On Eve’s desk stood a feather-shaped, electroplated ceramic vase.
It was a gift from her ex-boyfriend on her thirtieth birthday. The vase was silvery-white all over, and under the fluorescent lights, the plating shimmered with a cold, metallic luster, like a feather that had been forcibly frozen in time and would never decay.
“It’s light, but it carries real weight,” her ex-boyfriend had said at the time.
At the time, Eve had thought it was a nice thing to say. Now, on the fourteenth consecutive day of overtime, sitting in the office at 2 a.m., she stared at the vase and felt that those words were a curse.
A long-withered eucalyptus leaf was stuck in the vase. The first thing Eve did every day when she arrived at the office was to spray it with a little water. The droplets slid down the chrome-plated surface, leaving no trace—like tears streaming down a face caked in foundation.
Kevin, at the desk next to hers, hadn’t left yet. He was the most “smooth operator” in the department—always smiling, always ordering coffee for others, always adjusting his posture just right whenever the boss walked by. Kevin was just like this vase: smooth on the surface, impervious to anything.
“Still here?” Kevin leaned over, his voice as soft as a feather landing.
“Yeah, I’ve got one more PowerPoint to finish.” Eve didn’t look up.
“Don’t push yourself too hard,” Kevin tapped her desk, his fingertip pausing for a second beside the vase’s base. “Some things look like feathers, but they’re actually made of iron. Don’t take yourself too seriously.”
Eve paused for a moment.
Kevin smiled and turned to leave. His figure vanished at the end of the hallway, like a drop of water dissolving into the ocean.
Eve reached out to touch the vase. Her fingertips brushed against the cold ceramic, and the glaze left a faintly cool sensation on her palm. She suddenly recalled the day her ex-boyfriend broke up with her—it had also been a dawn like this. He’d said, “Eve, you take things too seriously. In this world, people who take things too seriously don’t live long.”
At the time, she had cried, thinking he was cruel.
Now, as she looked at the withered leaf in the vase, she suddenly realized he had merely been describing a physical phenomenon.
She picked up the spray bottle and misted it again. The mist dispersed under the light, like a miniature snowfall.
Just then, she noticed a very fine crack at the bottom of the vase.
No, not a crack. A small patch of the glaze had chipped away, revealing the rough, grayish-white clay beneath.
She had never noticed it before.
Eve turned the vase upside down, holding it up to the light of the table lamp. The chipped spot looked like an old wound—or perhaps an open eye.
She suddenly realized that this vase had never been a feather.
It had merely been plated to look like a feather.
And what truly made her tread so carefully every day, afraid of shattering it, wasn’t the vase at all—it was her own thin layer of plating called “dignity.”
She sprayed it with water every day, thinking she was tending to something, but in reality, she was only confirming: Look, I’m still here; I haven’t shattered yet.
Eve set the vase back on the table.
She didn’t spray any more water.
She picked up the withered eucalyptus leaf, gently pulled it out, and tossed it into the trash can.
Then she turned off the desk lamp and sat in the darkness for a while.
Outside the window, the city lights stretched out like a wilderness that would never go dark.
She suddenly felt as if a small piece of something had finally flaked off her as well.
It didn’t hurt.
It just felt a little lighter.
