1. Death phase

If there are no dreams, there is no difference between sleep and death in terms of perception, right?

But how do you know that people don't dream when they die?

Shh You haven't died.

Who says I haven't died? I remember, I felt like I had died, and more than once. As for why he died, how he died, and other details, but I forgot it. Even, whether he came back to life after death is forgotten.

Anyway, everyone thought I was alive, so I had to pretend to be alive.

I have insomnia every day, it's hard to fall asleep, but I never count sheep.

I counted my men, starting with the first one, counting them one by one, counting and counting and falling asleep. The men, each one of whom I loved with all my heart, with whom I met, who I attracted, who I dated, who finally took him home or with him, and then 、、、、、、waited for him to disappear. My first man was a graduate student, maybe not, but that's what he told me. When I was a freshman, we met through WeChat, then we exchanged phone calls, then it was love at first sight, and finally I went home with him. I fell asleep in his arms that night, but woke up to find him disappear without a trace and have not been heard from since.

My second man was a bar waiter, maybe he was the third, and I never remember who came first or who came back from the middle school teacher, but it didn't matter, the important thing was that they both disappeared the next day, just like my first man. In fact, every man I have ever had since done made me suspect that I would become a demon when I fell asleep, eating every man I slept with alive, just like in a horror movie.

Therefore, I was afraid of sleep, and only counting men could make me barely sleep. I count one by one, and when I miss something, I recount from the first one, just like I count the poles on my way home every day, and when I count wrong, I go back and count again, which causes me to waste a lot of time on the way home from work every day.

But, in fact, I don't have many men, no more than eight in total, but I can't count them every time, and every time I count to the fourth or fifth, I feel as if I have missed someone, and then I can't help counting from the first one, trying to find the missing man. So, strictly speaking, I didn't fall asleep while counting my men, but I fell asleep while looking for a certain man.

I teach yoga to some crooked women at a health club, inhaling and exhaling to soft music. I often let them close their eyes, and then look at their bodies, peep into their happiness, each of them has a lot of people who are good to themselves, love themselves, I am amazed how they can accept it with peace of mind, don't they be upset? When they were open, I would count them in mirrors on all sides, one, two, three、、、、、、 and count them again if I got them wrong.

For so many years, counting seemed to be the only meaningful thing in my life, and I couldn't help counting everything I saw, and even then, I often got it wrong.

One day last week, a man with a blurred face suddenly appeared in the mirror of the yoga room, holding a bouquet of blue-purple flowers in his hand. When I turned to look, the man was gone, the flowers were lying on the ground for no reason, and one of the students screamed, "Oh my God! It's so romantic! It's forget-me-not! ”

At that time, my heart sank, as if something had pierced my brain, so I threw down the students, picked up the bouquet of flowers and chased to the hall, but the man was nowhere to be seen. A card dropped from a bouquet:

"Legend has it that in medieval Europe, there was a handsome knight who was in love with a beautiful maiden. One day, they were riding a horse together and swimming along the rugged mountain road along the coast, when suddenly the girl saw a nameless little flower blooming on the cliff, and she liked it very much. In order to win the favor of his lover, the knight happily dismounted and climbed the cliff, but unfortunately he stumbled and fell into the sea, but he still held the flower in his hand. At the moment when the knight was about to drown, shouted: Forget-me-not! ”

At that time, I was holding the bouquet of small blue-purple flowers, and I stood in the hall of the club and counted them in a daze, counting every flower, counting every petal on each flower, and counting until I was so engrossed that I forgot about myself, and everyone was stunned.

Until Liu Hao heard the news and rushed over.

Liu Hao is a friend of the fiancé's classmate of one of my female friends, and I have long forgotten how I got acquainted, and I don't bother to think about it. He was a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology, and when he learned that I was suffering from a mental illness of compulsive counting, but he resisted seeing a psychiatrist, he took me as a subject to study. He cared about everything about me, my diet, my hobbies, changes in my physical health and mood swings、、、、、、

I hate that people are nice to me, but Liu Hao is an exception because he cares about me like a guinea pig in a laboratory.

I am sure that there is no man in my life who is romantic enough to give me flowers, let alone a man who loves me enough to give his life, and there is no knight in my life at all.

Yes, I did love a few men, but they never seemed to really love me, and I didn't bother to love them later. Now I only associate with people who don't love me. My relationships with them always ended after I went to sleep, and I never got real joy in them. Every time I fell in love with a different person, I seemed hysterical, as if trying to make up for something, or struggling to find something, or trying to prove something. Sometimes I suspect that my whole body is empty, heartless, and filled with rotten cotton covers, like a shoddy doll on a stall. Or maybe I died a long time ago and am now just pretending to be alive - for all those who think I'm alive.

