My story with Gu Fan

What I want to talk about this time is my story with Gu Fan. It's also a belated newcomer.

As far as I have known the world, I am not a person who can speak. A lot of time is spent talking to an old man in my head, occasionally "sister".

The old man seemed to be an ascetic like a monk. He told me that life is a practice, and it is normal to have a hard life, so I couldn't learn to laugh since elementary school. My face is often expressionless, but others think I'm angry. I don't know if it's because of the old man's relationship or because of the often chaotic family disputes.

My sister is a fierce person. Before my mother told me, I knew clearly that my mother had miscarried two children before me, a boy and a girl. When I was in high school, I confirmed with my mother, "It took almost a few months to bleed, and you only stayed after the abortion. But how did you know it bleed?" I didn't know how to answer, and I didn't even believe it myself. . My sister often stops me from doing things or reminds me that someone is a bad person when I talk to an adult.

But that was all before I went to high school.

When I was in elementary school, I liked to go for a walk with my grandfather. I like to ask him about the stories in the history textbook. For example, he once told me about the experience of hiding under a bomb shelter and bombing by the US military on it. He is the eldest of the family and has eight brothers and sisters in front of him, so not only did my grandfather live a hard life when he was a child, but also when he grew up to open a shop and work, until he built the building where I live now, it was not easy. I like to listen to my grandfather keep saying, as if I have come to that world and experienced the vicissitudes of the past.

"You don't cry. The first day I sent you to kindergarten and elementary school. Even after you were born, there was no trouble," Ma Chang said. I just listened quietly. It seems that my dealings with the world rarely touch the mouth. I like to watch, listen, and think.

In high school, I wanted to write down what I thought. It’s just that reality doesn’t allow me to do this. Heavy schoolwork, noisy environment, and a broken inner world are distorting me, and the communication between the old man and my sister is getting less and less…

I am lost in this time and space. The desire to disappear is very strong...

Finally, most of me disappeared after a story about a girl falling from a building that often appeared in the news.

And Gu Fan was born.

Just a urchin in his early 20s, who hopes to be able to "take care" of his own ordinary "ordinary". And actively expecting his best to be seen by people after his death, he changed "Van" to "Brahman" of Van Gogh.

He was just a text-filled fantasy I created to escape the cruel reality of only formulas and numbers. Like moths rushing towards the fire without hesitation, just to escape the embrace of the night.

"Don't be frowning, smile. Right! You look so good when you smile." When I was a child, my grandfather taught me the first sentence with a smile when he took me to play in the garden for the first time.

In this complex and cruel world, laughter is a simple and gentle struggle. It was left to me by my grandfather, the first and last realization.