隨筆19
Sunrays of the last minutes of sunset were always incomparably gorgeous, yet ephemeral, which formed an endlessly long line across the heaven, embrowning the western horizon, trying utmost to make itself perfectly parallel with the already-invisible Milky Way, whose constituents, those constellations, which, as elderly people believed and rumored, had fallen down onto the earth to be human incarnations to accomplish their pre-destined heavenly orders in lifespan. Darkness presently swallowed up the sky, which was a desirable haven for thieves and pickpockets and so forth, but was somewhat obnoxious to people like me. Like a powerless boat rolling in the deep, I was ploughing on with discovering the route to my hotel in a repulsive neighborhood, which, some three decades ago, was one slum in the Lower Corner of the city if my memory did not trick me and in which crisscross narrow and filthy pathways formed a modern version of labyrinth where no Minotaur was kept in captivity for kid-consuming and just caught me in a mess of them. Either by luck or by destiny, I was not in the morass for too long and finally discovered a gravel path leading up to my place. Having squelched through it where plashes were strewn across, I stopped short at the nearest T-junction, at which the back door of the luxurious hotel was located, out of which food aromas in juxtaposition with unpleasant smells of various types of additives spread out in wreath after wreath, and blew into my nose and those of street-walkers thereabout, clad in boob tube tops made of silver satin with their bellies and cleavages exposed, draining their efforts to attract potential womanizers. I stole sideways glimpses at some of them but had no daring to extend the length of the glimpses. With my head slightly bowed to avoid eye-contacts with them, I moved toward that door opened to a world which was altogether different from that of the fa?ade of the hotel. Reader, you may not like reading my words of recherche which, you might believe, were put down purposely to impress you but actually, it is a good way, I believe, to demonstrate true art of the language.