But today I received a bouquet of forget-me-nots, and the flower giver wrote such a romantic and bloody text.

At this moment, this bouquet of flowers sticking to the blood of knights is sitting on the windowsill, just like the blue flower shirt worn by the little nanny in the countryside, revealing the childish spirit everywhere. I couldn't understand what they meant, so I had to count them, one, two, three、、、、、、 and when they swayed in the wind, I had to count them all over again, and if I hadn't been hungry, I think I would have counted them until I was old.

This night, for the first time, the "Counting Men Hypnotic Count" failed, and I couldn't even count from 1 to 2. As soon as I close my eyes, the blue-purple stars are swaying in front of my eyes, making me dizzy. I finally felt a little sleepy, and there was a "buzz" in my head, as if I was invaded by evil spirits, and a chill went straight from the soles of my feet to my heart. I struggled to open my eyes and saw that the bouquet of forget-me-nots had literally become an embellishment to my shirt, and the owner of the shirt was pressing down on me, making it impossible for me to breathe. I was convinced that it was not a dream, for I could clearly see his thick lips and fleshy eyes. Not only that, but I could even smell the salty, wet smell of him.

The next morning, I checked the door locks and windows to make sure that there was no sign of outsiders, and the small blue flowers on the windowsill swayed slightly in the sunlight, showing a kind of innocent desire to cover up, so I threw them into the trash without hesitation.

Apparently they were not satisfied with the "home" of the garbage cans, so they continued to harass me with their owners night after night. Every time the drowsiness was about to come, they would appear on the windowsill, coldly tormenting my soul for their master, admiring my hysterical cries.

I've never been more afraid of sleep than I am now. To get out of it all, I brought home a man I didn't know well. That night, he pretended to look at me gently, and I pretended to look at him gently, and we went grocery shopping, cooked, had a candlelight dinner, and then hugged and danced to ambiguous music. But in the middle of the night, the man suddenly became blind and deaf. When that hateful blue shirt struck again, he turned a blind eye and did not hear it. In a daze, I saw him roll over in a dream, gently hug me, and then wake up in a "surge", sit up in a daze, look at me in horror, and finally run away like a desperate person.

The man I brought back the next night was still the same.

Liu Hao was happy that I took the initiative to call him for help, and he thought it was a good opportunity for me to start formal treatment. I smiled miserably at the excitement in his eyes, not knowing where to start. It may be harder to convince a materialist doctor that my ghost experience is than to ascend to heaven. These so-called psychiatrists and would-be psychologists are always self-righteously blaming all people's abnormal perceptions as hallucinations, and it's normal for mental patients to hallucinate – they often say so.

Sure enough, as I imagined, after listening to my description, Liu Hao smiled faintly and said, "You think you have met a ghost, don't you?" ”

"Yes."

"That's a nightmare." "Most people have experienced it, especially when they are anxious or tired," he said blisteringly. It's normal to have hallucinations during nightmares. ”

"But it's the same hallucination every night, is that normal?"

Liu Hao asked meaningfully: "Is that forget-me-not that stimulating you?" Are you trying to forget someone? ”

Am I trying to forget someone? I don't really know, my memory has been messy all these years, I just know that I like to count.

One, two, three, four, five, go up the mountain to fight tigers;

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, where is my friend?

"Would you mind 、、、、、、 having my mentor give you a hypnosis session?" Maybe that'll get you out of that dream、、、、、、"

I looked at him stunned, worried. Hypnosis? It meant that I gave my whole body and soul to someone else.

"I'm thinking about thinking about it、、、、、、" After saying this, I suddenly felt panicked, and then ran away on the grounds that the club had something to do.

When I left, Liu Hao gave me some drugs with a sedative effect, saying that they could help me sleep.

"Relax--inhale--exhale--" I lectured the women absentmindedly, closing my eyes tightly and refraining myself from counting them. Or when I don't count, I think of something useful.

"Lie flat on the mat - relax - keep the mind calm - inhale - exhale - breathe - " Liu Hao's medicine is so effective that it makes me feel the urge to sleep anytime and anywhere、、、、、、

When I opened my eyes again, I found the trainees surrounding me with frightened expressions on their faces. When they saw me wake up, they screamed and retreated, and then scattered.

I staggered to my feet and stared blankly at the empty practice room, but the mirror in the practice room was not empty, and through the mirror, I saw a man at the door, with the blue and purple forget-me-not printed on his shirt, but when I turned around, he disappeared again like a ghost.

