[This article details the experiences of the enlighteners of the Watchmen movement, and it is also the first penetration of that force.] 】

In the dark night, when I woke up from my dream, the claustrophobic dream still tugged at me, like countless tiny hooks still piercing my flesh, and I rubbed my face a few times with both hands.

The darkness was all around me, and I got out of bed softly and walked to the window, where the loneliness of the night was still on the street, not even a wild cat had visited, and the street looked like it had lost its breath.

The darkness at my fingertips makes it difficult for me to completely get rid of the trouble of dreams, the sense of reality is always unable to be smoothly inhaled and exhaled, dreams happen in a dark tunnel, the street downstairs is somewhat similar to the tunnel, dark, silent, color, sound, temperature, touch are all stripped away, it is such a street, it is across my eyes.

After standing in front of the window and watching for a long time, I began to feel like a man's back, and what would be staring at me in the infinite loneliness of the night?

After a toss, I looked at the time of the phone, 2:16, it is a good time for deep sleep, at this time everyone has a dream, good or bad is not so important, dreams are just dreams after all, suddenly, the feeling in the dream is like a tide again flooded me, it is difficult to give up but want to stay away, I shook my head, just empty stomach, so I got dressed and went downstairs to find some supper to eat.

Closing the door and going downstairs, the air was a little cold, the streets were silent, the street lights were mostly off, and the others were dying, leaving only the faint lights, which made the night even more difficult to resist.

I couldn't see any shops that were still open, and I didn't have a place to choose from, so I simply started walking down the street, thinking to myself: it's best to find one, and if you have nowhere to go all the way, it doesn't feel bad to just walk down the street and come back.

Suddenly, I felt a little emotional: judging by the difficulty of getting there, the streets of the middle of the night are more difficult for people like me to reach than Paris and London.

I am afraid that the sense of time in the dark night is a little out of balance, I have not met a junction for a long time, the street in front of me is lonely and stubborn extends into the gloom ahead, although the road ahead is not very clear and even a little frightening, but I don't plan to turn back, the situation in front of me is of great practical significance to me, usually I am not a person who likes to compromise with myself.

In other words, it's hard for me to convince myself when I should have been that going downstairs to the street late at night, eating a late-night snack is only the secondary, and that wanting to walk the street is the first intention, just as the street seems to have no end now.

After walking a little further in the sound of his own footsteps, the front suddenly lit up, and there was a rather warm light source in the hazy night, and the yellow light stood strong there, different from the street lamp, it was a shop along the street.

I quickened my pace, the distance between me and the light source was getting shorter, and when I saw the shop, I didn't feel a sense of enlightenment, because it was a watch repair shop, and it was the first time I had seen it on this street, and the shop was not big, it couldn't even be called a shop, it was just a stall on the street.

A counter, the wall behind which was covered with clocks of various styles, several of which were almost unreminiscent of clocks, and between the wall and the counter was a space for only one person, and there sat an elegant man, who was looking at me, and it was hard to let go of such a gaze in the middle of the night on the deserted street.

It's like meeting an old man you haven't seen for many years on a distant and desolate alien planet, and how can a watch shop stay open for this time? Could it be that time stops when it closes?

I allowed myself to think wildly, and I was thinking about how to say hello, so that if I walked away without a sound, I would feel weird, and in the middle of the night, whether in my dream or in reality, I had to meet everything that came my way.

"It's still open, it's hard work," I said to the man as I stepped into the warm light.

"It doesn't matter if it's open, when is the door closed? I rely on time to open a shop," he didn't smile, and his words were quite indifferent, which made me regret it a little.

"Oh, that's true, I wish you a lot of money," I said, and I walked forward.

"This is the end, and there is still a way forward?" His voice was lazy, reminding me of my classmates when I was a student, and the girl's appearance had long been drowned in my memory, except that she pointed to a line on the desk and said, "This is it, don't go any further."

There was no blockage in front of me, and there was no end to the road at all, so I turned around and asked the man, "Where is the end?" ”。

"What I can be responsible for is the end here, and I can't control anything further," he looked helpless, as if I had done something irreparable.

"Isn't it necessary to repair clocks and watches? Still have your peers ahead? I don't understand what he means by "responsible," it's a rather point-inducing word.

"Imagination is very lacking, you go back to this light first, it's not good to stay in front for a long time" His tone was much softer, like a good teacher.

