At that time, some classmates transferred schools, and I felt that I might never see them again in this lifetime.
When I was a sophomore, I bought a pager. It was digital at first, and then it was Hanxian. I thought it was very advanced. Doing homework in the library, checking to see if the pager vibrates from time to time, just like staring at the phone to see if someone sends me WeChat. Someone called me, and my heart was sweet, I ran to the IC card phone booth outside the library, and stood on the summer night to make a phone call. Nothing to worry about, just keep chatting.
Then there was a cell phone. Start texting. Finding people was starting to get easier; back then we didn't know the revolutionary changes brought about by cell phones and smartphones, and thought it was just a replacement for a landline. Who would have thought that ten years later, everyone is staring at their mobile phones all the time.
Then there was msn, then there was skype, and then there was WeChat video chat...
That year, Guishu spent eight hours on the long journey to find Mingli, and never again. Today's first love may be something that facetime and snapchat can handle; and Akari is by the weak fire at Iwashu Station, and the despair of waiting for four hours is no longer there. Maybe send a text message and say, "I'll go back first. I’m home, call me when you’re here” and so on, and then send a love expression; and the warmth of the two teenagers embracing each other in the heavy snow may also be compromised: if you don’t experience those painful waiting and the hesitation of teenagers, how can you know one How precious is a kiss?
Just like Guishu's later girlfriend said: We have sent a thousand text messages, but our hearts are only one centimeter closer.
All the distances that we thought we would never see again can now be found on the Internet and mobile phones.
There are junior high school groups, high school groups, and elementary school groups in WeChat, as well as alumni groups, class groups, and groups where classmates gather in cities.
Those who thought they would never see each other in a lifetime are in the WeChat group. If you want to find someone, you don't have to go downstairs and shout your name, and you don't have to look at the auntie's face. With your fingers, everyone is on the web, and in theory, you can find anyone in the world in a day.
But we stopped chatting because there was nothing to talk about other than those shared memories.
And those common memories are the old program-controlled landline, those numbers that I know by heart, and those phone calls that I just made to hear a voice.
When we were so far apart when we were young, we felt that it would take a long time to go to the provincial capital by car. We planned for a long time, and took the long-distance bus tremblingly with the mentality of going away. But now, it is only 200 miles to drive casually, and if you want to go to other countries on weekends. Just like when Takaki and Akari felt that Shinjuku was so big and the rock boat was so far away when they were 13 years old, but now that he is walking at Shinjuku Station every day, the rock boat is only a few feet away.
The real distance is the distance in the human heart. So far, what they have, what we have, are just those common memories. That clear dream that thirteen-year-old had under the snowy cherry trees, the best rice ball in my life that I had eaten by the faint fire at the train station.
Those hearts that are as transparent as crystal. Those distances in the heart that no pager, mobile phone, WeChat or Weibo can buy.
I am the same age as Guishu and Mingli, both born in the 80s.
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