The Static Hour #5

Night had fallen. The streetlights outside the window cast a hazy, yellow glow. The air in the pharmacy was permeated with the faint scent of herbs.

Drip-drop—Drip-drop—

Rain collected on the eaves, running along the flagstones, regularly pattering against the window frame.

The night rain, as always, fell on schedule.

Yongkang sat at the dining table, rubbing his forehead wearily. His mind was still entangled in the events of the day. Over the past few days, everything had become strange and wrong—

The shift from counting danggui to counting red dates, the disappearance of the cinema, the flashing digits of the clock, The Rainforest Paradox...

These events seemed unrelated, yet he felt they were all connected by some invisible thread, only... he couldn't find where that thread led.

Was the world broken, or... was I broken?

His mother emerged from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of steaming soup. The surface of the broth shimmered slightly, and red dates swirled slowly within the rising steam.

—It was the second day.

Yesterday, she had also made red date soup.

He lightly tapped the table with his fingers, a nameless anxiety rising in his chest.

If this was just his mother's habit, why had it never happened before? Why had everything started subtly changing since yesterday?

He looked up, meeting his mother's eyes. "Mom... do you remember the Lido Cinema?"

His mother's movement paused momentarily. She immediately continued to stir the soup in the bowl, her voice calm as usual. "We don't have a cinema in our town."

A chill ran down Yongkang's spine.

"But..." he frowned. "Did we... used to?"

This time, his mother looked up. Her eyes were placid, a hint of a smile on her lips. "There has never been a cinema here."

Her tone was certain, without hesitation, leaving no room for doubt.

Yongkang's fingers tightened slightly. A dull ache formed in his chest.

She sounded too natural, too confident. But he had been standing inside that cinema this morning, seen the dusty seats and the moldy screen with his own eyes.

He held his breath slightly.

But... had he?

Had he really been to the cinema this morning?

His memory suddenly felt unreliable.

He took a deep breath, trying to suppress the unease, and changed the question. "What about... that book Dad used to write?"

His mother remained calm. "What book?" She held the spoon, slowly stirring the red date soup, and then—

Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

She mechanically tapped the edge of the bowl four times.

"The Rainforest Paradox."

This time, his mother's actions finally stopped.

Her fingers tightened slightly, the spoon suspended mid-air. Her gaze fell to the tabletop. She was silent for a few seconds.

"Who told you that?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

She tapped three more times.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

Seven taps.

It was always seven taps, never more, never less.

—Was this habit, or some kind of mechanism?

Yongkang’s heart pounded. "Didn't Dad write that book? You must know about it."

His mother did not answer.

Silence.

The silence made the air heavy.

The light suddenly flickered, briefly extinguished, then came back on.

As if responding to the silence.

After a few seconds, his mother put down the spoon, her voice unnervingly flat. "Later, take that bag of old items to the refuse recycling station."

—The recycling station?

Yongkang's body stiffened slightly.

"...There's a refuse recycling station here?"

His voice was strained, his throat tight.

His mother nodded, looking completely normal, even slightly confused. "You've always been the one to take it, haven't you? Since you were small."

Boom—

Something exploded in Yongkang's mind.

—He had never been to the "refuse recycling station."

The place did not exist in his memory, yet his mother's tone suggested she was stating the most ordinary fact.

Yongkang's fingers slowly curled. His fingertip lightly brushed the edge of the bowl. The spoon accidentally made a faint sound that was jarringly loud in the deathly quiet air.

Rain hammered the window, splashing onto the flagstones, like a silent countdown.

Counting down to what?

Yongkang took a deep breath, placed the spoon back in the bowl, and whispered, "Okay."

He stood up, turning to look at the rain curtain outside the window.

The refuse recycling station... where exactly was it?

The town's streetlights began to flicker erratically...

The room had remained almost unchanged since his father disappeared.

After dinner, he did not leave immediately. Instead, he went to the study.

The room smelled faintly of paper and ink, but mostly of the stagnant air of a space undisturbed for a long time.

His mother never entered here, nor did she ever clean it, as if the room simply didn't belong to the house... or perhaps, it shouldn't exist at all.

Yongkang pushed open the study door and frowned slightly.

