One Wednesday morning, as he was habitually counting the number of times he brushed his teeth, a bizarre life-changing thing happened.
In Harold's own words, he was followed by a woman's voice. He heard a woman's voice in his head from time to time stating every detail of his life, even his inner workings.
Just when he wondered if he was crazy, something even weirder happened. While he was waiting for the bus, he found that his watch was broken. The mysterious voice told him that it was a sign that would lead to his imminent death.
Harold had to do everything he could to find the source of the voice and try to save his life. He went to see a psychiatrist, who had no better advice than asking him to take his medication on time. He found a literature professor and tried to get experts to find out for him whether he was the protagonist of a novel.
This voice came from a female writer. At the end of each book, she "kills" the protagonist of the book. She has not published a work for 10 years. At the moment, she is in serious "creative block" by not knowing how to kill her hero, Harold. The publisher even sent a writing assistant to help her finish it early.
She had no idea that the tax auditor in her novel was a real person. She was figuring out how to "kill" Harold. Jump off the building, no. A car accident, no. Pneumonia, no. Shot to death, no. She even imagined that the demolition company would demolish his apartment.
At this moment, Harold is following the professor's instructions, staying in the apartment and doing nothing, waiting for the patronage of the god of fate. After he narrowly escaped under the steel claws, he found the professor. The professor concluded that the narrator wanted to kill him, and Harold had no control over his fate. The professor's final advice is: don't think about destiny, live the life you want to live.
He took the advice. Before death found him, the only thing he wanted to do was learn the guitar, so he went to the guitar shop and bought it back. He went out to the movies alone. He starts to live. He even sent all kinds of flour to his auditee, the bakery owner Anna. Inevitably and irrevocably, the two quickly fall in love.
All that happened in Harold's life made him unable to accept his impending death. He persevered and finally found a female writer. The female writer, however, insists on the ending of the novel she has already conceived.
Harold returned disappointed, but soon regained his composure. After spending his last night with Anna, Harold is hit by a bus while trying to save a child who has fallen on his bicycle on a bus platform.
The female writer finally succeeded and "killed" Harold, but she was heartbroken and broke down in tears.
Harold also opened his eyes from the hospital bed when the female writer approached the literature professor with her revised novel.
This is a weird story, but this weird story actually wants to tell us a truth that is not weird at all, and even extremely simple and clear, that is: to live the life you want to live bravely, to dare to live, and not to be afraid of death.
In fact, like Harold, deep down, each of us can hear the voice of such a narrator. It is always leading us, reminding us, even warning us. It's just the hustle and bustle of the outside world that often drowns out this faint voice. No, when we ask ourselves, "What kind of life do I want to live?", we always get an answer. When we walk the road bravely and know where we are going, even if death is waiting for us around the next corner, we have no regrets.
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