Sick Boy[s] Paddle Club↓

What We Taste When We Talk About Sour

Bolaniao 波拉鸟

Translated by: Velvet Liu

She smoked a cigarette right in front of me, then another. She only took one sip of the cassia wine, but smoked two cigarettes down.

The ratio didn't make any sense.

​

My drink was almost empty. There were things I wanted to ask her, yet still hesitating. I took one sip after another. While I drank, she smoked. There's no gap for me to speak.

By the time she finished her second cigarettes, my glass was empty.

She spoke first before I asked. "Don't laugh at me—this really is the first time I've noticed." She took a few careful sips, then held her glass up to me.

​

I asked what she'd noticed.

"When they were making the drinks, they asked if we wanted sour." She said.

I said yes. Sour for both of us.

"Now that I've had some, I realize the sourness of lemon and the sourness of vinegar are two different kinds of sour." She lowered her voice.

​

I savored the taste in my mouth, realizing it was true. Not wanting to seem impressed, I put on a face like she was making a fuss about nothing. "You're funny."

She smiled, almost shyly. Then she got up and got another one. I took out a cigarette, feeling we might finally get to the real talk now.

​

No matter how bright a sunny day in Quanzhou might be, it still felt like rain could fall any moment without surprise. This sunny day in April, in this small bar by the square on this street, I met her for the first time, and also the last—I had that much premonition prepared beforehand: this would be the first-time meeting, also the very last time.

The bar itself was a small container space, with no outdoor seating, using large oil drums as tables—smooth and hollow, cheap yet ingeniously conceived. I asked whether she wanted to sit outside or inside. She chose inside.

Fine for me, fewer mosquitoes.

​

Later, she came back to the table with her glass and asked, "What do you think?"

" You drink, I drink. You smoke, I smoke. We chill." I nodded.

"I mean, what do you think of the drink?" She said.

"The drink?" I laughed despite myself, then mumbled, "It's fine."

This woman is a sharp one, I thought to myself.

She took another sip, and the conversation turned. "We do have similar tastes." She said.

"Do you come here often?" She asked. I said no. The place is close to where both of us live, which is more convenient for us to meet.

She smiled again. I knew she'd caught the indifference in my words—my small retort. But still, her unruffled smile made me nervous. She that kind of person who's good at smiling. A smile is the cheapest expression. Its cheapness lies in its eternal appropriateness. It can be pulled out in any situation. In awkward moments, in sarcasm, and also in joy. Even if your parents were flattened by a truck yesterday into a pile of bloody flesh, even if your child was flattened today into another pile—if you happened to smile at such a moment, it still qualifies as a perfectly fitting, tragic smile.

I've never been good with people who are good at smiling. I tried to suppress my irritation. "You have a nice smile."

​

"Thanks." She said.

​

"So you're not from here?" She finally asked. I told her it was just that my family has a house here.

"Let's talk about your criteria." Suddenly, she made the conversation clearer. Sharper.

​

"My criteria?" I was startled by her straightforwardness, momentarily at a loss. "It’s my first blind date, I'm not really sure..."

​

That was practically a lie.

It wasn't that I wasn't really sure; it was that I could not fundamentally figure it out. Maybe blind dating is just two people laying out their criteria, comparing back and forth, then saying goodbye as politely as possible. But the strange thing was, I don't think I had any criteria. I'd never lived by reciting my own standards. And now she asked a question I was most afraid of. My answer was as stupid as expected, and it left me even more speechless.

She smiled again. There's something in that gentle, tolerant smile. "Alright. You're funny." She eventually said.

​

She smoked a cigarette in front of me, then another. One sip of the cassia wine, two cigarettes. I was smoking too, feeling dazed. "I've had an abortion. And I don't want kids." She finally spoke when I was about to order another one. "That's mine."

​

I stared at the woman before me. She wore a white dress, hair tied up in a shape like a bird. Her hand holding the cigarette was completely still, the other resting on her leg, swaying faintly with her leg. She looks beautiful and calm.

​

She looks so calm that it almost made you wish she'd hesitate.

She wasn't smiling now. I'd thought she was a roundabout woman. Maybe I'm the one being roundabout because I said, "Abortion's fine, it's just that my parents want me to have a kid." When what I really could have said was: I want a kid.

If I'd said that, that would've been my criteria, and my criteria would've clashed with hers, and then we could have said goodbye as politely as possible. But I didn't.

​

"Are you the type of person who loves to read?" She said. The way she said "the type of person" made me uncomfortable. Like she was talking about some kind of weirdos. I'd meant to deny it, like I usually do in social situations, but then I remembered this was a blind date: this woman might end up having some kind of relationship with me. Though the possibility was almost zero, I suddenly couldn't muster a proper lie, could only nod while explaining: "Not much.

I read some popular books." She shrugged. "People who like reading are pretty self-centered."

"What’s that mean?" I asked.

Normally, I'd just silently ponder the implications of such a statement, but this time, the question just slipped out.

She smiled, didn't answer, let the conversation slide elsewhere. "You're so young, why are you out here blind dating?"

​

I didn't answer right away. I felt like she was always talking around things. The irritation inside me almost reached a breaking point. I took a drag to calm down, decided to think it through slowly before telling her. Of course, I no longer thought this blind date could succeed—or rather, I'd never had such an expectation from the start.

"Was it your parents' idea?" The woman spoke again, still tolerant, still gentle. "They're worrying too early."

