I fell asleep as usual and woke up in a yellow room. The room was dimly lit, and my vision was blurry. I rubbed my eyes, but it didn't improve. I tried to move my body, although I couldn't see my posture, I could feel my body curling up and moving in an unnatural way, but fortunately, it didn't have much impact. I seemed to be looking for a destination, although I knew nothing about this space, and the arrangement of the walls was irregular, but my intuition pointed me in the right direction.
The room seemed to have no boundaries, and I didn't care whether there were boundaries or not. I was just walking aimlessly. Although I said aimlessly, it wasn't entirely true. My body seemed to know where I was going, but my brain, or rather my rationality, didn't know. I accepted this instinctive tendency, as it had always been.
The environment kept changing, but in the end, nothing really changed. The walls were like scattered building blocks, randomly scattered everywhere. Each wall seemed to be different, but the quality of "difference" remained unchanged. The places I walked through had various forms, but they were all consistent in chaos. I kept walking, and the walls remained the same, changed yet unchanged. There was no noticeable difference, but I knew—I had arrived.
I walked into a gap above a wall, and I saw other people. They almost turned their heads to look at me at the same time, and then turned their heads back at the same time, maintaining their original posture with their heads down and their arms wrapped around their legs, surprisingly consistent. It was only here that the environment of the room had a true sense of "difference". It was actually a regular cuboid room with no lights. The light seemed to be shining into the room from behind me, brighter on the side near the door, and the side near the inside appeared narrow due to the darkness. The whole room seemed to be shrinking inward. Then I realized that I couldn't see my shadow on the walls.
I walked to the center of the crowd and looked at the people sitting on the ground. They were all pressed against the walls, silent in the darkest corner of the room, as if they were afraid of light.
"Are you being abused?" I asked.
One of the men with a bony figure stood up. He was completely black, and the words "stick figure" popped into my mind. He leaned close to my ear and said in a serious tone, "Think about it, how is that possible? It's because we don't drink water."
I didn't understand what he meant and left anxiously. I walked into a concrete building and found myself sitting on a plastic chair, facing a man in a black suit and white shirt. The light was shining directly between us, and I couldn't see his face clearly. There was a bottle on the table, and I knew it was water. He gestured for me to drink it. I was afraid, but my body didn't seem to be afraid. I gulped down the water in one bottle. It had a slight sweetness, and my tongue felt a bit dry after drinking it. He told me that it was almond water, and it seemed to make sense. I agreed that the water did taste like almonds, even though I had never eaten almonds before.
The day was bright, and the rain kept falling. The rain hitting the walls of the buildings made them look mottled, and the difference between wet and dry was clearly visible. This semi-dry and semi-wet state seemed to show no signs of change. The mottled walls combined with clusters of plants growing on them appeared somewhat lovely.
I got up from the bed, just like the past ten days, walked to the entrance, opened the door, picked up the water delivered to the doorstep, looked at the view outside the window, and drank the water in the bottle in one go—almond-flavored, I told myself. As I swallowed the last drop of water, the rain stopped, the plants on the walls disappeared, the water stains gradually faded away, and the day became brighter—I suddenly remembered that the sky here was so unrealistically bright.
I sat in front of the computer, spending the entire morning organizing data and turning them into neatly formatted documents. I vaguely remembered that I used to be someone who enjoyed the outdoors, but now I could spend such a long time dealing with tedious work, and I was somewhat impressed with myself.
Just after noon, someone came to visit. He wore a hat, a black suit, and a white shirt. They all seemed to be dressed like that, but I still couldn't see his face clearly. He took off his hat and bowed to me. Perhaps sensing my confusion, he spoke before I could explain, "Your prosopagnosia hasn't improved, huh? You'll need more water every day then." With that, he squeezed the stone in his hand and took out two bottles of water from somewhere, handing them to me. I took the water bottles and thanked him, and he walked away without looking back.
I sat back down, squinting at the window, took a small sip of water, watched the newly grown plants on the walls retract little by little, and saw the raindrops that were about to fall float back up. I also felt my curled-up body stretch a bit—before drinking this water, I hadn't realized that I was still maintaining the posture I woke up in. I finished drinking the entire bottle of water, and the pale sunlight poured in, shining on me. I stared at the other bottle of water in my hand for a long time.
