A Transient Visitor in Life 生命中的過客
A Transient Visitor in Life 生命中的過客
◎ Joanne Pete
When he told me he was leaving I felt like a vase which has just smashed. There were pieces of me all over the tidy, tan tiles. He kept talking, telling me why he was leaving, explaining it was for the best, and I could do better, it was his fault and not mine. I had heard it before many times and yet somehow was still not immune; perhaps one did not become immune to such felony.
當(dāng)他告訴我他要離開時，我感覺自己像是一個摔碎的花瓶。那潔凈的棕黃色的地毯上布滿了我的碎片。他一直在講話，告訴我他為什么要走，并解釋說這是最好的選擇，我可以做得更好，這一切是他的錯誤，與我無關(guān)。這些我以前聽過很多遍了，但我的情緒還是無法穩(wěn)定；也許一個人不可能面對如此巨大的打擊還能產(chǎn)生免疫力。
He left and I tried to get on with my life. I filled the kettle and put it on to boil, I took out my old red mug and filled it with coffee watching as each coffee granule slipped in to the bone china. That was what my life had been like, endless omissions of coffee granules, somehow never managing to make that cup of coffee.
他走了，我試圖讓自己的生活恢復(fù)正常。我把水壺灌滿，然后去燒水，我把自己紅色的舊水杯拿了出來，將咖啡倒進(jìn)去，眼睛盯著每一顆咖啡?；溥M(jìn)骨灰瓷的杯子中。那就是我曾經(jīng)的生活，如同咖啡粒無休止地疏漏，永遠(yuǎn)沖不成那杯咖啡。
Somehow when the kettle piped its finishing warning I pretended not to hear it. That’s what Mike’s leaving had been like, sudden and with an awful finality. I would rather just wallow in uncertainty than have things finished. I laughed at myself. Imagine getting all philosophical and sentimental about a mug of coffee. I must be getting old.
水燒開了，壺尖聲鳴響時，我假裝沒有聽見。那聲音就像邁克的離去，突然且?guī)в幸环N可怕的命中注定。我寧愿搖擺在不確定性之中，也不愿一切事情都有定論。我嘲笑自己。想象跟一大杯咖啡有關(guān)的哲學(xué)及傷感的思想。我一定是老了。
And yet it was a young woman who stared back at me from the mirror. A young woman full of promise and hope, a young woman with bright eyes and full lips just waiting to take on the world. I never loved Mike anyway. Besides there are more important things. More important than love, I insist to myself firmly. The lid goes back on the coffee just like closure on the whole Mike experience.
但鏡子那邊卻有一個年輕的女人回頭看我。一個大有前途和希望的女人，一個等待將自己明亮的雙眼和豐滿的唇部展現(xiàn)給世界的女人。無論如何我從來沒有愛過邁克，而且還有更重要的事情。我堅(jiān)定地對自己說，還有比愛更重要的東西。眼睛回過去看看了咖啡，就像是要封鎖與邁克有關(guān)的所有經(jīng)歷。
He doesn’t haunt my dreams as I feared that night. Instead I am flying far across fields and woods, looking down on those below me. Suddenly I fall to the ground and it is only when I wake up that I realize I was shot by a hunter, brought down by the burden of not the bullet but the soul of the man who shot it. I realize later, with some degree of understanding, that Mike was the hunter holding me down and I am the bird that longs to fly. The next night my dream is similar to the previous nights, but without the hunter. I fly free until I meet another bird who flies with me in perfect harmony. I realize with some relief that there is a bird out there for me, there is another person, not necessarily a lover perhaps just a friend, but there is someone out there who is my soul mate. I think about being a broken vase again and realize that I have glued myself back together, what Mike has is merely a little part of my time in earth, a little understanding of my physical being. He has only, a little piece of me.
那晚他并沒有如我所擔(dān)心地出現(xiàn)在我夢里。相反，我飛過了很遠(yuǎn)的田野和樹林，看著下面的一切。突然我掉在了地上，直到醒來我才意識到我被一個獵人射中了，并不是被子彈的重量拉了下來，而是由于獵人靈魂的重量。此后帶著幾分感悟，我明白了邁克就是那個把我拉下來的獵人，而我是那只渴望飛翔的鳥兒。第二天晚上我的夢和前幾夜十分相似，但不同的是沒有了獵人。我自由地飛翔，直到我遇到了另外一只能與我攜手共進(jìn)的鳥兒。帶著幾分欣慰，我明白遠(yuǎn)處有一只我的小鳥，有另外一個人，不一定非得是情人，或許是朋友，但一定有一個人是我靈魂的伴侶。我又把自己想成破碎的花瓶，然后意識到我已經(jīng)把自己粘合到了一起，邁克僅僅是我生命的很小一部分，他僅僅了解我的表面，他僅僅只是我生命中的小小一部分。