The furnishings were exactly as he remembered—

His father's desk remained as it was: notebooks, an ink bottle, and an old 5150 IBM computer, all neatly arranged, as if time had stopped here.

His gaze fell on the calendar quietly hanging on the wall—July 19, 1987.

The calendar was, as always, securely pinned down.

He walked to the bookshelf, his eyes scanning the rows of books.

Pharmacology of Chinese Medicine, Compendium of Materia Medica, Treatise on Cold Damage Disorders... all books related to pharmaceuticals.

But... The Rainforest Paradox wasn't there.

—This was wrong.

He remembered clearly that The Rainforest Paradox was a book his father had written. He even recalled seeing it in this very room.

Yongkang frowned, starting to search, even squatting down to pull out the books on the bottom shelf, one by one.

Suddenly, his hand began to tremble.

"Wait, why do I remember that my father wrote this book?"

"My father disappeared three days after I was born..."

He froze.

How did he know that?

Had his mother told him?

Or was that memory... written into his mind?

Where did this memory fragment come from?

He stared at the bookshelf. Something in his mind felt like it was collapsing.

—The timeline was completely illogical.

It was like Pandora's Box had been opened in his head, storing not whole recollections, but fragmented, broken pieces of memory, scattered everywhere, impossible to assemble.

He sat in the study, his heart pounding, his thoughts chaotic.

What exactly had happened here?

He instinctively reached out to steady himself on the desk, his fingertips touching something—

An old-style floppy disk.

He paused, picked up the disk, and flipped it over.

The blue ink on the back was still there, reading:

0.719MHz

This disk had always been here.

Yongkang had disregarded it in the past, but now he was curious about what it contained.

The rain outside intensified.

Drip-drop—Drip-drop—Drip-drop.

He hesitated no longer. He opened his father's old computer and inserted the floppy disk, hoping to read its contents.

The black screen flickered, the cursor blinking.

After 19 seconds, the screen froze, and a line of red text appeared:

ERROR 1748

This wasn't the first time.

The last time he tried to access this computer, the screen had also stalled on this error message.

The screen flickered a few times. Yongkang tried pressing the keyboard, but there was no response.

He stared at the numbers on the screen, his heart rate accelerating.

—1748. Just like the last time he tried to boot the computer.

The rain grew heavier. The lights outside flickered.

Yongkang took a deep breath, his eyes still locked on the computer screen.

$0.719\text{MHz}$, 1748, his father's study—

None of this could possibly be coincidence.

Back in his room, he pulled out the theater ticket and the photo from his pocket and spread them on his palm.

He squinted, trying to make out the details—

The writing had almost vanished.

The words "Lido Cinema" on the ticket and the photo were now indistinct, like ink washed away by time.

It was as if these objects were being "formatted" by the world.

—This wasn't his imagination.

The world was purging errors.

His fingers unconsciously stroked the edge of the ticket, cold sweat soaking his palm.

If an object did not conform to the "settings," it would be eliminated.

If the Lido Cinema and The Rainforest Paradox could be erased...

Then what about "himself"?

Yongkang's breathing became shallow. He looked down at the ticket, as if afraid it might vanish the next second.

Drip-drop—

The sound of rain tapping the window was regular and steady, like the tolling of a countdown bell.

A thought flashed through his mind—

"Something that is deleted shouldn't just vanish into thin air."

Just like unwanted files on a computer are moved to the trash. Even if the trash is emptied, residual cache files often remain.

If the world was truly "cleaning up unnecessary things"—

Where would those cleaned-up things be placed?

"The refuse recycling station."

He had to go and see.

He opened his bedroom door. Night had fully descended.

Passing his mother's room, he saw her through the crack in the door, sitting at her dressing table, combing her hair with a wooden comb, stroke by stroke.

127, 128...

Her movements were, as always, like the execution of a law that could not be broken.

Yongkang took a deep breath, turned and left the room. He picked up an umbrella and opened the pharmacy's security gate.

In the dark of the night, the town was still as water. The distant streetlights flickered faintly. The alleys were silent, without a single soul.

Whoosh-whoosh—

The rain continued to fall.

He stepped forward, heading toward the "refuse recycling station" his mother had mentioned.

The only thought in his heart was—

The answer, perhaps, lay there.