I tried my best to stay awake, not knowing how much of those things were still inside me, but at least I managed to escape. When they discover, they will only find a cracked bottle and a floor full of "water" in my room, along with a pile of unfinished work. My rationality has completely lost its function in the current situation, and I don't know where I'm going. I only know that I can't stay there and continue drinking water. Fortunately, after nearly an hour of water interruption, my instincts seemed to start working again, and I followed them back to the yellow room.
I have heard that patients who have been taking certain medications for a long time cannot stop them casually. Even if they are cured, they can only gradually reduce the dosage because the medication will help the body form a new balance, and stopping it abruptly will disrupt this balance. I seem to be in this unbalanced sub-healthy state now. I can't feel the shape of my body, stumbling and hitting walls; the buzzing sound of fluorescent lights fluctuates, and my unstable mind is repeatedly torn apart; my instincts appear and disappear, and I can't find the way.
I can no longer distinguish between "same" and "different" like last time. If every place here is the same, I will steadfastly continue walking until I find something different. But now, every place here appears different to me, and I can't convince myself that there are no other paths where I have walked. I collapse on the ground, closing my eyes under the fluorescent light.
Finally, that familiar unnatural feeling returns. I realize that I am curled up on the ground, and I excitedly crawl up and run in this same maze in a curled-up posture.
I quickly find that room again, and everyone looks up at me. They don't turn their heads back this time. I say to them, "I won't drink water anymore."
The thing I feared the most happened again. Those well-dressed beasts found me and dragged me out of the shadows, holding a funnel, wanting to pour water into me. I have become so thin that my curled-up body is no match for them. Fortunately, my companions came out to help me, and we struggled to force them back, but I know they will come again. I decided to negotiate with them. As long as we make things clear, it will be good for everyone.
The familiar scene repeats itself. I walk into a concrete building and find myself sitting on a plastic chair, facing a man in a suit. I can't see his face clearly.
He pushes a bottle of water towards me, gesturing for me to drink it. I look at his blurred face and sense a hint of cunning in his expression, or maybe it's just my imagination. I sit still, staring straight at his blurry face. After a long silence, he speaks first.
"Why don't you want to drink almond water? I'm looking forward to your answer."
"Because you're all a bunch of cowards."
I'm not polite, of course, but as soon as the words leave my mouth, I remember the purpose of this visit. Obviously, I can't negotiate like this. Since it's a negotiation, I need to clarify our demands first, that's for sure, and then explain the reasons behind these demands. Our demand is to stop drinking water, and they already know that. But what is the reason? I can't seem to figure it out no matter how hard I try.
He takes out a glass from somewhere and pours some water from the bottle into it. Then he enjoys it like tasting tea. I have never drunk that water from a transparent container before, and now I see that it's milky white, slightly whitish. I look at the white water, and the visual feedback forms a reflex of taste on my tongue. I instinctively think that the water is sweet but with a hint of bitterness. I feel a desire, but my brain secretes a sense of disgust.
"You're not the first one," he says, not looking at me but staring at the glass of water in his hand, his demeanor full of frivolity.
"Go back to that room where only the madman can find you and stay with them."
I quickly find my way back. I walk into the room, and no one looks up. I don't mind and walk to the deepest part of the room. Accidentally, I kick a pile of papers stacked against the wall. It's too dark, and I can't tell if they are bound documents or just scraps of paper. I can't even tell how long they have been there. I squat in the darkest corner of the room, where I can't see my shadow no matter what.
I get up from the bed, just like usual. I pour some clear and transparent water into a glass, look at the tall buildings outside the window, and savor the remnants of my dreams in my memory.
I examine the glass of water in my hand, looking at it reflecting the white sky and human shadows. I don't have to drink water because my body needs it to function. But what if my body is not a human body? What if my soul has transferred to a new body that doesn't need water? Then the rule of needing to drink water to survive no longer applies, and I can continue to drink water, but it would just be the stubbornness of my thinking clinging on.
I always separate "instinct" and "rationality" into two different realms, allowing each to determine my life and death in different situations. However, most of the time, rationality prevails because instinct is based on reaction and sensation, while rationality is based on facts and logic, and everyone values the latter more.
But just like drinking water, if one day I move out of this reed-like Earth to a completely different place, the cognitive framework I have spent years building will collapse, leaving only my instincts to lead me through adversity. By then, I might become a madman.
I finish drinking the water in my hand, sit in front of the window, watch as the rain gradually stops, watch as the pedestrians on the street put away their umbrellas, watch as someone pulls out all the weeds growing on the old buildings, and watch as someone paints the old houses with fresh and bright yellow paint.