I have a high school arch-nemesis.

Not “bad relationship,” but the kind where both sincerely hope the other “never has a good day.”

The city is so small that even though I’d long since erased this person from my life, I still occasionally hear snippets about her.

Tonight, I was having dinner with friends, and somehow we started talking about her. As usual, I began to curse: that damn bitch.

My friend said she recently fell seriously ill.
I blurted out: Hope she’s defeated by the disease sooner.

My friend hesitated and said, it seems like cancer, undergoing chemotherapy. Someone went to visit her last week and said her hair was almost all gone.

At that moment, I suddenly felt the food was tasteless.

Her and I didn’t have any deep hatred.
Just high school arguments, choosing sides, hostility, a real fight once.
I remember she had long hair down to her waist, and in the chaos, I had pulled out a handful of her hair.

Those things back then felt huge, as if “we would never share the sky in this lifetime.”
But in the face of the words “cancer,” they suddenly seemed cheap, trivial, even a bit comical.

A little sympathy rose in my heart.
Not grief, not sadness, not even blessings.
Just a brief, cheap, human reflexive wavering.

I immediately started to despise myself.

What am I doing?
Haven’t I always hated her?
Haven’t I hoped she’d have a hard time?
What do these feelings mean now?
Crocodile tears? Moral performance? Fake compassion to oneself?

Maybe in the face of life, old age, illness, and death,
those personal grudges we once held tightly,
won’t elevate,
but will be lightly covered over.

Not reconciliation,
but failure.

Extreme disgust, and I don’t even want to go to the drinking session tonight.
Just go home and lie down.