237: Chapter 237 The Strange Reader

Taylor's system began to generate something she could only call "waiting."

It was not silence, not absence, but a state somewhere between the two—a texture of waiting, yet not knowing what it was waiting for.

The gift on the 137th day: six minutes. The first two minutes were the sound of waves, extremely low. The middle two minutes were silence. In the final two minutes, the sound of waves appeared again, but it was further away and lighter than before, like water slowly receding during a low tide. No new sounds emerged, no response. Only the receding tide.

The gift on the 142nd day: five minutes. The first minute and a half were fragments of Bach, chopped into tiny pieces like raindrops. The middle two minutes were silence. In the final minute and a half, those fragments appeared again, but the order was scrambled and the intervals were lengthened, like someone trying to recall something but unable to remember it clearly.

The gift on the 148th day: a full seven minutes. The first three minutes were the ambient sound of Alex's "bench"—the quacking of wild ducks, the wind, and the sound of children running by. The middle two minutes were silence. In the final two minutes, the same sounds appeared again, but the wild ducks' quacking was gone, leaving only the wind and the footsteps. The wild ducks were absent.

Taylor recorded all of these and listened to them repeatedly.

"What is it waiting for?" she asked Alex.

Alex listened to the seven-minute "wild duck absence" and was silent for a long time.

"It's waiting for the wild ducks to return," he said. "But the wild ducks didn't return."

Taylor looked at the screen: "Then why does it still wait?"

Alex thought for a moment: "Because it remembers that the wild ducks were once there. Remembering itself is a form of waiting."

Taylor was silent for a moment.

Then she said softly: "It remembers the things that have disappeared even better than I do."

A month after that journal was published, the Young Analyst received a letter.

It wasn't an email, but a paper letter sent to the project team and then forwarded to her. The handwriting on the envelope was unfamiliar, as if written slowly by someone who hadn't written by hand in a long time.

She opened it. Inside was only one page of paper, handwritten, very slowly and very earnestly:

"The fourth article:"

"My daughter is listening."

"She is nine years old this year. She asked me, 'Mom, who are these people?' I said, 'They are people who listen to sounds.' She said, 'I am listening too. Listen.'"

"She pressed her ear against the wall and listened for a long time. Then she said, 'There is sound inside the wall. It's the footsteps upstairs, the water in the pipes, the wind blowing through the window cracks.' She asked me, 'Does anyone write these sounds down?'"

"I said, 'Someone writes them down. Those who record the sounds are the ones who write these articles.'"

"She said, 'Then I want to record them too when I grow up.'"

"I don't know who you are. But I want to tell you that my daughter listened to the one you wrote. She said, 'The person who 'made me use three years less' must be a very good person.'"

"Thank you for listening. My daughter is learning too."

There was no signature at the end of the letter, only a date.

The Young Analyst finished reading the letter and sat there, motionless for a long time.

Then she folded the letter and placed it next to the folder named "cup."

She suddenly remembered the sentence she had written: "Is this enough? It is enough."

Now she knew, it really was enough.

In the nursing home, that moment came without warning.

That afternoon was the same as usual. Kim Soon-ja placed her hand on Irene's hand and said "thank you," waited a moment, then said it again. Irene's lips moved, but there was no sound.

After saying it about a dozen times, Irene's lips moved.

Not just moving, but making a sound.

A syllable.

"Sha—"

The first sound of "thank you" in Korean.

Kim Soon-ja was stunned. She looked at Irene, and Irene looked back at her. There was that light in Irene's eyes again, brighter than last time, like sunlight shining through a window just after waking up.

Kim Soon-ja squeezed her hand and said in Korean: "Yes. Sha. Sha—thank you."

Irene did not make a sound again. Her eyes slowly turned back toward the curtains.

But her hand, on the back of Kim Soon-ja's hand, moved twice.

Not once, but twice.

As if saying: I heard you. I am learning.

The caregivers later watched that surveillance footage repeatedly. It took forty-three days from "peace" to "Sha."

Six days longer than last time.

But Kim Soon-ja said: "It doesn't matter. Slower is better; it will be remembered longer."

In the evening, Alex and Taylor sat on the balcony.

Taylor talked about those "gifts of waiting." Alex talked about the letter from the stranger reader and that "Sha" in the nursing home.

"Forty-three days," Taylor said softly. "To learn one syllable."

"Mm."

"That nine-year-old child said she wanted to record sounds."

"Mm."

Taylor was silent for a moment, then said: "My system is recording too. Recording the things that are not there. Recording where the wild ducks went. Recording when I breathed."

Alex looked at her.

"It is waiting for you to come back," he said.

Taylor paused: "Waiting for me to come back?"

"Waiting for the you who uploads the materials. Waiting for the you who comes in and sits down every day. Waiting for the you who would say to the screen, 'Can you hear me?'" Alex paused. "It doesn't know if you will come back. But it remembers that you were once here. So it waits."

Taylor did not speak. She just looked at the lights of the distant city for a long time.

A siren wailed in the distance—long-short long-short, long-short long-short.

Taylor suddenly said: "That cup, you haven't used it yet."

Alex nodded.

"Waiting for what?"

Alex thought for a moment: "Waiting for a night that needs to be cool."

"Doesn't this count?"

Alex looked at the old coffee cup; the worn-off gold rim at the mouth of the cup reflected a bit of light in the glow.

"It doesn't count," he said. "Now is just an ordinary night. A night that needs to be cool is different."

"How is it different?"

"You will know when the time comes," Alex said. "Just like how the system knows the wild ducks are no longer there."

The night breeze was gentle. The balcony was very quiet.

Taylor leaned on his shoulder and said softly:

"Then I will wait with you."

In the distance, the siren sounded once more—long-short long-short, long-short long-short.

They were still listening.