The head didn't agree and continued to hit the headboard.
"Can't you be quiet for a bit!" Lin An was getting a bit angry, glaring at the head with wide eyes.
Finally, the head quieted down, rotated to adjust its angle, and faced Lin An with its hollow eye sockets. It opened its mouth, full of dark teeth and tongue, and moaned, "Return~my~eyes~"
Lin An rolled his eyes, somewhat gritting his teeth, "I just had cataracts, it was a minor surgery, not an eyeball transplant. I didn't take your eyes!"
The head wouldn't listen, continuing to wail, "Return my eyes..."
"You..."
"Why can't you understand human speech!"
Lin An jerked his head up, lying powerlessly on the bed, blankly staring at the somewhat dim, dusty ceiling.
Thump, thump, thump~
The head was once again hitting his headboard.
Banging and banging, it was agitating enough to vex anyone.
Eventually, Lin An forcefully kicked off the blanket on his legs, jumped out of bed, leaned down to look under the bed, and then reached out to grab the head.
"So, I can't cure you, huh?"
He grabbed roughly, his fingers passing through the head's hair, feeling like he was touching sticky blood.
But he knew it was all a hallucination, there was no blood, no head.
It was all fake, fake!
Finally, he nearly stuffed his entire upper body under the bed, staring intensely at the head, quickly extended his arm and grabbed a handful of the head's hair.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch, don't pull my hair, how long has it been since you've cut your nails? You scraped my ear, check quickly, am I bleeding?" the head wailed as it was yanked out.
Lin An rose from the floor, swinging the head around wanting to smash it against the wall.
He really wanted to do it!
But he ultimately restrained himself, not wanting to disturb the kid living downstairs who was preparing for the most important exam of their life.
He took a deep breath, walked a few steps holding the head, and placed it on the usual dinner table, glaring at it, "I just want to get some good sleep, can you keep it down?"
Really, he was already restraining himself immensely, restraining from acting violently towards these bizarre things, restraining himself from appearing strange to others.
The head ignored him, only twitching its stiff and tense cheek skin as if feeling its own ear.
"There's no blood!" Lin An spoke forcefully, "You don't even have blood!"
"Oh, I see, thanks!" the head replied as if relieved, then resumed a twisted and ghastly expression on its face, crying and speaking to Lin An, "Return~my~eyes~"
"Screw you!" Lin An couldn't hold back any longer, waving his arms in desperation.
He breathed heavily, strode to the corner and turned on the room's light.
Click, the room brightened, and the head looked uglier.
Lin An watched the head muttering 'return my eyes' silently, walked towards the kitchen with a feeling of helplessness, and opened the cupboard.
After a moment of silence, he took out a bottle of baijiu.
It was erguotou, a strong 53-degree liquor, he forcefully twisted off the cap, and a pungent scent filled the air.
This was Lin An's only way to deal with these hallucinations.
Getting drunk, numbing himself, to escape these things, to...
get a good sleep.
He didn't like drinking, especially baijiu, it was particularly harsh.
But he had no choice, it was the only way.
Holding the liquor bottle, he weakly sat back down at the dining table, hesitated for a moment, then still asked, "Can you be quiet for a bit, just let me get some good sleep, I really have a lot of business at work lately, I'm nearly dead from exhaustion."
The head just kept saying, 'return my eyes,' its tone almost becoming a humming tune.
Lin An sighed, closed his eyes, lifted the bottle to his lips, and endured his aversion to alcohol, tilting his head and gulping down the liquor.
In one go, he drank half the bottle.
In a moment, his cheeks flushed red, he felt himself beginning to blur.
"Burp~"
Lin An slumped in the chair, staring blankly at the head, "When will you guys just leave me be..."
He grabbed the bottle and gulped down another big swig, "I'm really tired, do you know that?"
"Glug, glug~"
"With both work and a mortgage suffocating me, I tell myself, I'm still young, I can bear it..." Lin An muttered to the head.
"Look at this house, forty-something square meters, won't need too long to pay it off..."
"I'm really tired, do you know that? My skills are just so-so, it's only because of luck that I got this job. I feel like my boss could find a better, cheaper graduate to replace me anytime..."
