當他者的事情，變成我們的事情

時值滿月，在石硤尾，我們在獅子山的見證下牽手，不動如山的獅子，像火漆封蠟印章，像電視上的佳能密實袋，像是正要下土的時間囊，像熨斗，怎麼了呢，潤飾、封印、讓人期待。夏天我掌心沁透汗，牽起手來，手都如此滑溜，但同行的人，他好像沒有察覺到，又或者，在這麼重要的晚上，他沒有介懷，被其他的甚麼，給分了心。我記得那是滿月，可記憶如此紊亂——記憶中那也許的滿月，讓我更澄澈的錨定當日在那種熱血沸騰氛圍之下，一鼓來自內在所馳聘的力量和一道清淡的微笑，讓我仍然能凝視其中，那處身於完整的黑夜中的一點，圓渾的光澤。那滿月還被一些來自山上的亮光所映襯、對照，成了夏夜炎炎，其中一個，我好像再也揮之不去的，一份記憶的套餐。我們的記憶是如此個人，他記得的會是我站在他的左方，我記得的是，他站在我的右方。後來我靠在他肩膊上，我們所狼吞虎嚥的套餐，我在身邊所嗅到的汗味，那已經是後來的事情了，不過那些重疊起來的畫面與蒙太奇種種，也被這些氣味的分子、顆粒，封印、保鮮、裹藏在其中。我後來分了心。海馬迴、杏仁核也分了心。這些斷斷續續的記憶中的聯覺、幻覺，讓我不知不覺地走到現在。如果現在存在的話。我日夜拖曳這些重於泰山又幾如鴻毛的，所謂記憶，前行，走向夜幕徐徐之後，時間的胡同。記憶跟回憶不一樣，回憶是一幕幕的片段，記憶是不可分割的。我們後來一次又一次，每天的每天，聽到了這個詞，「不可分割」，猶如空谷回音。後來我記得一隻巨大、駭人的，幾乎夢幻的紫白大蛾。牠在夜裡，在郊野出現。我在一個無人的昏暗的浴室，春季濕氣滲溼白瓷磚，我潔了手，方鏡上的一盞小燈，引來了撲火的飛蟲，渾玄打轉，我轉身離開之際，便見那隻巨蛾，靜謐伏身，幾乎牠的夢幻，才不至於勾起恐懼。但後來我發現，以我僅有的知識，這種蛾並不存在於世。這是記憶的羅生門。記憶是有隱喻的，它有象徵、潛伏、後勁、反撲、餘溫。記憶只是組成人生的一款部件，像組成一輛大巴士一樣，不代表生命之全然，還有老、還有壞、還有退役。它不像是那隻紫白大蛾，它不是一動不動的。我其實說謊了。看到紫白大蛾的人不是我。但我聽取了他者的事情，就開始以為是自己的事情了。如此流動、多變、日新月異。掌紋被貓爪到留下了疤痕，命運改了；能蓋過自己的騷汗味的香水哪天特價，給換了；當年無法重來一遍，不老，但還是老了；一座龐大的、養育我的，壞了；我們離了；時代像流星般殞落，你有沒有及時，許個願。指針撥向夏天，曾經在各種意義上死了的人再次生日。夏天又來了，掌心還是溼透，把手垂下來，汗珠圓融有光，好像能下一場雨。過去過去了，未來還未有來。我身旁的她記憶力衰退，身邊人嚷她好好服銀杏片補充劑，但她記憶力衰退，她從來沒有記得要按時服銀杏，甚至已經買上第二瓶了，因為她從來不記得她擁有過。她遺忘了。那像是一個很亮麗的詞語：Antidote，它是記憶的解藥。我仗倚的是，在解藥到臨之前，那些不可分割，卻淪陷為碎片的，不作瓦存的，碎片。像我上面所說的，他者的事情，終變成了我們的事情。是呢，是我們如瓦礫的記憶。

The full moon was hanging high up there when we held hands in Shek Kip Mei in the presence of the Lion Rock. Immobile as the mountain, it was like a fire-painted wax seal, a Glad ziplock bag advertised on TV, a time capsule about to go into the earth, like an iron, because they were embellished, sealed, and aroused anticipation. My palms were full of sweat in the summer and they were very slippery when I let others hold them, but the man I was with didn't seem to notice, or perhaps he didn't care much on such an important night, or he was distracted by something else. I remember the full moon, but my memory could be disordered and distorted – the memory of the full moon, perhaps, gives me a clearer anchor to the day when, beneath the feverish atmosphere, a surge of inner strength and a light smile allowed me still to gaze into it, a little, the rounded light in the complete darkness of the night. The full moon was also framed and contrasted by some bright light from the hills, one of those packages of memories that I can't seem to get rid of in the heat of the summer night. Our memories were so personal that he would remember me standing to his left and I would remember him standing to my right. The junk food meal we devoured, the smell of sweat I smelt on my side, as I leaned over his shoulder, came into the scene later. While the double-exposed, overlapping images and montages were sealed, preserved, wrapped in the molecules, the particles, of the smell. I got distracted later on (the literal word for distraction in Chinese is "the heart being split"). The hippocampus, the amygdala, was also distracted. These intermittent synaesthetic associations, these hallucinations in my memory, have brought me unconsciously to the present. If the present exists at all. Day and night I drag these so-called memories, which are heavier than a mountain and almost like a feather, forward, towards the alley of time after nightfall. Recollections are not congruent with memories, recollections are fragments of a scene, memories are by nature a pool of information and a perpetual linearity that is inseparable. We then heard this word, "inseparable", over and over again, every day, as if it were an echo in an empty valley, in this doomed city. Later I remember a huge, terrifying, almost dreamy moth with a purplish white hue. It appeared in the night, in the countryside. I was in a dark, unoccupied bathroom, the spring humidity was soaking through the white tiles, I washed my hands, a small lamp on a square mirror drew flying insects that would be attracted by fire-like warmth and heat, and as I turned to leave, I saw the giant moth, crouching quietly, almost dreamlike, so as not to evoke fear. But then I realised, with the little knowledge I had, that this moth did not exist on the earth. This is the Rashomon of memory. Memory is metaphorical, it has symbols, the ability to become latent, its aftertaste, recoil, and afterglow. Memory is just one of the components that make up life, like the formulation of a big bus, it is not the whole of life, it ages, it decays, it retires. It's not like that big purplish white moth, it's not immobile. I lied. I was not the one who saw the purplish white moth. But I listened to the things of others and began to think they were my own. These memories flow like fluid, malleable and ever-changing as they are. My palm prints are scarred by a cat's claws, my fate might have then changed; the perfume that could cover my sweaty smell is on sale one day, I had my usual perfume replaced; the past years cannot be re-lived again, we are not old, but the fact of that has made us age nonetheless; a huge city that has nurtured and cultivated me has been torn down; we've parted; our generation and times are falling like a meteor, did you make a wish in time? The watch hands have turned to summer again and we're welcoming the birthdays of those who have died in every sense again. Summer has come again, my palms are still sweaty and damp, my hands are hanging down, and the beads of sweat are so round and shiny that it looks like it could rain. The past is gone, but the future is not yet here. She has a failing memory and is told to take her ginkgo tablets as a supplement, but her memory is failing and she never remembers to take her ginkgo on time, even when she has bought a second bottle, because she never remembers her ownership of it. She had forgotten. It is as though an antidote, forgetfulness is the antidote to memory. What I rely on is that, until the antidote arrives, those inseparable pieces that fall into pieces. As I said above, the things of the other have become our things. Yes, it is our memory and a debris-like memoir.