<<Shadow on the porch>>

"Ding Ling -"
     When the wooden door of the studio was pushed open, a wisp of locust fragrance leaked into the ripples of the copper bell at the corner of the eaves. I looked up and saw a hunched shadow on the glass display window. The old man was holding a faded pet backpack in his arms, his knuckles pressing until they turned white.

      They said... you can let the furry child go home. "Her voice sounded like an old record worn by sandpaper, and she tremblingly pulled out an iron box. At the moment of opening, the aged dog biscuit mixed with the scent of medicinal cotton rushed towards me - it was a pile of grey felt, with faint traces of being repeatedly rubbed.

     On the day Niu Niu left, she was still holding the ginkgo leaves she picked up for me in her mouth, "the old man's withered fingers caressed the yellowed leaves in the iron box." For fourteen years, this silly girl has been squatting on the doormat every day, waiting for the deliveryman, her claws grinding a dent in the threshold stone

     I took the phone she handed me. In the video, the Golden Retriever is tilting its head and flipping over an entire bag of dog food. The sunset has coated its fur with honey color, and when its tail is raised, it looks like a jumping flame. On the eighth replay, the old man suddenly pointed to the paused screen and said, "Did you see that? She has a tuft of hair on the tip of her right ear that keeps curling up, and when she picks up a frisbee, it looks like a small flag

      Three months later, when I walked into the old courtyard covered in wisteria with my life sized sculpture, a warm ginger color was quietly lying on the brand new doormat at at the entrance. The morning light passed through the branches of the locust tree, casting small specks of light on Niu Niu's nose tip, even the disobedient tuft of fluff on her ear tip gently swaying in the wind.

      "EVA, the package has arrived. "The old man's hoarse call awakened the frozen time.
The sculpture lifted its head in response, its glass eyes filled with starlight that had remained unchanged for fourteen years. The pit on the threshold stone was suddenly covered by a furry tail, as if the figure waiting forever on the way home had finally arrived at the spring that would not be late.

       When the bronze bell in the shop window rang again, I turned around and saw two figures leaning against each other swaying on the courtyard wall. Big hunched, small fluffy, with an invisible traction rope connected in the middle, melting into an eternal shape in the twilight.