◎Life is like an ungraspable breath of wind◎
—In the dream, it was a mundane dog-walking routine. Li Xia glided along on her skateboard while Bread’s stubby little legs pumped furiously at her side. The pond, flower beds, crowds, and shifting shadows all flashed past. A spring breeze pierced right through their bodies as they pressed onward, ever onward. Ahead loomed an indistinct white glow, blurry and intangible, the unknown waiting beyond. Together they screamed and laughed, plunging straight into it without a second thought.
The moment they burst through the light, Li Xia jolted awake.
Her eyes snapped open, and for several minutes, she hovered in that disorienting limbo between reality and dream.
She fixed her gaze on the door, staring for a long while, but no sound came from the hallway beyond. Her hand reached instinctively to the side of the bed, groping for the warm, breathing fluffiness that wasn’t there.
Li Xia closed her eyes and let out a slow breath, pulling her empty hand back.
Every single day since Bread had left, Li Xia dreamed of it. Tears came every time. She found herself back by the gurney in the resuscitation room, teetering on the brink of death, watching it struggle for breath with blood staining its legs—reliving that helpless day over and over as its lively pants faded to nothing.
She stooped to gather up that cold, rigid little body, murmuring its name against its ear. Its eyes stared open, stubbornly unresponsive.
The dream played out like a lantern show, night after night before Li Xia’s eyes.
Truth be told, Li Xia could accept this cruel, drawn-out torment.
Bread’s death was her fault.
She saw the dream as punishment for her mistake. Each morning, she woke repeating “I’m sorry” silently in her mind a thousand times over.
But this time, there had been no tears, no raw-throated sobs—not even sorrow. It had been joyful, leaving Li Xia strangely unsettled upon waking.
She didn’t know if she should feel glad or grieve.
If this was the onset of forgetting, Li Xia wouldn’t stand for it.
She was terrified—truly terrified—that someday Bread simply wouldn’t show up in her dreams anymore.
If it was her brain acclimating to the loss, filtering out the pain after nearly twenty-one days—long enough to form a habit—then maybe this happy dream was its way of healing her psyche.
Bread had been such an obedient, warm, adorable “little kid.” Was it helping her move on, even now?
Everything in the bedroom that had belonged to Bread—the pads, the toys, the photos—Li Xia had forced herself to pack away into a box after it was gone. Zhao Xiaolan must have noticed, because out of deference to her feelings, she had moved the box somewhere else. Li Xia had no idea where and hadn’t bothered to ask. Now her room held no trace of it at all.
Li Xia glanced around the hollow space, then the next instant, pried off her phone case and slipped out a hidden Polaroid from behind the device.
It was a snapshot from Bread’s fourth birthday.
She had taken the picture herself.
Two colorful candles stood atop the tiny cake, flanked by carrot letter cards. In the center, Bread sported a golden party hat, its eyes sparkling as it stuck out its tongue at the camera.
Li Xia had baked the cake from scratch, blending goat milk powder and chicken breast with pureed carrots and broccoli. She had meant to carve out “HAPPY” in carrot letters for that personal touch, but her hands were all thumbs. After mangling the first two letters, her patience gave out. So Bread’s birthday cake ended up with a bold uppercase “HA” front and center.
When people asked, Li Xia would explain with a straight face that it stood for hoping her little Bread would be happy every day.
The friends who had come to celebrate all burst out laughing.
“See?” Li Xia said. “‘HA’ gets the same point across as ‘HAPPY.'”
That day, she had covered Bread’s eyes with her hand, giving it a moment to make a wish. Of course, Bread had no clue about wishing—it was its owner borrowing the leaping flames and the chorus of the birthday song to bless the tiny creature cradled in her palm with health and safety.
She could still remember how Bread had licked her palm in excitement afterward, as if it somehow sensed its own joy.
That had been less than twenty days ago, and now all she had left were memories and regrets. Regrets for getting lazy and not finishing that “happy.”
Life is like an ungraspable breath of wind.
Li Xia stared at the photo, her eyes growing hot and prickly.
