sanguine and depressive

"Hi, hello, may I ask if your name is... Cen Xiao? You are from Shencheng No. [-] Middle School."

At 05:30 on Saturday afternoon, I was working an extra day to prepare for dinner when I suddenly received this strange call.

I am indeed from Shencheng No. [-] Middle School, but it was ten years ago.

I said yes, and the kind female voice on the other side said that a letter from No. [-] Middle School had been sent to their home with my phone number on it.

I kept my mouth shut and didn't respond, feeling a bit unreal.Why is my alma mater sending a letter now to her non-excellent graduates from ten years ago?

Seeing me on the other side, I didn't speak, and added a description: "I see on this envelope, there are the logo and words of No. [-] Middle School, and what timecapsule... time capsule?"

Like a sudden flash of light on a sunny day in May, I was hit with a flashback.

I said: "Yes, there is such a thing... Are you living in the Emerald Imperial Court?"

She smiled and said yes, I thanked her first, and then asked her to send me a courier package, or I can pick it up in person, she chose the former.

The next day I rested at home and received this envelope.

Opening the hard packing bag of the courier, I saw the kraft paper envelope that I had touched ten years ago.It has my name, address, and phone number written by myself, and a postmark is posted next to it.

In the third year of high school, the school organized an activity. Everyone wrote a letter to themselves ten years later, and the school would arrange to send it out. Unexpectedly, they really kept their promise.

Ten years is a long enough time period.Ten years ago, I was a heartless student, but now I am a heart-piercing office worker; I can still be regarded as a young man now, and I will not be far from middle age in ten years.

For me, this decade is like a long roll of film that is partially overexposed.Just like the college entrance examination is so important, you will not remember what you took for every score.To recall some fragments and time points in the past ten years, there is only nothingness—that is, there is nothing, and the photos cannot be washed out, as if that period of time did not exist. Who burned it with soot in my life a black hole.

I cut open the envelope with scissors, and there was only a thin piece of paper inside, with three lines of simple words on it, and an empty box in front of each line.

I remembered the meaning of the box and got a pen.

First line, a job that won't starve

I thought about it and ticked it off.

In the second line, there is a plain and quiet life

I smiled and ticked the box too.

The third line, withmytruelove

........................

Maybe because I was shy at the time, I wrote this sentence in English.

"truelove", I pinched the penholder with my fingers, pressed the tip of my tongue against my teeth, and repeated it several times softly, strange and uncontrollable thoughts surged in my heart.

Speaking of true love, a figure moves on my overexposed film, shining like a male protagonist, every frame with him is almost clearer than the others.

Until now, I still dream of him in ordinary nights. The content of the dream seems to be very clear, but when I wake up, it is blurry again.

If time flies by, it will be eight years in the blink of an eye.

I used to think that was my true love.