On the evening of June 21st, I sat at my desk with a whole page of pre exam to-do list spread out in front of me. Time is running out, the phone battery is full, the plan is specific and achievable – all conditions are met. But I stared at that piece of paper, not wanting to move a word.
Looking back on the last few days before the exam, although the tense atmosphere lingered in our hearts, we were not doing any questions at all. Instead, we gathered together to make a plan – what to do on the first day after the high school entrance exam and what to do in the first week. Bao patted the table and said he wanted to take me on a ride around Shanghai, and finally added, 'We must beat you up.'; My computer was confiscated by my parents for a whole month because I had to review. I vowed to everyone that the first thing I did after the exam was to export all last year's photos; I even secretly inquired about everyone's address and calculated which stadium was almost far away from everyone, so we could have dinner together after playing.
On the afternoon of June 21st, I walked out of the exam room carrying a bag of Taoist books and pens. I had dinner with my family at a restaurant we had already arranged. I didn't take a few bites of chopsticks, and all I could think about was going home – the computer, camera, and games. I wanted to retrieve everything I had during my preparation period.
I was really sitting in front of the computer, inserting the SD card, and when the full screen of thumbnail images unfolded, I was stunned. I stared at them for a long time, but didn't want to open any of them. Fingers rested on the mouse, the cursor slid back and forth between the thumbnails, and finally stopped at a random position without opening anything. A dull numbness and helplessness surged up, and I silently closed the computer.
I told myself: I probably just finished the exam and I'm not sure, but I'll be fine in a few days.
So I opened my phone and started flipping through the high school entrance exam posts. First, I used a official account to evaluate for one round, but I didn't think it was accurate, so I used another round. After estimating the answer, when it came to math fill in the blank questions, I saw a low-level mistake and my heart skipped a beat. I put down my phone and wanted to stop looking, but in less than twenty minutes, I picked it up again and refreshed the post to see if anyone was discussing this year's score line; When I come across a message saying 'The score of a certain school may increase', my heart tightens for a moment, but after tightening it, I can't loosen it, and then I continue to swipe.
I know very well that doing so is meaningless. But I just can't stop.
Over the past year, my pace of life has been completely driven by exams. Someone has arranged for me what to do and which subject to review every day. Now that the exam is over, suddenly no one tells me what to do next. I'm not free anymore, I lack motivation.
I began to doubt: how many of the enthusiastic plans before the exam were genuine passions, and how many were just "I'm too tired and need a beautiful fantasy to get through tonight"?
When I fantasized about "riding around Shanghai" before the exam, I had free winds and open roads in my mind. But when I really wanted to do it, I had to check the route, prepare equipment, and consider safety… That night, I opened the map and searched for "Shanghai cycling routes". The page popped up with more than ten routes and a bunch of guides, and I glanced at them before turning them off. There is a wall between the romantic imagination of love and the mundane reality of action. When I confidently promised to take photos before the exam, my mind was filled with beautiful moments recorded in photos and videos comparable to major media, but I forgot that these results also need to be polished frame by frame.
The reason why those plans were so attractive before the exam was precisely because I couldn't do them at that time. The sense of distance creates a false love – the harder the exam, the sweeter the fantasy.
And, I vaguely realized a deeper fear: I dare not start because I am afraid that once I start, it will end.
One day when the building was throwing garbage, the voice controlled lights in the hallway turned on, shining on the bicycle in the corner.
I stopped.
A layer of dust fell on the frame, the rear wheels were deflated, and the whole car leaned against the wall, like a promise that had been put on hold for a long time. During the months of preparing for the exam, I walked past it every day while taking a walk and didn't even glance at it. After finishing the exam, I still walk past it every day, as if I haven't seen it.
——Bao patted the table and said he wanted to take me for a ride around Shanghai.
I don't know where this sentence came from.
I stood there and watched it for a long time. I didn't reach out to touch it, didn't squat down, and didn't do anything. Just watching. The voice controlled lights went out and the hallway darkened.
I moved my body, turned around and went upstairs, and the light behind me turned on again.
That night, I didn't open my phone to answer.
Today is the fifth day after the middle school entrance examination.
Last night, I went downstairs to inflate that bicycle and rode it three kilometers. It's just the surrounding road, with no scenery and the wind blowing on my face. After riding back, the car leaned back to the corner of the hallway, but the rear wheels were bulging.
Mr. Bao's cycling plan hasn't come to fruition yet, and none of us have mentioned it. I haven't finished importing the photos yet. I opened the editing software once, glanced at the timeline, and then closed it again. Most of the items on the plan list have not been checked yet.
But on the day of the graduation ceremony, I brought my camera with me. When I pressed the shutter button, I didn't think about composition, post production, or posting on my social media. I just want to keep that moment. After filming, looking down at the playback, the picture is a bit blurry and the lighting is not very good. But I stared at that photo for a long time. Unlike staring at the thumbnail on the computer screen that day – this time, I want to open it.
I can't tell how much of those plans are true passions and how much are fantasies. But I know that on graduation day, no one asked me to bring a camera, so I still brought it. Passion does not require a cycling trip around Shanghai to fulfill, nor does it require a perfect to-do list to prove it. It just pushes you downstairs to inflate the tires when you least want to move.
When I went downstairs today, I glanced at that bicycle again. The dust on the car seat has been wiped off, and the rear wheels are bulging. It leaned against the hallway, not in a hurry.
I'm not in a hurry either.