Afterword

Just like the sentence I wrote under the poem at the beginning – "Everything began with a dream."

This story is my first ten-thousand-word tale. The writing is inevitably immature, the structure perhaps loose, but every word carries my reverence and imagination for dreams. Please bear with the jumping plots or vague logic – after all, dreams are inherently chaotic streams of consciousness, and I'm just a clumsy storyteller.

The story's prototype truly all came from my dreams. I often had grand, epic dreams, like falling into blockbuster movies: sometimes solving mysteries of life carriage by carriage, sometimes being a narcotics police, feeling layers of twists and tense chases. Everything in dreams was real, legendary, vivid.

Thanks to these dreams, I gained an almost firsthand estimation of "death," richer imagination and reflection on the world after death. If there is an afterlife, perhaps like in dreams, not darkness and end, but a journey with memories.

The dead friend Pofei in the story has a real-life prototype. His sudden departure made me truly experience the impact of a peer's death for the first time. Those easily postponed "next times" eventually became forever unfulfilled promises. I will cherish all friends around me, treat them sincerely, and hope everyone reading this cherishes each other, lives as happily as possible, does what they want to do early, doesn't always wait, has an attitude of living towards death, because we never know which comes first, tomorrow or death. Before he passed, he shared with me a song he often listened to while falling asleep: Sailing. This melody also cycled in my dreams.

But more impressing was the moment of waking from this dream, the real happiness and joy: heartbeat like drums, cold sweat, followed by the ecstasy of "I'm still alive." The morning light through the curtains, the stuffed toy kicked off the bed, the family photo and calendar on the cabinet – suddenly all became gifts worth crying for. It made me cherish the present beauty more, immensely grateful for the life my parents gave me.

For me, "living downward" is an attitude towards existence. In the story, “falling downward" isn’t being negative, but actively choosing to carry memories, face attachments. Those souls not choosing ascension (forgetting) willingly remain in the death world, becoming part of the balance stone. In many religious or philosophical traditions, "ascension" symbolizes liberation, while "falling" represents negative content. I hope to change this narrative. Some courage lies not in giving up the past, but in carrying it forward. Those choosing downward use memories to prove they once lived. Downward or upward, both deserve a considerable choice.

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, people always chase the "real," i.e., the truth unable to be symbolized, but true awakening isn't reaching it, but accepting the symbolic order's imperfect reality. Souls in the death world choosing "downward" acknowledge attachments' irresolvability yet still find meaning within. Ascension and falling are both crueler, more real freedoms.

Real-life philosophy of life isn’t escaping from pain, but coexisting with it; not pursuing absolute transcendence, but rooting in the mud; not imagining another world is better, but building meaning here. Like Camus's philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus, knowing pushing the stone uphill is futile, yet still  giving this act dignity.

Here, I also share with you the translated lyrics of "Sailing" - Rod Stewart：

I am sailing, I am sailing. Home again 'cross the sea

I am sailing stormy waters. To be near you, To be free

I am flying, I am flying. Like a bird 'cross the sky

I am flying passing high clouds. To be with you, To be free

Can you hear me, Can you hear me. Thru’ the dark night far away

I am dying, Forever crying. To be with you, Who can say

Oh Lord, To be near you, To be free.

（Repeat.）

Thank you again for reading this far.