Chapter 4: Under the Sun (II)

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to morn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace.

After sending off his long lost friend on his way back to China again, David returned to his home and lived idling in a state of unemployment again. But this time, he is not technically unemployed, but rather a self-employed small business owner without enough work to do, and waiting for payments from last client. It was not even possible to get unemployment benefit from the government or anybody, nor was he very interested in getting any. From dawn to dusk, David seemed to be orbiting around his sofa in the room or the deck chairs in his back yard, with occasional touchdowns on them. He watched butterflies lingering on and then taking off from a swing set on which his daughter Crystal used to play when little.

He could not shake off the ideas in the conversation between him and his friend from university. Theory of relativity had almost brought him the scientific proof of the fact that the world we live in was an illusion. He couldn't seemed to deny either that everything happened in the world was true, truly an illusion? Was it also an illusion that every events happened in the history happened at the same time, same place, same fashion over and over again, while it could be said that everything appeared to have happened in different time, different places, in different guises.

David's wife Jade wondered whether her husband was sick, or fell into a state of coma, or had simply become an idiot. She told him: "If you were to die, please let me know first. I want to die before you and save myself the trouble of going through your funeral". David laughed with a little disbelief, because he could not believe his marriage, with a rocky start like many common ones of his generation, would end up being such a good one. It is not common for a wife to vow to die before her husband after all. He told Jade: "You don't need to surprise me with such punch lines plagiarized straight out of a novel. I can return your line with another one from the novel 红楼梦. Remember in the 'Dream of a Red Mansion' there was this young boy vowing to this young girl -- 'After you die, I will leave this sorrowful world and become a monk'? Well, I will go one step further and 'Become a monk even before you die'".