Chapter 65 Chapter 64

The dying man opened the notebook, uncapped the pen, paused for a moment, and then began to write. Oddly enough, when the pen runs across the paper, it seems to cover every page from top to bottom with benevolent magic.The words were written loosely and procrastinated, and the letters were large and crooked, as if he had returned to his primary school days through his own time machine. At that point, his parents had some leftover love to spend on him, and his fate as a funny fat boy and possibly gay was not yet sealed.He remembers sitting at the sun-drenched kitchen table, slowly copying word for word from a Tom Swift book on the blue-lined Blue Horse Exercise Book, with With a glass of coke.He could hear his mother's voice from the living room, sometimes she was on the phone, sometimes she was talking to a neighbor.

He's just kid fat, that's what the doctor said.His endocrinology is fine, thank God, and he's very smart! Watching letter after letter form words, word after word form sentences, sentences form paragraphs, each part like a brick in a fortress with a strong wall, and this is language. "It will be my greatest invention," said Tom firmly, "and see what happens when I take out the plate, but for God's sake, don't forget to cover your eyes!" Language bricks.A stone, a leaf, a door that cannot be found.word.world.magic.life and eternity.strength. I don't know who passed it on to him, maybe his grandpa.He was a preacher and people said his sermons were the best...

I watched the characters get better and better as time went by, and watched them connect one by one, no need to print, and now I have to write by hand.Organize ideas and plots, and that's the whole world, yes, nothing but ideas and plots.Finally he got a printer (there was nothing else left of him by then, Amy was in middle school, National Honor Society, cheerleader, drama club, debating team, all A's, her teeth The braces have been removed, her best friend in the world is Frannie Goldsmith... and even though he is 13 years old, his childhood fatness has not gone away, he started Justifying himself in big words, and with a growing dread, he came to realize what life was, and what life actually was: a savage cauldron in which he was the only preacher, slowly suffering).The printer opened up another world for him.He played slowly, very slowly at first, and was incredibly troubled by the constant misprints, as if the machine was intentionally—but very cunningly—against him.But as he became more proficient, he began to understand what the machine was—a magical passage between his mind and the blank paper he wanted to conquer.During the super flu period, he was typing over a hundred words per minute, and finally he was able to keep up with his racing thoughts and write them all down.But he never completely stopped writing by hand, let's not forget and are written by hand.

After years of practice, his handwriting has improved much compared to the handwriting that Franny saw on his account book. The handwriting is not divided into paragraphs, without line spacing, and looks like a large piece.This is writing—terrible, hand-sick writing—and this is a kind of suffering of love.He used the printer willingly and happily, but he always saved the best parts to write by hand. And now, he is going to write his suicide note with his own hands. He looked up and saw little flying insects spinning slowly in the air, like something out of a Randolph Scott Saturday matinee movie, or a Max Brand novel.He wanted to put this in the novel: Harold saw the little flying insects circling in the air, waiting.He looked at them calmly for a while, and then began to write again.

His handwriting regressed to that crooked look again, thinking that the best handwriting he could write with his trembling hands was like this.He recalls painfully the sun-drenched kitchen, the cold Coke, the old musty Tom Swift books.And now, at the last moment, he thought (and wrote) that he could have pleased his parents—he was not so fat, and although physically he was still a virgin, mentally he Definitely not gay. He opened his mouth and said hoarsely, "Top of the world, Mom." He has written half a page.He looked at what he had written, and at his own curled, broken leg.broken?It's such a euphemistic word.It was actually broken into several pieces.

At this moment he has been sitting in the shadow of this stone for 5 days.The last bit of food was gone.If it hadn't been for two heavy showers, he would have died of thirst yesterday, maybe the day before yesterday.His legs had festered and smelled musty, and the swollen flesh stretched his trousers so tight that their khaki trouser legs stretched like sausage casings. Nadina had already left. Harold picked up the pistol beside him and checked the cartridges.Today he has checked over 100 times.When it rained heavily, he carefully protected it so that it would not get wet.There are 3 bullets in the gun.When Nadina leaned over him and said she was about to leave him alone, he shot her twice.

They were on a sharp turn on their motorcycles, with Nadina in front and Harold behind.They were on the continental slope west of Colorado, 70 kilometers from the Utah state line, and there was a small puddle of oil on the outside of the turn, and Harold would always think of that puddle in the days that followed.It seemed so seamless.Why is there a puddle of oil?There was no doubt that no car had been here in two months, and if there was any oil it would have evaporated long ago.It was as if his red eyes had been watching them, waiting for the right moment to create such a puddle of oil that Harold would be out of the game.He was going to let her go over those mountains with him before letting him fall off the cliff.He had, in their words, accomplished his mission.

The motorcycle hit the guardrail, and Harold was bounced like a bug and flipped outside.He felt a sharp pain in his right leg and screamed at the terrible snap of the broken leg.Then a terrible rock came upon him.He heard the sound of rushing water from the bottom of the valley. He landed on the rocks and was thrown sideways into the air.He screamed again, his right leg hit the ground again, and he heard another bone snap.He was flying down, rolling, and suddenly a dead tree blocked him.This tree was struck down by lightning a few years ago. If it weren't for this tree, he would have fallen to the bottom of the valley long ago, and it would not be these small flying insects that came to bite him, but mountain salmon.

