These past few years I’ve been waking up with more and more precision. Six-forty every morning, two minutes ahead of the alarm. It isn’t self-discipline, of course; at my age the bladder is simply more reliable than the alarm clock. Downstairs in the morning there’s always a scrap collector’s tricycle, its loudspeaker holding a single recording, “Old appliances, old TVs, old fridges, top price paid,” played who knows how many times. Whoever spoke those few words into the microphone back then probably left the trade long ago.

My weekday routine is mechanical: wash up, boil water, fry an egg, toast two slices of bread. The eggs were bought last Friday, ten in a carton. Four are left today, which will last just until Saturday. I did the math, and it should be fine. There were three people in the elevator on the way down, all looking at their phones. I’ve lived in this building for nine years and recognize only two faces: a young girl in a pink down jacket and an old man with a toy poodle. I know neither of their names. The old man’s dog, though, knows me. Every time we pass it sniffs the cuff of my trousers, probably picking up something. I’ve never asked.

It’s deep autumn outside. The ginkgo trees in the complex have dropped all their leaves, and some unidentifiable fruit is rotting on the ground, slippery and foul underfoot. Every year the property management says they’ll sweep it up, and every year they wait for a rain to wash it into the storm drains. I have nothing against ginkgos. I just think they’re good at picking their moment: if they’re going to stink, they stink it all out in a single night. I take Line 2 to work, with one transfer in the middle. It’s hard to find a seat in the morning, and I usually stand for more than an hour. I’ve never been talkative, even as a child. Before I started primary school, my mother took me to the hospital to have my ears checked. The doctor struck a tuning fork with a little hammer, held it up to my ear and asked whether I heard it. The conclusion, of course, was that my hearing was fine. On the way home my mother asked why I didn’t talk, and after thinking for a long time I said I had nothing to say. My mother didn’t ask again.

I work as a dispatcher at a building-materials delivery company, third row, by the window. Most of what I say in a day I say into the phone: “Where are you now?” “How long were you stuck?” “The unloading dock is around the back.” “Take a look at the order.” Colleagues send messages to the group chat when there’s something to say and say nothing when there isn’t. I order lunch at 11:40 and it arrives at my desk at 12:10. Xiao Liu next to me sometimes asks, “What are you eating?” and I say, “Teriyaki chicken.” In the afternoon I stared at a vehicle schedule and suddenly thought: if I weren’t here today, someone would still make this schedule tomorrow. Xiao Liu posted a screenshot in the group chat, asking why one truck had been scheduled twice. I took a look; it was Xiao Liu’s own edit from that morning. I typed a few words, deleted them, and in the end only replied, “Check the latest version.” I verified the numbers on it, saved it, and clocked out.

Saturday was overcast, the sky outside a dirty white, like an enamel mug that hadn’t been washed properly. I didn’t go out. I slept in until past ten, then made a bowl of instant noodles and lay on the sofa looking at the water stain on the ceiling. It leaked last summer and has by now faded to a pale tea color. I’ve always wanted to see which province its remaining outline looks like, and never have. At last month’s checkup the doctor, a young man, flipped through the blood work and said two values were a bit high, nothing serious, but I should watch my diet and sleep. He added that my family should keep an eye on it too. Only after leaving did I remember I’d listed my mother as next of kin. She’s in her seventies, three hundred kilometers away, and hard of hearing. The last time I called, I told her about the checkup twice, and she didn’t catch it either time.

From that day on I began to think, a few minutes a day, about how I would die. Of course I don’t want to die; I just think about what it would look like. A sudden illness? A slow one? In a hospital, or in this very apartment? The latter I imagine more carefully: I collapse in the kitchen on a Friday night; on Monday the company messages me and no one replies; on Tuesday no one picks up the phone; on Wednesday HR contacts my mother, my mother contacts my sister, my sister contacts property management. Wednesday at the earliest. If it fell on a long holiday, seven days. The apartment would probably be like this: the refrigerator humming, the TV’s standby light on, the phone buzzing on its charging cable again and again with no one to pick it up. Water and electricity are on auto-pay, so everything would go on as usual, until some month the card ran out of money.

Zhuangzi’s wife died, and he squatted on the ground, drumming on a basin and singing. Huizi scolded him, and he explained at length, the gist being that a person is just qi gathered together, and now it has dispersed. When I read this I thought Zhuangzi was putting up a brave front, and later thought maybe he meant it. But if I died, the only basin at home is plastic. It wouldn’t ring. The worst thing I can think of is that for those seven days no one would open a window. The air in the room would grow stuffy, and if I died in spring or autumn, perhaps damp as well. At this thought I laughed, very briefly, a dry sound in my throat that even I found unfamiliar. I opened the refrigerator and found half a bottle of milk. I took a sip, found it a little sour, poured it down the sink, and filled a glass with water instead. The water was cold. I drank a glass standing up, then another.

A light rain began outside, very fine, making almost no sound on the air-conditioner unit across the way. A sparrow landed on it, neck tucked in, feathers puffed up, a small gray ball. After a while it shook itself and flew off. I rather envied its decisiveness; it probably hadn’t thought about where it was going. By evening the rain had stopped, and I went down for a walk along the river behind the complex. The channel was narrow, its banks poured concrete, the water murky with a tinge of rust. A mineral water bottle floated on it, unable to drift away, turning in circles in one spot. The pale brown reeds along the bank had withered, their plumes beaten flat by the rain; when the wind came the whole row bent one way, then after a while straightened up again. In the west the clouds split open, revealing a small patch of pale orange, which the clouds behind covered up again within minutes. I stood and watched it to the end, very attentively.

The last time anyone said my name was three days ago, at the parcel station: the guy checked the last digits of my phone number, read my name aloud and asked if it was right. He handed over the package, eyes already on the next person. It suddenly occurred to me: if I were gone, would any place in this city be missing something? I went around and around and thought of the young person on the subway who always gets off ahead of me. If I didn’t show up one day, they might look around the crowd a second longer, then keep walking. The river and the trees and the sky naturally wouldn’t. I’ve never asked anything of them, and they have no obligation.

At the bridge I held the railing, which was, unsurprisingly, cold and wet. The buildings on the opposite bank were lit up one window at a time. Looking closely, the curtains were yellow or blue, and behind each window there was probably someone eating dinner or watching TV, unaware that on this side of the river someone was counting them. It was fully dark, with no stars and no moon. The undersides of the clouds were lit dark red by the city, and after looking for a while my neck began to ache. The wind picked up and the reeds rustled. I put my hands in my pockets and felt my keys and a receipt, and at the bottom of the pocket, a coin. I took it out and looked at it under the streetlight. A one-yuan coin. Heh. Number side up, even. I put it back and kept walking toward home.