I returned to the light-filled place, his counter high above the top, a somewhat repulsive posture, this was a strange shop, and it was confusing at every turn.

"Xiaosheng, do you know what the universe means?" Voices came from above, the universe? It's really strange to talk about such a strange question when you open your mouth.

"Tell me about it," I replied out of pure curiosity.

"The universe is the parallel of time and space, and the darkness and obscurity ahead of this road are beyond the limits of the universe, and you can't cope with it."

"Beyond the limits of the universe? It's the first time I've heard of it, but it doesn't seem bad, I'll just walk slowly" There are many people in the world who like to talk highly, and I feel a little sad for him.

"I'm not staying here to stop people passing by, the fate of others has nothing to do with me, you need to understand this, what I want to talk about in the future is my own job, you also have to listen well, my work revolves around time, a person can only accept my service once in his life, I open the door for business without asking for money, only collect the courage to resist time and the wisdom to know how to let go of time."

After he finished speaking, I barely grasped the point, and even had reason to believe that he was going to sell me something next, could this person be a pyramid schemer?

"Next, I will introduce you to my main product, and the only one - domino pointer, the so-called time is like a domino, everything begins when the first piece is toppled, and this pointer allows you to return to one of the countless dominoes that fell before, in short, you can return to the past time, heartbeat?"

He was holding an old compass in his hand, with a wooden frame, and a glass ball hanging in the middle, and inside the glass ball was a pointer, and I could not see the mechanical principle in it, perhaps some simple construction theory was hidden, but it was obscured by the illusion of profundity on the surface.

It turned out to be a scammer, "No wonder you do business late at night, how many people have you deceived?" I said to him.

"In a sense, I am indeed cheating, making people go back to the past with the existing consciousness, but absent from the future life, no one has praised my service, even if I let people go back to a certain part of their past life, but the laws of the world are like this, and I can only follow.

There are 100% good things in this world, but unfortunately, there is also time," he said seriously and meaningfully, but I didn't intend to believe it.

"I'm still"

"What are you, you can't do this job at dawn, tell me when and where you want to go," he began to urge me.

I looked around the street, there was absolute silence, the expected wild cat never appeared, it seemed that there was an invisible wall of copper and iron clinging to the street, what am I going out for? Looking for food, in fact, just to walk the streets late at night, why can't I even be calm with myself?

When, where?

"Can a person's life really be changed by going back to the past?" I looked up and asked him.

"Xiaosheng, the fallen dominoes can't be lifted up by brute force, this bit of news is an extra gift from me."

My past is like passing through a windless zone, neither rushing nor stormy, most of the memories have been blurred, there are still some unforgettable, but I don't want to go back again, some things become meaningful because of the refusal to turn back from time, but I can't trust him at all, go back to the past? It's okay to deceive small children.

"Is it possible to go back to your dreams?" I asked him.

When I woke up, I was always nostalgic for the dark environment of my dreams in a faint way, not because I liked that place, of course, but because I knew that there was something unfinished there, and I had to go back, although the way to go back was to wait for me to fall asleep again, and there was luck, and I asked him this just to get out without demolishing his situation.

"It's the first time I've had a situation like you, but it's hard for me, just report the time and place," he said firmly.

I thought it was only a half-joke to go back to my dream, that if he was clever he would have rejected me, and that he and I would have been at peace, and that I had gone on my night road, and that he had continued his so-called business, which seemed somewhat poetic in the cold night.

"It's the first time I've seen you like this" I don't know how to respond, it's ridiculous.

"We only have the possibility of "one", and after this time you can only go all the way, this is the law of the universe, it cannot be changed, it cannot be changed," he said.

"What a law of the universe, if it is true as you say, then what kind of existence are you?"

"You are really different, the face of the world is either greedy, crazy or disdainful, you are the second person who asks about my existence, I am the same person as you, but the work I do is different, I also have to abide by strict orders and rules, the same self-discipline, like you see, I also have to work overtime all night like this."

I took a step back so that I could see him behind the counter more clearly and comprehensively, no matter what the inference was about him, he was not easy to believe, his finger-long hair was a little messy, his appearance was not ugly, his facial features were sharp and angular, and he was a middle-aged man's first-class appearance, not honest and slightly casual.

"52 minutes ago, in the dark space of my dream, I don't know if it was a tunnel or a street without light," I said, I couldn't understand what he was saying, but it was necessary to move on, move forward or believe him for the time being.