He wrote in his notebook, still amazed by his crooked, childlike handwriting: I don't blame Nadina.This is the truth.But at the time he blamed her. He was terrified, still in shock, his body was covered with bruises, and his right leg hurt badly. He gathered his mind and climbed a little bit up the slope.Far up above, he saw Nadina, looking over the railing.Her little face was pale. "Nadina!" he cried, his voice shrill and hoarse. "Rope! It's in the bag on the left!" She just looked down at him.At first, he thought she didn't hear him, and was about to repeat it again, but he saw her head turned to the left, then to the right, and then to the left again, slowly, she was shaking her head.

"Nadina! I can't go up without a rope! My leg is broken!" She didn't answer.She just looked down at him, not even shaking her head now.He began to feel like he had fallen into a deep hole, and she was watching him from the hole. "Nadina, throw me the rope!" There was another slow shake of the head, like the door of a tomb closing slowly, shutting in a man who was terribly immobilized, but not dead. "Nadina, for God's sake!" At last he heard her voice, very softly but very clearly in the utter silence of the mountains. "It's all arranged, Harold. I must go. I'm very sorry."

But she didn't go, she was still at the fence, watching him 200 feet below.There were already flies flying over, busy licking his blood on the stone. Harold dragged his broken leg and began to climb.At first there was no hatred, nor did it occur to her to shoot her.It seemed that the most important thing was to get closer to see her expression clearly. It was just after noon and it was hot.Sweat dripped from his face and landed on the sharp rocks he had climbed over.Pushing himself up on his elbows and kicking up with his left leg, he moved bit by bit, like a wounded reptile.Breathing heavily in and out of his throat, it was a rush of hot air.He didn't know how long it took, but once or twice, his injured leg hit a protruding rock, and the severe pain made his face pale.Several times he slid down again, moaning helplessly. At last he realized vaguely that he could no longer climb.The direction of the shadow has changed. 3 hours passed.He couldn't remember the last time he looked up at the guardrail and the road, it must have been an hour ago.He was totally absorbed in every little bit of progress he made in his strenuous efforts.Nadina may have left early in the morning. But she was still there, and although he had only climbed about 25 feet, he could already clearly see the expression on her face.It was a mournful, sad expression, but her eyes were cold and distant. Her eyes are in his. It was from that moment that he began to hate her.He fumbled under the armpit for the holster, where the pistol was still held by the handle strap as he tumbled and fell.Arching slyly, out of her sight, he bit off the strap. "Nadina..." "It's better this way, Harold. Better for you, because 'his' way is more terrible.you understand, don't you?You don't want to face him, Harold.He thought that whoever betrayed one side might also betray the other.He's going to kill you, but he's going to drive you crazy first.He has this power.He lets me choose.This way... or his way.I chose this.It's over pretty quickly if you're brave enough.You know what I mean. " He checked the cartridges in the pistol for the first time, and he's checked it a hundred (maybe a thousand) times since.His clothes were ripped at the elbows, and he hid the gun in its shadow. "What about you?" he cried. "Aren't you a traitor too?" Her voice was mournful. "Deep down, I never betrayed him." "I think that just means you did betray him," he yelled at her.He's trying to put a sincere look on his face, but he's actually counting distances.He can fire up to two shots, and pistols are notoriously inaccurate weapons. "I'm sure he knows that too." "He needs me," she said, "and I need him. You never got involved, Harold. If we stayed together, I might... I might let you do something to me. That kind of Small thing. But it might ruin it all. After so much sacrifice, so much blood, so much dirty work, I must make it safe. We sold our souls together, Harold , but I can stay and get what I deserve." "I'll give you everything you deserve," Harold said, trying to get to his knees.The sun is very harsh.He felt dizzy and lost his balance.He thought he heard a voice—a voice—a snarl of frightened defiance.It was he who pulled the trigger.The gunshots echoed between the cliffs, strong at first and then weak gradually disappeared.Nadina's face was one of dramatic surprise. Harold felt an ecstatic sense of accomplishment: she didn't expect me to do it!She opened her mouth wide in surprise, forming a round O shape.Her eyes were wide open, and her fingers spread apart nervously, as if about to strike some special melody on the piano.The moment was so sweet that for a second or two he was so lost in the aftertaste that he didn't realize the shot had missed.When he realized this, he drew the pistol back and tried aiming, securing the wrist of his right hand with his left hand. "Harold! No! You can't!" Can't you?It's as simple as pulling the trigger.Of course I can. She seemed frightened and immobilized, and as the pistol's crosshair was aimed at her throat, he suddenly realized the cold truth: this was the end of it, in a brief, senseless violence. middle. In his eyes, he saw her death. But when he pulled the trigger, two things happened.Sweat ran into his eyes, doubled what he saw, and he began to slide.He later told himself that the loose stones had given way, or his injured leg was bent, or both.This may be true.But the feeling... the feeling was like being pulled, and he couldn't find any other reason for himself in the long night after that.Harold was awake that day, but at night a terrible thought would haunt him: finally the man in black himself had stepped