She drew it closer and pressed a gentle kiss to it.
–
By the time full daylight arrived, life carried on unchanged.
With F’s voice messages and texts filling every spare moment, Li Xia felt like a flattened sponge gradually springing back.
Buoyed by the dream’s unexpected lightness—no longer so crushing—her steps felt much sprightlier on the way to work each day.
She was getting better, she thought.
Or at least, her life had reverted from anguish to the everyday grind. Back to coming home from work with no puppy barreling into her, waking up without a tongue-lashing good morning, skateboarding without a furry shadow chasing behind, changing shoes without a insistent paw tugging at her leg. Dull, ordinary normalcy.
Bread was gone. Acceptance was all she could manage.
Maybe. Li Xia wasn’t entirely sure. Short videos and social feeds full of other people’s pet pics still gave her pause, as did the short-legged corgis she spotted in parks or on sidewalks—their heart-shaped tails impossible to ignore. She would halt for a few seconds without thinking, crouch down with the urge to pet. Only when it trotted off tail-wagging or its owner called it away—its name so different from hers—did the truth hit: she had lost her own dog.
Thursday rolled around again.
The younger colleagues were already plotting Friday night’s fun: script kill, Werewolf Kill, maybe mahjong. Chu Xiaowen patted her belly and declared she was too swollen for after-work meetings, suggesting a couple rounds of killing instead.
She nudged Li Xia. “You in?”
Friday night meant rewatching the Stranger Things 4 finale with F—he had some plot threads to unpack for her—so Li Xia shook her head. “Next time.”
“How many ‘next times’ is that now?”
“Got another date? Come on, fess up.”
Chu Xiaowen’s eyebrow arched suggestively.
“You guessed even without me spilling?” Li Xia squished her cheeks and asked, “That obvious, huh?”
“Two big words written right on your face.”
“What?”
Li Xia had deep, soulful eyes, her lashes fluttering like tiny opening palms when she blinked. In moments of curiosity or confusion, her pupils dilated, bright and clear. Chu Xiaowen poked her cheeks—left, right—teasing on purpose.
“Ex-pect-ing.”
“Ah, really? Really? No way?”
She fussed with her stray bangs, as if to hide her face. She missed her cheeks entirely, but her ears turned pink in a rush.
Chu Xiaowen cracked up laughing.
Li Xia was looking forward to it, all right—but not the binge-watch. After F’s persistent prying, she had decided to share some old photos of Bread with him and lay out a tragedy that wanted no pity.
Or put another way, Li Xia resolved to bury the rotting fruit clutched in her hand back into the earth.
One more person in the know wouldn’t change a thing.
Friday.
A light drizzle in the morning gave way to sun by noon. After lunch, Li Xia took a digestive stroll downstairs. Lately, she kept spotting a tricolor corgi pup loitering outside the lobby. Its coat was decently clean, but she’d never seen an owner—was it a stray? Feeding it sent it scampering off like mad. More than once, she had burned through her lunch break down there playing with it. The black patch covering half its back stirred a poetic ache in her, lush like you, and she snapped a few extra pictures.
【Look! My little dog!】
She fired it off to F on a whim.
By her clock, it was probably his morning. He usually greeted her with good morning then, kicking off their chat marathon. Guessing he was up, Li Xia bombarded him:
【To clock out on time, I knocked out a full day’s work this morning】
【Rat-rat approves.jpg】
……
【Teacher Fang, sun hit the East One zone yet?】
【Rise and shine】
……
【Huh?】
【Busy??】
……
Li Xia scrolled back through their chat and realized F hadn’t responded since the night before. She had crashed early and not thought twice.
Today, though—right up until quitting time—her phone stayed dark, no glow from the one person she hoped for. That’s when it sank in: waiting was utterly pointless.
Li Xia shouldered her bag and eyed the fiery gold sky beyond the window. Summer days felt impossibly long all of a sudden.
She never imagined the day would come when F turned into that same ungraspable wind—
Silent. Vanished without a trace.