He began to fiddle with the wall clocks on the wall behind him, large and small, some regular, some barely thinking of them, and he fiddled with them all, and then returned his attention to the domino hands in front of him.

"It wasn't called Domino at first, that's the name I gave it, I knew it wasn't going to be mine forever, it was just a tool, but I like to call it Domino" He held the wooden frame in his hands, staring at the hands that had begun to tremble slightly, as if waiting for something.

"Yes, take this, let's move forward" He handed me a Chicken McNuggets as a McDonald's clerk handed me the domino pointer, a little lighter than expected.

"Didn't you say that it was beyond the limits of the universe and couldn't be visited?" I asked him, pointing ahead.

"Of course you can't break through like a fly without a head, you've now made a detour from the outside, this is a classic tactic of ancient warfare, good luck, you will break the pointer when you want to come back."

"This? How do you do business if it's broken? I asked him with my pointer up.

"That's just a routine operation, and it won't have any impact on the future opening," he said.

I nodded, and walked back down the street with Domino in my hand, nothing had changed around me, and there had been no signs of relevance to what he had said, no, how could I take it seriously?

I glanced down at the domino in my hand, it was a little magical, I began to feel driven in my hand, like feeling the flow of water from elsewhere in the water while swimming, an irresistible but harmless feeling.

The front is still lifeless, there is no light and no sober people and things, on such a road, patience will be worn out sooner or later, it is better to return as soon as possible, if the man asks, I will say that this broken thing in my hand is broken, or do I not shy away from demolishing him?

I was walking aimlessly, and suddenly I noticed an underground crossing in the middle of the road, surrounded by fences on three sides, and the black entrance was opening its mouth, I didn't notice the situation in the middle of the road, when did this entrance appear? Or has it always been?

The possibility of being there all the time is almost zero, and the lane, which was originally only two cars wide, is now half taken up by such an entrance, leaving a width that cannot be passed by cars at all, and there is no way to really implement such a road design, right?

A faint drive began to push me towards the big black mouth, and I was a little surprised, things undeniably began to be different, and I couldn't deny all the things that men said, but I still couldn't accept that I could go back to my dreams, where should I be in what kind of identity?

I walked down the roadside steps, to the underground entrance, and as I expected, a descending stone staircase was hidden in the indifferent darkness.

I asked myself, but the correct answer was obviously not available, the appearance of the entrance was contrary to normal logic, and the man's words were equally unreasonable, I glanced at the domino in my hand again, the sense of reality had been lost, and I felt that I was being held hostage by this guy.

The steps were normal, the darkness was normal, there was no smell, there was no sound, and this was what it was like to enter the underpass, and I went from being cautious at first to becoming bold and hasty later.

Because the steps seem to be endless, as if as long as I continue to walk into the darkness, the steps will appear out of thin air, and there is no change other than that, the steps are desperately copying for me, just when I was disturbed and irritable, I felt that there was a fit happening in the dark, and it was connected, this is my dream!

There was no longer any reason not to go on, I clenched the domino in my hand, and if it shattered, it would be over.

The stairs were finally blocked by an iron door, and in the darkness I felt the doorknob, twisted it down hard, and with a crisp click, the door was opened, and the light came through the crack in the open door, an alluring light.

I opened the door, and the scene in front of me made me go from strange to familiar, and from familiar to unfamiliar, and I walked in and silently closed the door.

"Come back, son, the meal is on the table, wash your hands and eat directly, my father and I have to catch a 2 o'clock plane, and there are a lot of things to be cleaned up" The mother walked from the kitchen to the living room between words, and then from the living room to the bedroom.

"Daddy went to refuel the car, right?" I asked, and I didn't have the slightest desire to pick up chopsticks in the face of the food on the table.

"How do you know? Met him? Mother took out the folded clothes from the bedroom and put them in the suitcase on the floor of the guest room.

"No, guess," I casually pulled up a chair and sat down.

"Why don't you eat, you don't have an appetite?" My mother asked me as she stood next to the suitcase.

"No, can this trip be cancelled?" I said, staring at the suitcase next to her.

"Of course not, it's not just about traveling, Dad's work is also involved, he's going to spend two weeks in the Amazon rainforest, I don't like it very much, but it's better than staying in an airtight office" Mom started switching back and forth between rooms again, and I just sat there and watched her, recording her every movement and expression with my eyes.

