Translator:关空调
I am part of The Royal Resort Gardens Literary Salon.
Last week, he redecorated the small room where they usually held their literary salons, turning it into The Royal Resort Gardens Literary Salon. There were no cascading steps or nymphaea here; no towering palm trees, nor any of the monstera, agaves, heliconias, areca palms, cycads, calatheas, tree ferns, hedge bamboos, traveler’s palms, bird’s-nest ferns, staghorn ferns, oil palms, giant water lilies, royal poincianas, passion flowers, clematis, or water lilies that usually filled such gardens. There were only a few pieces of cardboard he had specifically cut into the shape of palm leaves, and a green sofa. It was just two in the afternoon, and in this street-facing room of barely a dozen square meters, there was no one else besides us. He sat on the sofa across from me by the window, holding a cigarette between his fingers with one hand while reading a narrow novel bound in kraft paper with the other. With his legs crossed, he occasionally turned the pages using the hand holding the cigarette; ash would fall onto the sofa beside him, only for him to brush it off with the side of his hand moments later. Warm, gentle sunlight streamed obliquely through the window, silently illuminating the entire room without artificial lighting. Every now and then, he would get up to go to the bathroom, or fetch two ice-free coffees from the corner shop. He shared one with me, then popped the lid off his own to sip his unsweetened Americano. By four o’clock, he was visibly drowsy, but the plot of the novel kept him hooked enough that he hunched over just to keep reading. If I had to guess, it was an anthology from the last century – one that continued to be reprinted decades after its debut.
“Hey, morning, man.”
“Morning.” When the first guest entered the room wearing a groggy, fresh-out-of-bed expression, he was finally nearing the end of the book. He stood up from the sofa and stretched toward the doorway. Closing the book, he passed it to the first guest, who was just about to tuck into a sandwich. “Wanna read this? It’s really well written.” Except for him, almost every guest here was the type who only wakes up in the afternoon. He brought out the prepared drinks from the kitchen fridge, then crouched down to pull another book from the bookshelf next to the sofa. By now, night was falling. He switched on the warm light – the bulb long overdue for a replacement – and sat back down on the sofa directly opposite me, flipping through his new book. As night set in, the room gradually filled up with an assortment of invited guests. They played jazz records that had long fallen out of fashion while debating the literary works they adored. And the host of this Royal Resort Gardens Literary Salon: Atrocity, was already sprawled out on the sofa, face covered by the book he had pulled out that afternoon, fast asleep amidst the clamor. But who would care about a sleeper or two? Some people simply needed to be out of it. (Besides, no one had even noticed the changes in the decor anyway.) Before this weekly routine of chaos came to an end, the bases of the sofa and coffee table were littered everywhere with cigarette butts. About seven or eight of them were his, sitting beside a boot someone hadleft behind. “What a trainwreck,” he thought in a half-dreaming state. “Maybe this is the violence of literature.” Late at night, after sweeping the floor, he slung on his messenger bag and slipped away quietly, his bag stuffed with the books he had picked out. “Goodnight, my little room.” Standing at the doorway, he gazed back inside, sweeping his eyes over the decorations and furniture he had set up, before reluctantly shutting the door and leaving with quick steps.
+13@Atrocities 