I was mercilessly dismissed by the club because of this small accident in class, and the sloppy woman in the personnel department said: "It's not that we are desperate to drive you away because of such a small mistake, but that no student wants to take your class anymore!" “

"Why?"

"You ask them to go!" The sloppy woman crossed her arms and shoulders and cautiously stepped back, keeping a safe distance from me.

I asked them? When they saw me, they ran away, and I didn't bother to chase after me.

But since then, the forget-me-not man has not only appeared in my nightmares, he has infiltrated my life openly, his ghost has not disappeared, lurking around me, appearing in the mirror the moment I rinse off the facial cleanser on my face and open my eyes; In my peripheral vision as I count the poles; Appeared in the crowd as I wandered aimlessly down the street.

He always appears when I am not expecting him, and disappears the moment I see him. I can always catch his shadow, but I can't find his people.

Of course, he may not be human.

Finally, I decided to go into hypnosis.

Liu Hao's mentor is a kind old man, with gentle eyes and a low voice, which makes people feel safe and reliable. He looked at me as if he was looking at an old friend he had known for many years, and then he asked Liu Hao: "This is the girl you often mention to me?" “

Liu Hao nodded: "Hmm." I hope you can help her. “

The old man smiled and nodded, and said very confidently: "If you can't trust others, can't you trust me?" “

Practice teaches us that overconfidence is not a good thing.

When I woke up from the comfortable and soft chair, I found that Liu Hao's mentor was the same as before, and after only 2 hours, he became so anxious and uneasy, and his previous self-confidence was gone.

He looked at me, nervously took a few steps back, his lips and fingers trembling together, his eyes full of fear, and muttered, "You're still alive、、、、、、"

"Am I not alive?"

"No、、、、、、," said the old man, "you rest here first." After saying this, he hurriedly pulled Liu Hao into another hut and didn't come out until an hour later.

And Liu Hao was obviously infected with his mentor's fear in this hour.

"What the hell is going on?" The more they do, the more I want to know.

Liu Hao said vaguely: "Hypnosis seems to have failed 、、、、、、." “

"Like? What do you mean? “

"You didn't say anything, you didn't do anything during hypnosis、、、、、、"

"I still don't understand 、、、、、、"

Liu Hao swallowed his saliva, his eyes were full of strangeness, and he said with difficulty: "When you are hypnotized, you are like a dead man、、、、、、"

Dead person!

Yes, I said earlier, I died; As I said a long time ago, when I die, I may not come back to life at all.

When I left Liu Hao's studio, I heard the old man muttering, "It's weird, it's a strange thing." “

I stood blankly on the side of the road, looking at the cars speeding by.

A man passed me with a woman in his arms, suddenly stopped, opened his mouth wide, and pointed at me: "You 、、、、、、 you、、、、、、 what's wrong with you?" “

"What's wrong with me?" I turned around slowly, letting my long hair hang down in front of my face. I think I'm kind of like the female ghost in a horror movie, where the man screams, leaves the woman with a puzzled face, and runs for his life in the crowd.

Oh! I remember him--- my first love, the graduate student with whom I had a one-night affair and then disappeared.

What does he run? Am I really going to eat people at night?

Whatever! I continued to cross the street and started counting the cars.

One, two, three, the thick-lipped man smiling across the road.

Four, five, six, the thick-lipped man was gone;

Seven, eight, nine, he reappeared, holding small blue-purple flowers in his hands.

He just stood across the road, hiding behind the whizzing cars, and disappearing in the screaming horns.

Who is he?

What is he going to do?

He smiled slightly, and suddenly lay in the middle of the road, half with his eyes open, half with his mouth open, and the cars were oblivious to him.

I walked to the middle of the road, and the horn on the road became even more terrible, only to feel that my arm was grabbed by the person behind me, dragging me back.

It's Liu Hao.

"What do you want to do!" He shouted.

I was at a loss, what did I just do?

Liu Hao whispered in my ear: "Don't be afraid, even if you fall asleep, you will definitely be cured." ”

"What happens after I fall asleep?!"

He looked at me and said nothing.

What happens when I fall asleep?

I bought a camera to put on my bedside, I had to know what had happened to the countless sleepless nights, I had to know what scared away the men I had loved, I had to know what frightened my female students, I had to know why I had put that old psychologist away.

If I do change after sleep, then I have to know what I have become.

After the night, I sat in front of the computer and saw my previous self lying restlessly in bed, my eyelids blinking and my mouth muttering - I was counting my own man.

Counting and counting, I rolled over in exhaustion and returned to my original lying position. At this point, my lips stopped moving, my palms loosened slightly, and I knew I was about to fall asleep.