Eventually, the suitcase was zipped up and placed on her mother's lap, and she was ready for the last touch.

"What's on your mind," my mother asked.

"No," I stood up, walked over and pulled the lever over the box, and said, "Let's go, I'm going to see you off."

"I've watched you grow from such a big age, I don't have to look at your thoughts to feel what you're thinking, say quickly," my mother gestured with her hand and grabbed me.

"It's really nothing, I can't be happy thinking about how I have to be home alone for so long" I pulled the box and walked to the door.

"I'm about to graduate from college and learn how to take care of myself, and I have to know how to let go," my mother said after me.

"Hmm," I replied.

In the parking lot, my father was already waiting for gas, and when he saw me, he didn't say anything, and he still didn't smile coldly. I put my luggage in the trunk, went around the outside of the cab, and said to my father, "I'll drive it, I know the way to the airport."

The father did not answer, but looked at the mother of the co-pilot, who smiled and said, "Just let him drive", and the father opened the door of the cab and said to me, "Are you sure it's okay?" ”。

"No problem, rest assured".

The way to the airport has to pass through the downtown and then get on the viaduct, because it is the lunch break, there are not many cars on the road, when I pass a Wal-Mart supermarket, there is a long queue of waiting cars at the intersection of the traffic light, I glanced at my mother next to me.

Then staring at the tail car waiting for the red light ahead, I released my foot from the accelerator and brake, and let the car move forward at its own speed, my father and mother did not scream until they were about to hit the car in front, but it was too late, our car crashed into the rear of the car in front of me in a calm posture, and the three of us were unharmed due to the slow speed.

After communication and negotiation with the front car, the insurance company's personnel arrived at the scene to deal with it an hour later, my father made a sincere apology for me to the front car, I have never seen him so humble, their plane inevitably missed, had to be rebooked to a flight 3 hours later, when leaving the airport, my mother looked at me meaningfully, brushed my cheek with her hand, and said to me, "I understand." ”

I nodded.

Leaving the airport, I drove straight to the Golden Bull Hotel in the south of the city, where if I remember correctly, there was an engagement banquet at noon today.

The time was just after 2 o'clock, most of the banquets in the hotel had ended, I asked at the front desk how many rooms had not yet been confiscated, and opened the door one by one to check, fortunately, in one of them I saw Li Mai.

The joyful atmosphere at the dinner table was suddenly interrupted by my entry, I walked straight to Li Mai, took her hand and left directly, someone stopped but I blocked it, until we sat in the car, I could look at her seriously, and said to her, "Didn't expect it?" ”

"I don't dare to think about it, what should I do next?" She buckled up and looked ahead.

"Go home," I said.

It seemed like everything was going according to the script, Li Mai and I did everything we wanted to do and should do, and when I woke up, I went to make two cups of coffee, it was raining lightly outside, Li Mai was looking for food in the refrigerator with my shirt and bare legs, I was sitting on the couch and turned on the TV, and several channels were reporting the breaking news of a plane crash to Brazil, which was the same one my parents missed.

"The plane is so dangerous, let's take a boat" Li Mai sat next to me with chocolate.

"It's good not to go out, just press the start button for everything, and the possibility of bad results is inevitable," I said.

"Yes, there is a possibility that I will be kicked out of the house today," Li Mai munched on chocolate.

"I need to apologize to you for this, I woke up late," I put a cup of coffee over.

"I always felt like it wasn't true!" The chocolate just now has been completely crushed into the stomach, and Li Mai is now nested in the sofa, his hands around his folded legs, his head resting on his knees, looking pitiful.

My heart trembled as if the elevator was getting down and I thought, "Did she find out?"

I sat down, took her in my arms, and kissed her forehead and long hair gently, and she began to cry, her sobbing body trembling uncontrollably, and my heart gave birth to a distant melancholy.

We did it again, and afterwards I lay on the bed with her in my arms, the rain outside had not stopped, and the gloomy sky made us feel a lot of happiness in bed, but all the feelings were empty, and they were dreams after all.

"I love rainy days, especially in the afternoon," says Li Mai, her hand on my chest.

"I like this kind of coincidence, to do something big, to do it once, and then just lie there like this," I said.

"But I have a hunch that we're going to be separated, isn't it disappointing?" Li Kaiya fiddled with my weak bottom and said.