Though I was silent, I found myself agreeing with her. She was right, they were worrying too early. I was merely a fledgling adult. In the physical sense, I was twenty-three years old, but from a physical perspective, I didn't even consider myself an adult. For example, according to this calculation, in my life so far, a full quarter has been spent in sleep without any growth. If I subtracted that part, wouldn't I be just a sixteen or seventeen-year-old kid? If that was the case, my being able to achieve nothing was perfectly appropriate. Even my parents could be appropriately younger, more tolerant, and more gentle with me.

​

I agreed with what she said and fell into a pitiful contemplation of myself. "You're right, but you seem pretty young yourself, don't you think?" I asked.

"I told you I had an abortion once." She gave me an appraising look.

​

I thought for a second. "But you're still very young."

​

She fell silent, frowned, then stared at me like she was trying to solve a horrific locked-room murder case. She thought for perhaps the length of half a cigarette, or maybe not that long. She finally exhaled and, with the expression of someone who couldn't figure out who the killer was, she said, "No, that's not it. Maybe it looks similar, but it's definitely not what you think."

"I used to think I had nothing to do with blind dating. I even thought my boyfriend really loved me." She continued. "I thought there was no difference between the sourness of lemon and the sourness of vinegar."

​

"And most importantly," she said, "I thought I was still young too. But the truth is completely different."​ She paused, looked at me, as if seeing through my slowness and bewilderment.

"At least our parents don't see it that way, do they?" She said. "They're independent—they have their own calculations."

"What about you? I think I've made my side clear. I don't want kids because I'm afraid of pain." She continued. "Abortion hurts. Maybe not having an abortion would hurt more. It's just that simple. What do you think?"

​

The gradually narrowing patter filled the silence between us. The sound of rain hitting the iron drums. At first, it was just a drip, drip, drip, rather pleasant. Then it intensified and became noisy. The rain wasn't heavy, but the container bar and the iron drums acted like amplifiers. Every sound from outside reached us doubled. It forced us to raise our voices by another two notches, turning our conversation into shouting. Because neither of us moved any closer to the other.

​

I hesitated for a very, very long time. Then, in that long silence, an unexpected tremor seized me. Perhaps because of Quanzhou's unfathomable rain. I found myself blurting out. "Actually, I don't really care whether we have kids or not."

But she didn't hear me clearly, seemed unmoved. I remembered the rain was so loud, and I think I should shout. So I shouted, "I actually kind of like you, but maybe we're not suited for each other!"

She finally smiled. That was the most relaxed smile she'd shown all day.

"Too bad!" She shouted back.

I almost laughed too, and realized it was also that cheap, perfectly fitting kind of smile. It had taken the place of a sigh. "Don't unfriend me when you get home! We can be friends!" I shouted again.

"All right! You bookworm types sure like making friends!" She shouted back.

After that, we each smoked in silence to the noisy melody of the rain.

​

The rain faded. The iron drums outside were no longer amplifiers. Instead, it had become a kind of impromptu instrumental music. I asked her if she had an umbrella. She said no. I didn't either. We live just nearby, why bother with a cab? So we each ordered another drink. She asked if I was going to keep blind dating. "Yeah. Need to find a woman who's less afraid of pain." I joked. The words had barely left my mouth before I felt they were too flippant, and I immediately regretted it. But she was gracious enough not to mind.

"If you find someone, let me know—I'll give you a discount on the kid’s clothes and shoes, diapers, bottles, that kind of thing." She said.

"You're in that business? Must be pretty profitable." I was a little surprised.

"No, I bought them. If I were in that business, why would I need to go on blind dates?" She shook her head calmly. "Don't worry. They're all brand new." Her words dawned on me.

"Right, right," I mumbled.

​

In the end, I didn't buy any children's shoes from her. As I said, this was the first time I met her, and also the last. On another night, after another failed blind date, I was drinking alone, and I suddenly thought of her. I tried to text her. She didn't reply. Maybe she thought I was reaching out to buy children's stuff. And for some reason, she'd suddenly decided not to sell. I figured. Fair enough.

I neither deleted her nor contacted her again.

​

I remember that rain lasted until midnight, like a sailor's uneven tavern singer. Sometimes howling, sometimes moaning. Sometimes endearing, sometimes hateful. The rain in Quanzhou has always been bewilderingly complex. I couldn't understand it at all. When her cigarettes ran out, she smoked mine. We drank glass after glass, got drunk one after the other. She didn't drink often, so she was more drunk than I was. If you ask me, how drunk? Maybe this drunk:

​

She smoked a cigarette in front of me, then another. She took one sip of the cassia wine, but smoked two cigarettes. In a daze, I wanted to ask her those things. I felt I had to ask her something in the end, or I'd regret it deeply. I searched my mind for topics: blind dating experiences, her impression of me. Anything. I opened my lips, then she cut me off. Half-conscious, she took a sip from her glass, then held it up to me, like she was telling a secret. "Wait... I've made a huge discovery."

Her expression was serious, almost cautious. I felt like I was looking at an innocent young girl. At that moment, I, too, must have acted like a sixteen or seventeen-year-old. That's how I knew I was drunk.

Still dizzy, I asked her, "What discovery?" She shifted in her seat and moved a little closer to me. For the first and last time, our shoulders touched. Close to my ear, she whispered the last words before the goodbye.

"It's so amazing. The sourness of lemon and the sourness of vinegar are actually two different kinds of sour."

Then she laughed. It was a child's laugh.

Bolaniao (lit. "Bolan Bird")

Bolan Bird likes literature as a kind of game, skilled at writing things no one really cares about. For that trivial bit of amusement, let’s play together until night falls.