"Glug glug..."
"I'm already so exhausted, why do these inexplicable things have to come and mess with me? I can hardly hold on, do you know that?"
The head didn't speak, because it was just a basketball.
*"Burp~"*
Lin An chuckled, setting the wine bottle heavily next to the basketball, pointing at it and giggling, "See, I told you, you don't have blood."
He staggered to his feet, walked towards the bed, then suddenly turned his head back to look.
Seeing that the basketball hadn't turned back into a head, he finally relaxed. He raised a finger, threatening with a severe tone, "Don't bother me again, or I'll throw you out!"
He wasn't really willing to throw away the basketball, after all, it was the only prize he had ever won in a raffle in his life, which he considered a symbol of luck.
Even though his luck was never really that good.
The first ray of morning sunlight, accompanied by bursts of loud singing, began a new day.
"Return my eyes, re~turn~ my~ eyes, return~~~ my~~~ eye~~~"
The last word 'eye' became muffled, as a pajama was casually thrown over the ugly head.
Lin An yawned, quickly tugged off the pajama and took a cold shower in the bathroom, washing away all the alcohol and exhaustion.
Dressed in a loose linen shirt and casual trousers, and having combed his hair, Lin An shouldered his laptop bag and gave himself a radiant smile in the mirror.
"You can do it, hang in there!"
He waved his fist energetically, telling himself that he could get through these difficult times.
Someday...
He would get used to these strange things existing in his life.
Someday, he would be completely numb, completely accustomed!
With light steps, he went to a breakfast shop filled with steaming vapor and ate a bowl of wontons, heartily swallowing two large buns.
Rejuvenated, he headed into the new day...
Hmm, if only this subway weren't a monster.
Lin An stood on the subway platform at Huayuan North Road Station, baffled as a gigantic lizard with a fierce look emerged from the depths of the tracks and finally stopped in front of him.
Accompanied by the sweet voice of the subway station's announcer, "Huayuan North Road Station has arrived, please alight from the left side of the train, watch your step..."
The lizard turned its head, opened its huge mouth, revealing fangs dripping with slime.
And the people beside it walked straight into its mouth as it opened.
"Awoooo!"
The lizard snapped its mouth shut, chewing, and with the screams of a middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses who had just walked in, blood splattered everywhere.
Afterward, the great lizard opened its mouth again, and the other people, seemingly unaware, stepped straight toward its open mouth.
Lin An swallowed hard, clenched the straps of his laptop bag tightly, and frantically told himself, these were all hallucinations, hallucinations.
He could handle it, he could overcome it!
Don't run, don't act weird in front of others, act normal!
Breathing hard, the giant lizard's huge vertical pupils stared straight at him, making his skin crawl.
He could definitely overcome this!
He clenched his teeth and charged straight forward.
Good, there was no pain from being torn by fangs, no fishy smell from a monster's mouth, or any sticky tactile sensation, nothing!
"Ouch~"
Lin An heard a scream and realized he had accidentally bumped into someone because of his tense nerves, and quickly stepped back with an apologetic expression, "Sorry, sorry!"
It was a young woman with a stroller. She grabbed Lin An's arm, flicked off her tea-colored sunglasses, revealing a pair of narrow phoenix eyes staring intensely at him.
"I didn't mean to..." Lin An hadn't finished speaking when his pupils suddenly dilated.
Suddenly, the noisy crowd in this train disappeared, leaving only a path full of creepy fleshy folds. The woman's red tight dress had turned into a loose robe, and on her head was a slanted, pointy hat.
And the stroller she was pushing had turned into a huge iron cage. Inside the cage, a toad as big as a washing machine was thumping its belly and cheeks.
Lin An tugged at the corner of his mouth, trying hard to act as if he saw nothing, simply apologizing with restraint, "I'm really sorry."
The young woman tilted her head to look at him then eventually nodded and released his arm.
Suddenly, the noisy sounds on the train returned to his ears.
"How can you eat instant noodles on the train, have some public decency..."
"Ah, you stepped on my foot…"