"To put it bluntly, we can only enjoy the present, and the past and the future are as illusory as dreams."

"Why do you think we're going to be separated? Think about it," she said.

"Hey, don't do that, do you? Why do you want to think about such a thing," I flicked my finger on her forehead.

"No, you said it, just press the start button and the bad possibility is inevitable," she said.

"That's the logic, but we're going to be optimistic, we're trying to eliminate the entropy between each other," I said.

"Just say something difficult to understand, just be simple and straightforward between us, just like you rush in and pull me out, and when you part, just take a step back like this and let the air in."

As she spoke, she moved away from me, separating us from the small bed, and she said, "How about the Golden Bull Hotel if we were separated?" The tiramisu at that hotel is a delicacy on earth, and since it is inevitable that we will have to separate, it is always necessary to have a good meal, right? ”

Li Mai is such a person, she is always unable to complicate herself, she hates all deliberate or unintentional concealment, even in the face of time, she will not let her principles bow to the other party. We all wanted to be like her at first, and she was the only one who made it.

The wind blowing in from the window was cold, Li Mai got out of bed to get chocolate, she said that she didn't know why she always wanted chocolate today, as if the soul in the body only feeds on chocolate, and today is the time to have a great appetite.

When she came in from outside, she didn't just have chocolate in her hand, she had something else, and she looked at it in front of me and asked, "What is this?" Compass? ”。

I had an ominous premonition, although the man in the watch shop didn't say what would happen if someone touched Domino, but after all, it represented something that broke the order, I wanted to rush over and snatch it from Li Mai, but it turned out that my hunch was right, and it was too late, Li Mai was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly turned into smoke and disappeared, and Domino fell to the ground and shattered.

Darkness descended again, everything around me was instantly engulfed by darkness, I stood quietly in place, not wanting to act too embarrassed, this kind of result I should have expected, it was a dream after all, and if I pressed the start button, the possibility of bad things was inevitable.

The oppressive sense of space is still invisibly pressed, I feel it, the iron door, the wall, not far behind me is the steps, this is where I came, I walked over and unscrewed the iron door, but it didn't move.

"Xiaosheng, why don't you come up soon? You shattered Domino, and the passage was about to disappear," the man's voice came from above.

I shook the iron door again, but I still couldn't shake it, so I had to turn away, I remembered the man's words "100% good things exist, but there is still time", ridiculous, should I blame everything on time?

It didn't take much time to go up, the man was in a wheelchair, he seemed a little speechless when he saw me, it was still late at night outside, and it seemed to be colder than before I went down.

"How?" He asked me.

"No regrets, thank you," I said, and we started walking back, his wheelchair making a mechanical grinding sound.

"What do you think I'm here for?" He glided alongside.

"Follow the rules of all things," I said.

We walked up to the watch shop, and I turned around and asked him, "Are you sure there is no charge for this kind of thing?" ”

"If you want to give, I don't refuse money," he said.

"If you don't give money, you don't get anything," I said.

"That's just your perspective, I said you're the second person who is different, you're also the second person who broke Domino," he said.

"It's not me, it's just an accident that Domino's break"

"But the accident has never happened to anyone else, except for you and her, everyone else has hidden Domino, they can't face the past, so the future in reality has nothing to do with them"

"I'm just a dream, not a real past"

"Where is the boundary between the past and the dream?"

I'm noncommittal, boundary? Perhaps only the present is the boundary of everything, the past has escaped into nothingness, the future is still in a dream, what can we really grasp in our hands?

It was time to say goodbye to the man, I remember saying thank you just now, but thinking about the experience tonight, I felt the need to sincerely thank him one more time, I stood firm, bent down in front of him, and said "thank you".

"Goodbye," he said.

I turned and walked in the direction of home, and the cold of the night hit, and I craned my neck and put my hand in my jacket pocket, and my right hand touched something in the pocket, and I had put domino in it, and what part had fallen from it?

I grabbed what I touched with my hand, it was regular in shape, it was small, I pulled out my hand, put it in front of me and looked at it, it turned out to be a piece of chocolate!

I grabbed the chocolate in my hand and turned to run back as best I could, but the road ahead was dark, the shops were gone, the lights were gone, the men and wheelchairs were gone, the streets were empty, as if a wind had taken everything I wanted to find with me, and I wandered through it, trying to get back more than the past.