This. Here. Now.

故事說到 Esther 因為一場餐會搞得食物中毒，只能虛弱地躺在病床上，翻著主辦單位送來慰問的短篇小說選集解悶。

I flipped through one story after another until finally I came to a story about a fig tree.

The fig tree grew on a green lawn between the house of a Jewish man and a convent, and the Jewish man and a beautiful dark nun kept meeting at the tree to pick the ripe figs, until one day they saw an egg hatching in a bird's nest on a branch of the tree, and as they watched the little bird peck its way out of the egg, they touched the backs of their hands together, and then the nun didn't come out to pick figs with the Jewish man any more but  a mean-faced Catholic kitchen-maid came to pick them instead and counted up the figs the man picked after they were both through to be sure he hadn't picked any more than she had, and the man was furious.

I thought it was a lovely story, especially the part about the fig tree in winter under the snow and then the fig tree in spring with all the green fruit. I felt sorry when I came to the last page. I wanted to crwal in between those black lines of print the way you crawl through a fence, and go to sleep under that beautiful big green fig tree.

我非常非常喜歡最後一句。「真想鑽過那一行行黑色的鉛字，就像鑽過籬笆一樣，到那美麗高大的綠色無花果樹下去睡覺。」意象如詩般動人，卻又隱隱透露著一種可望而不可及的焦慮和憂鬱。

在讀 The Bell Jar 的時候，我一直提醒自己先不要把小說裡的情節和 Plath 的生平做連結，但是讀到下頭這一段時，我終究還是「破功」了：

Back on the breezeway, I fed the first, virgin sheet into my old portable and rolled it up.

From another, distant mind, I saw myself sitting on the breezeway, surrounded bu two white clapboard walls, a mock orange bush and a clump of birches and a box hedge, samll as a doll in a doll's house.

A feeling of tenderness filled my heart. My heroine would be myself, only in disguise. She would be called Elaine. Elaine. I counted the letters on my fingers. There were six letters in Esther, too. It seemed a lucky thing.

回到家，如遊魂一般的 Esther 企圖逃避日光、逃避社會，甚至逃避人生。最後，她決定要寫一本小說－「報復很多人。」她想。

都是六個字母。Sylvia 想像著她的女主角 Esther，Esther 想像著她的女主角 Elaine。一層套一層，她們的人生是不是都像娃娃屋裡的娃娃一樣，只能任人擺佈，自個兒從來做不了主?

這個後設式的想像，讓我打了個寒顫，心裡一陣酸楚。

林夕，只要你對華語流行音樂還有那麼一點點概念，就不可能沒聽過這個名字。1961年出生於香港的林夕，本名梁偉文，從八零年代中起，就以質量/產量俱豐的作品享譽樂壇 (是不是名喚「偉文」就特別會寫詞啊?)。那麼「林夕」這個筆名是怎麼來的? 把這兩個字打直了寫－「梦」(夢)。(林夕最喜歡的文學作品，據說正是《紅樓夢》。)

而陳輝陽，雖然在流行音樂界的起步比起林夕要晚上十多年，目前卻也是同樣地炙手可熱。這「夕、陽」(中文啊，真是個玄妙的語言) 二人合作創造出的第一首知名作品，王菲的《暗湧》，讓人一聽難忘。

2007年年初，邁入流行音樂界十年的陳輝陽邀來林夕共同製作這名為《十二金釵眾生花》的計畫，由十二位橫跨老、中、青三代的女性，訴盡世間女子的美麗與哀愁。(樂評就參考南方日報的吧，原諒我從來不擅長寫此類文章。)

而這張專輯中最令人驚艷的，我想大部分聽過的人應該都會同意，絕對是〈三千年前/後〉中，李香琴的一段唸白。(〈三千年後〉是李香琴的獨白，而〈三千年前〉則藉著混音後製，穿插進了一段關淑怡的歌聲。) 先前聽人說，聽了會哭的，我還不信。結果? 李香琴那把歷盡人世滄桑的嗓音，就像舊洋樓裡飄蕩的一縷幽幽芳魂，在人的腦裡耳際踟躕徘徊不去...