一頁(yè)紙愛(ài)的故事——為你而歌
早春四月，每個(gè)傍晚的日光在一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)延長(zhǎng)。樹葉被夕陽(yáng)鍍上了一層金，涼爽的春風(fēng)一吹，如粼粼閃動(dòng)的亮片一般跳動(dòng)。盤腿而坐，艾瑪拿起她的吉他，隨意撥動(dòng)了幾個(gè)音符，測(cè)試著吉他的音準(zhǔn)。撥開(kāi)擋在前額的發(fā)絲，她開(kāi)始歌唱。
放學(xué)后她叫我去她家。我們一起走向她父親農(nóng)場(chǎng)的最遠(yuǎn)方，在河邊找了個(gè)地方，她鋪開(kāi)舊床單。隱約傳來(lái)“嘩嘩”的水聲，在林子的縫隙里能看到被河分成兩半的田野，但河水和堤岸卻被灌木叢擋了個(gè)嚴(yán)嚴(yán)實(shí)實(shí)。我們聊了會(huì)兒學(xué)校的事，她說(shuō)她盼著畢業(yè)，然后去她阿姨家過(guò)暑假。
她從草叢里拿起吉他。
“你要彈首歌么？”我問(wèn)道。
她望向遠(yuǎn)方，開(kāi)始歌唱。她空靈卻熱情的聲音在發(fā)光的田野上飄蕩開(kāi)來(lái)，如氣球一般輕快地向天空中升去。微風(fēng)將她的聲音吹向遠(yuǎn)方，落在一個(gè)遙遠(yuǎn)的地方，一個(gè)隨著歲月流逝越來(lái)越遙不可及的地方。
我們?cè)谀莾阂恢贝教旌?。我坐在那最后幾縷夕陽(yáng)中，聆聽(tīng)。那是一種超越燦爛的光明，太陽(yáng)竭力地把它最后的美好傾灑在我們臉上，把火熱的光線散落在田野和樹林上，仿佛只有這樣，夜才無(wú)法覬覦它的權(quán)威，它在白天所散布的無(wú)盡光明才不會(huì)付諸流水。
我們畢業(yè)后就斷了聯(lián)系，我實(shí)在想不通，她在那年秋天自殺了。我一直到后來(lái)才知道，她那天的歌是為我而唱。她姐姐在艾瑪?shù)囊槐救沼浿姓业搅四鞘赘璧母柙~。她把日記給了我，本子微微泛黃，如同歷史的遺物一般。我捧著它，大聲地讀著那些歌詞。她一手漂亮的筆跡，我再熟悉不過(guò)，但那些歌詞對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)卻是空洞的，雖然它們就工工整整地寫在那兒。少了她的歌聲，那些歌詞被時(shí)間加密，為歲月磨蝕，被她的死帶走了全部意義。我再也無(wú)法讀懂它們了。
One Page Love Story - A Song For You
by Adam Stanley
It was early April, and the hours of light had just begun to stretch out a little longer each evening, where it lay on the tips of the leaves, and they shimmered in the brisk, cool wind like sequins. Sitting cross-legged, Emma picked up her guitar, and strummed a few chords to see if it was in tune. She brushed her hair from her face, and began to sing.
She had called me after school and asked me to come over. When I got there, we walked out towards the farthest pasture on the edge of her father’s property, until we found a place near the river, and she spread out the old quilt. You could hear the water, and see the space in the trees where the river separated the fields, but the riverbank was hidden by the undergrowth, and the river itself was invisible. We talked for a while about the school and how much she was looking forward to graduation and then she was going to spend the summer at her aunt’s house.
She picked her guitar up from the grass.
“So,” I asked, “are you going to play me a song?”
She looked away and began to sing. As she sang, her quite, yet passionate voice rose above the glowing fields, and then ascending further into the sky, as if it was some buoyant thing like a balloon, it was blown by the wind until it disappeared into the distance, settling in a place that seemed very far away. A place that seems to be moving even further away, with every new spring that passes.
We stayed out there ‘til it was almost dark. I sat there, listening, in that last few minutes golden light. It was a light that beyond brilliant, as if in desperation the sun had quickly showered all of its beauty on our faces, scattering its last fiery rays across the fields and trees, so that night could not steal any of its majesty; so that none of its brilliance would be wasted.
We lost touch after graduation, and for a reason I have never understood, she killed herself that fall. I didn’t find out until later, that the song she sang that day was about me. Her sister had found the lyrics in one of Emma’s diaries. She handed it to me and I held the yellowing notebook in my hand like a relic, and I read the words out loud. Though they were legible, printed neatly in that almost calligraphic script that I remember well, without her voice they made no sense, as if the words had been encrypted by time, the meaning irreversibly blurred by the years in between, and when she killed herself, she took the meaning with her, and I would never understand them.
