ARCHIVE 05
THE DIVINE BIRD

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ACOUSTIC METADATA

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• TIMESTAMP: Autumn, 1969

• LOCATION: Longevity Hill / Compound No. 7, Beijing

• PHENOMENON: Visual Overexposure (White-out), Micro-explosion noise

• SUBJECT: The Awakening of the Divine Bird

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My father’s muffled roar, laced with a wire-like screech, pierced through my entire body: “Come home with me!”

Twilight at Longevity Hill transformed into a water-stained ink painting; every block of color and line bled into a blur. In the distance, Red Guards from Compound No. 7 were denouncing my father. I crouched beneath an old locust tree near an abandoned building, trying to listen to the crows sing—a melody constantly severed by the blast of revolutionary anthems.

My eyes burned again, a sudden, sharp pain. I slid on my sunglasses, but the white light still forced its way in. I could no longer see the branches or the grass. All I could see were infinite particles of dust dancing frantically in the glare, producing fine, crackling noises—like a never-ending micro-explosion with a dry, metallic texture.

Gao Yong arrived, dangling a slingshot and a dead crow. He spoke in a pinched, mocking voice, the usual routine: ridiculing my white hair, my failing vision, and my now-powerless father. As he turned to leave, he let out a cold sneer I had never heard before: “Heh-heh.”

My vision turned a stark, sterile white. No lines, no shapes, no colors.

A subtle audio trajectory forced my fingers to stiffen; my toes began to cramp. Gao Yong’s sharp, monkey-like features blurred, twisted, and shattered, finally collapsing into a single black dot. The divine bird sleeping in my heart jolted awake. Fragments of images drifted down before my eyes, faster than a crow in flight.