in and defeated him.The shot he intended to put in her throat missed: high, far, into an irrelevant blue sky. Harold rolled and fell back to the dead tree.His right leg was twisted and bent, and it hurt so badly from ankle to groin. He hit a tree and passed out.When he woke up again, night had just fallen, and most of the moon hung quietly above the cliff.Nadina is gone. He passed the first night in utter terror, for there was no doubt that he would never climb back, and there was no doubt that he would die in this valley.But when morning came, he started climbing again.He was sweating profusely, and the wound ached. He'd been climbing since about seven o'clock, just as the Funeral Board's big orange truck left the Boulder bus station.At 5 p.m. that day, he finally grasped the cable of the guardrail with one hand, his hand was bruised and purple, and the flesh was exposed from the wound.His motorcycle was still there, and he was almost crying with relief.He quickly dug out several cans and a can opener from a hanging bag, opened a can, and stuffed two handfuls of cool diced corned beef into his mouth.But it tasted so bad that after a struggle he spat it out anyway. He began to understand that it was an irrefutable fact that he was going to die, so he cried on his stomach next to the motorcycle, with his twisted leg underneath.Afterwards he fell asleep for a while. It rained the next day, and he was drenched and shivering with cold.His legs began to smell of gangrene, and he shielded the pistol with his body to keep it from getting wet.That night he started writing in his notebook, and for the first time noticed that his handwriting was starting to go backwards.He found himself reminded of a novel by Daniel Case—called The Flowers of Algernon.The novel is about a group of scientists who turn a mentally retarded janitor into a genius...just for a short time, and then the poor guy is back to normal again.What's that guy's name?What's Charlie's name, huh?Definitely yes.The movie they made based on this novel is called "Charlie".A very good film.It wasn't as good as the novel, he remembered it was all 1960s hallucinatory effects, but it was still a good movie.Harold often went to the cinema to watch movies in the past, but he watched more movies on the video camera at home.Back in the days of the Pentagon's "go another way" days, he always watched the movies by himself. He wrote in his notebook, the crooked letters gradually forming words: I don't know if they are all dead?What about the committee?If so, I'm sad.I have been led astray.That's a pretty weak justification for what I did, but based on everything I know, I swear it's the only reason that matters.The man in black was real, just like the atomic bomb that was placed somewhere in their back room was real.When the last day comes, as all good people do when the last judgment is approaching, I have but one word to say: I have been led astray. Harold looked at what he wrote, covering his brow with a bony and slightly trembling hand.That's not a good reason, not really a good one.No matter how you beautify it, it still looks like this.Looking at this passage after reading his ledger, one would take him for a complete hypocrite.He once thought of himself as the master of an anarchic world, but the man in black saw through him and turned him into a dying cripple shivering by the side of the road without any effort.His leg was swollen like a car inner tube and smelled of rotting bananas.The little flying insects above his head swooped down with the heat wave from time to time, and he sat there, trying to explain the indescribable thing.He fell victim to his protracted adolescence, it was as simple as that.He was poisoned by his dangerous thoughts. As he was dying, he seemed to have regained a bit of sanity, and perhaps a bit of dignity.He didn't want to damage this dignity with those crookedly written little reasons. "I could have done something in Boulder," he said quietly, and the simple, convincing truth might have brought tears to his eyes were it not for his extreme fatigue and lack of water.He looked at the crooked letters on the paper, and then moved his eyes to the pistol.Suddenly he wanted to end it all, he tried to think of the surest and easiest way he could to end his life.Now writing it down, leaving it for the person who finds it—it may be a year, it may be 10—seems more important than ever. He took hold of the pen.Thinking, writing. I apologize for the bad things I did, but I don't deny that I did them voluntarily.When I was at school, on my test papers, I always wrote my name, Harold Amy Lauder.On my manuscripts—they are not very well written—I sign them in the same way.God help me, I once wrote them in 3 foot letters on top of a barn.But this time I want to sign a name they have for me in Boulder.I couldn't accept it then, but now I accept it voluntarily. I am going to die in a sane state. He neatly signed his name at the end: Eagle. He put the notebook into the hanging bag of the motorcycle, capped the pen, and put the pen in his pocket.He put the muzzle of the gun in his mouth and looked up at the blue sky.He remembered a game he played as a child, because he never dared to play, so he was always laughed at by others.There's a sandpit on a road in the back, and you can jump off the edge, drop a long way to land on the sand, roll a few times, and finally climb up to do it all over again. Only Harold dared not.Harold was always standing on the edge of the pit and counting: one...two...three!So did others, but it never worked for him.The other kids would sometimes chase him all the way to the house, yelling at him and calling him unmanly Harold. He thought: If I could just let myself dance once...just once... maybe I wouldn't be like this.Well, let's count it one last time. He counted in his heart: one... two... three! He pulled the trigger. The gun went off. Harold jumped.