Imagination of the Scene

Water meters are one of the fascinating objects in my childhood.

At one corner on the roof laid the water meters of households in the same building. In the summer afternoon that sultriness made everyone drowsy, I liked to gaze at these meters. Some of them are motionless; perhaps the whole family was taking a nap? Some of them were spinning languidly, like an old man's staggering walk. Some were rotating agilely, like the light steps of young girls. The speeds of the meters told me how much water they were using at the moment, and I imaged what they were doing: the mother was rinsing vegetables carefully, the father was preparing for a bath, the toilet was flushing like flooding then suddenly it stopped when the water tank had stored enough water. The meters secretly told me stories about the encounters of people and each drop of water.

At home whenever I switched on the water faucet I'd wonder how the water flows affect the water meter of my home. When I am still in reverie, every drop of water transforms into birds flying away. They arrive our home before passing the long pipes from the other ends around mountains and emerge from water faucets, curious about what kind of family they will end up.