But without warning, I opened my eyes, and the eyeballs were wrapped in two eyelids, dull, like a dead fish on a chopping board. I saw myself lying upright on the bed with my eyes half open and my mouth open, with no expression on my face, like a dead corpse.

I screamed and jumped out of my computer chair, the coffee cup on the table smashing to pieces. This horrible sleep reminds me of a man, a man who has been dead for ten years.

My sleep is exactly like his death!

When he died, he was like me when I was asleep, with my eyes half open and my mouth half open, and I couldn't close it.

Die with a grievance or everlasting regret.

Memories swarmed in like a flood that burst the embankment - Li Lanlan was dead.

Li Lanlan is deaf and mute, unable to hear, speak, or read, which makes him look like a mentally handicapped person.

When I was a sophomore in high school, he was helping his mother sell fish at a nearby vegetable market, and his body was full of salty, wet smell all year round. The kids in the neighborhood were always bullying him and teasing him, except me.

Actually, I didn't deliberately treat him, I just smiled at him when I bought fish, I smiled at everyone, I was a polite child since I was a child. That's all, it made him grateful to me. He would wait at the school gate on a rainy day, throw me an umbrella and turn around and run; He would help me choose the biggest and best one when I bought fish, but he didn't charge a penny more; He would stand up when I was entangled by the little ruffians, only to end up scarred himself.

I don't like his "gratitude and gratitude", and I don't like him being kind to me. Because of his kindness to me, I was nicknamed the dumb daughter-in-law.

I began to avoid him and distance myself from him, but he was unrepentant and still had that trademark clean smile on his face, which was heartfelt to me. He is like a knight in a fairy tale, always guarding his princess with all his heart.

At that time, I was in love for the first time, and I was full of expectations for romantic love. I, like all girls, hid in the quilt and secretly looked at Qiong Yao and Xi Juan, happy and crying for the protagonist in it, I longed to meet a prince-like man, held me in the palm of my hand, offered an affectionate kiss, and spent an earth-shattering night.

Li Lanlan held me in the palm of his hand, but he was by no means a prince. Whenever I lay in bed and contemplated those beautiful encounters, his face would pop out unsuspectingly. His thick lips and fleshy eyes were like a ghost, shattering my dreams.

I began to hide from him like the plague and never went to him to buy fish again. He finally understood my disgust for him, and his face showed a sad and lost look.

One day, I walked past his fish stall with my head down. Just as I breathed a sigh of relief, a figure suddenly appeared in front of me, there was a corner, that person was hiding in the corner just now, I was so frightened that I screamed, and when I looked up, it was him, and I took a step back vigilantly. He was a little different today, as if he had been specially picked, his hair had been washed, he was wearing a blue flower shirt, and then, as if by magic, he took out a bouquet of flowers from behind his back, which was a bouquet of small blue and purple flowers, dotted with stars, and very beautiful. It's not a rose, I reluctantly took it, and there was a card in the flower, and the card was written crookedly: For you, I've been trying to learn to write lately. The owner of the flower shop said that this bouquet is called forget-me-not, and legend has it that a knight gave his life to pick it and offer it to his beloved girl. I don't expect you to like it, but I want to be a knight in your life, to protect you, and to be willing to show life for you. I only hope that you don't drive me away from you, and I won't leave you even if I die.

I held the card in a daze, and looked at the thick lips and fleshy eyes in front of me.

I thought of a good idea to get rid of this shadow, my eyes smiled crookedly, I looked at the sun in the sky, took out a pen and paper from my school bag, and wrote to him: Saturday, I don't have classes in the afternoon, go climbing?

In this way, we climbed the mountain together, one after the other, pretending not to know each other, there were many people climbing the mountain on weekends, and I was afraid of running into acquaintances.

He followed me, and at last I came to a cliff where there was no one, and in order not to arouse his suspicion, I stopped under a tree, and pretended to be cool, and he was opposite me, and the branches of the tree blocked his face, and also blocked my face. I saw him take out a small notebook from his pocket, hesitantly handed it over, and pinched a pen on it, I understood that this was to talk. I took it、、、、、、

I don't remember exactly what we had talked about that day, but I just remember that I walked to the edge of the cliff and admired the scenery in the distance, and he also stood up, and then I pushed him down while he was not looking、、、、、、

He fell to his death, his unwillingness and surprise all on his face—half open eyes, half open mouth, unable to close.

There were many onlookers, and I was among them, and in order to show that it had nothing to do with me, I innocently counted the little blue-purple flowers in my arms—the bouquet of blue-purple flowers he gave me, one, two, three、、、、、、

Now, I finally know who the man I miss every night is. Li Lanlan's words count, he didn't leave me even if he died, whenever I fell asleep, he would appear and scare away every man around me with his death.