an old ghost, met in the middle of nowhere, growing pale and weak, hoping for the first ray of morning sun to let it go. To look life in the face but then to put it away. That’s what the actress playing Virginia Woolf said in the movie The Hours. She used to love that movie so much that she called me her Mrs. Dalloway.

[4:31:00-5:00:00]

It is now 4:30, almost one and a half hours since I dreamt about her. The sky shows no sign of lighting up. My eyes hurt from all the extra screen time. The high school songs slowly wind down like a flat soda. Still no trace of the memo. There is one last file left and it looks like nothing but another school photo. A funny feeling fills my chest. Failed to recall her face, I can almost hear her laughter. Unable to trace her right hand, I am absorbed in her writing. People say forget me not. But how could I not forget? I was pulled back in time by a recurring dream. I am trapped in the present with my inevitable forgetfulness. The friend had to watch the ghost fade. Was that her message for me? It’s almost five o’clock and the first ray of sun struggles to break through the window shields. It’s almost time to put this promise away.

Finishing up the last bit of coffee, I am about to turn my computer off. My fingers feel numb after retaining the clicking position for two hours. Accidentally, I double clicked the trace pad. The mouse was on the one remaining file. A picture shows up on the screen. It is a Polaroid that shows a patch of grass on a playground. On the white edge of the photo sheet quietly sits her handwriting:

“4/25/2025 15:00 School PG”

Suddenly, I really want to cry.