the Retrospecting-Poem on the Moon

Wandering into the distance, there was a sense of déjà vu.

Remembered the time when I watched the rain scene with her, everything was as peaceful as it was then, except for the scattered raindrops. Who was she? I forgot.

The raindrops trickled down from the recesses of the square pavilion one by one, landing on the already wet grass, accompanied by a few wisps of mist that seemed to come out of nowhere and gently floated above it. It shouldn't be like this. This place is as flat as a pancake, without a single mountain. How could there be such a dark fog in the middle of the day during the rain? It's really strange. Other than that, there's nothing else. The sky is filled with dark clouds, and only a few rays of light sliced through the sky, casting striped beams of light, along with the dancing raindrops, lighting up a small patch of green grass, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of dripping.

And now? Haha, the only sound of raindrops has turned into the constant thumping of my heartbeat. I guess it's not much different. So this endless prairie and the gray sky curtain have changed, the monotonous and colorless lunar soil extends from underfoot to the pure black horizon, filling every inch of my eyes, disappearing without a trace as it is swallowed by the horizon. Leaving the ring-shaped mountains and coming to this vast and endless wasteland, I must have lost my way long ago.

What did I come to this wasteland for? I thought the undulating gray-white mountains were boring enough, but I never imagined that such flatness would make me feel even more depressed. I wanted to get out of here quickly, but what could I do? Keep going forward? I didn't know how far I still needed to go. Fortunately, at least it's not like what the predecessors said, that every time you walk half the distance, you can't reach the destination. Go back to the starting point and choose another path? That's a pity, and I don't even remember how many days I had been walking in this wasteland. Maybe the starting point is further than the destination. If I wanted to go faster, then I had to run, for the sake of making the destination arrive sooner, that unknown poet. Okay! I remembered this goal again. If one day I lost this goal and original intention here, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to run anymore, or even walk with difficulty. Come to think of it, how did I know if this was my original goal?

In that case, what lay beyond the end? She asked me this in the pavilion. Just like a series of steps connected end to end, we were always moving from the end of one staircase to another. How high was this building called Life? Or perhaps it was simply a damnable Penrose staircase, impossible to reach the top, not to mention having to carry several large sacks while climbing, those things called responsibilities. Unfortunately, in the end, it was difficult to know whether the bags contained sand or gold, and which ones should have been let go long ago, and which ones should not have been lost. Hahahahaha, if I could be sent here, then surely I had dropped a huge sack by mistake - or maybe not a mistake, but at least I had lost a sack that was important to someone else.

And what about the end? The end of this staircase, an end as dark and lightless as the sky above our heads, like a legendary black hole, from which not even light could escape, so no one could bring back any information from within. Once we stepped into the end, there was no return, and all our thoughts and ideas were lost, merging with this nothingness and returning to the world. Some brave males said, “Do not be afraid, the important thing is to make ourselves stronger before reaching the end.” But would this not make the burden even heavier? Some wise males said, “Do not be afraid, for as long as we had perception, we were not dead, and when we died, we were no longer here, so the end called death would never be felt and would never happen to us.” But was this still a form of self-talk and escape? Well, well, instead of fearing the end, why not think more about the story before the beginning? If this was still considered an escape, so be it. I had lived a long time, and I had also lived a short time. I had seen the beginning and end of countless lives, yet I was just a drop in the ocean of thick history books. Always worrying and regretting that everything after the end could not be experienced, then why not think about what was missed before the beginning? Hahaha, so we were just experiencing this small world, some for a long time, some for a short time, and death was the true main line. Then this life, even if it was regarded as a small condiment in an endless, long void - perhaps not the first time to taste it, nor the last. Ho, to be able to start was already lucky, then there was nothing to complain about the end; if you did not like this experience, you also had the right to choose to leave. In short, it was better to think about how to make this once-in-a-lifetime banquet more memorable or to strive to allow more beings to participate in the banquet with dignity and happiness, or to meet more beings at the banquet and let the threads of affection be tied together, even if they would eventually disperse.

This is how I replied to her, and she remained silent for a long time. Until the fog that came from nowhere dissipated just like that until the raindrops gradually stopped. She left, and I never saw her again. I wasn't even sure if she really came or if I was just sitting alone in the rain pavilion talking to myself. I didn't know, but at least now, in this vast sea of moons, I was sure I was only talking to myself, hah.

　　
I had also heard of several otherworlds, or simply fabricated stories. In one world, without the need to act on your own, reciting a spell could cause two of your closest relatives to die immediately and resurrect a designated deceased person, ultimately causing the whole world to fall into fear, isolate itself, and cut off contact - once beautiful close relationships had become the most terrifying curse, and the world was destroyed in lonely stagnation. What about the other one? It was a world where resurrection had no cost, but it turned some soldiers into sources of meat that cycled repeatedly between life and death, making war a cheap commodity without sacrifice. Eventually, the soldiers who lost their minds in the cycle of death created conscious robots that faithfully executed the only set crazy goal in the code: torture, kill, and resurrect all over and over again, and this world was occupied by eternal pain. Then the last one was a world where there was no death at all, naturally there was no resurrection either, so the entire planet collapsed under the ever-increasing population, and even before it had a chance to fly into the starry sky. They finally chose to blend all living beings into minced meat and soak them in a liquid to achieve eternal chemical bliss, and the last guardian could only hold on to eternity to maintain the operation of all this, clearing his memory again and again to block the idea of suicide. What happened to this world later? No one knew. And no one would ever know.

Hence, lo and behold, having an endpoint might not have been such a bad thing. Or could it be that all of this was just one big cycle? Heh, no one could say for sure.

I was always like this, lost in thought as I walked along, which made the journey less tedious. And before I knew it, I found myself at yet another place strewn with a heap of poems. It was really quite odd. This place was so vast, the center of the crater was just as large, and the moon was so expansive. How was it that I managed to arrive time and again right in front of these scattered remnants? Oh well, let me take a look first.

She has seen the horizon flowing red. With the clock ticking, she was lost in the horizon of the sky.

She saw the baby's hazy dream, with the rise of dawn, dissipated in the slightly opened eyes.

Photons cross the deep blue, creamy earth and meet on the water under the night, starlight twinkling.

Gravity pulls on the long iron chain, and the weights that cling to the "mass" are imperceptible.

And all that is, will eventually pass away, become chaos, spread forever.

It's like time standing still in light.

Like tears disappearing in the rain.

Usher in death.

Hmm, it seemed not too bad, just a little... ambiguous? It reminded me of a famous play. Come to think of it, why were there always some blank sheets of paper and pens beside these poems? Ha, I guessed it was a hint, wasn't it? Poet, did you anticipate my arrival? If you really had such foresight, then it wasn't so strange for these things to appear before me. So, were you hiding from me? I hoped not.

　　
Well, then, let me added a few strokes to these scattered papers.