In a land where the heavens were no more than a tapestry of blue, disrupted by squares of floating planes, lived an immortal named Lian. The planes, man-made marvels, tarnished the once-sacred skies, a garish symbol of humanity’s insatiable ambition to defy natural order. Lian, an elegant figure with eyes like distant stars and a voice that flowed like a river, was as much a part of this world as the cascading bamboo forests.
She often stood on the tallest peak, Zhang Mountain, pondering the human obsession with realms beyond reach. One such day, in the thick of an overcast dawn, her longtime companion, Han, arrived. Unlike Lian, Han was mortal, a wanderer unconfined by material aspirations but bound by the gravity of his humanity. “Breathing here feels different,” he declared, standing beside her, wind teasing his unkempt hair.
“Is it the altitude, or the illusion of heights achieved?” Lian queried, her tone carrying the understated cynicism reminiscent of urban shadows and neon lights—a nod to the aesthetic sensibilities of Eileen Chang.
Han chuckled, “Always the poet, drawing ironies from thin air. Yet, don’t we all yearn to reconstruct squares of satisfaction amidst the chaos of empty breadths?”
Their banter, reminiscent of timeless stories captured in ink, was their sanctuary. Han pulled out a small square plane from his pocket, an origami shaped from a ragged piece of parchment—a mundane artifact in a realm of mystical wonders. It glided playfully in the wind before settling at Lian’s feet. “Look, even paper wishes to fly,” Han remarked.
“It’s an echo of the planes above, mere humans defying the divine,” Lian replied, her smile layered with the cold allure of one who has seen too many epochs pass. “We hold illusions of grandeur; even our paper dreams try to escape our grasp, driven by the laughter of the wind.”
The conversation shifted toward the transgressions of mortals—how they viewed immortals as distant legends yet sought their secrets tirelessly. “Ambition knows no bounds; it doesn’t heed to whispers of wisdom,” Han commented.
“Indeed, they build their stairways to the stars, only to realize the emptiness above,” Lian sighed, weight of aeons lacing her words.
Their discourse painted vivid images—a dialogue etching sketches of life’s mundane battles against the ethereal backdrop of ageless skies. As shadows grew long, enveloping the mountains in a cool embrace, they descended, leaving behind the echoes of immortality’s disdain for mortal hubris.
Below the peaks, the villagers toiled, their line of vision constrained to the horizon, their dreams square and boxed, just like their planes. A child, perched on his father’s shoulders, pointed at the skies, curiosity sparking in his eyes.
“The sky, is it boundless?” he asked his father, innocence and dreams intertwining.
“They say it is infinite,” came the father’s response, burdened by experience yet uplifted by the boy’s wonder.
As Lian and Han passed, ghosts among the living, the village elder remarked, “Legends walk among us, tethered by destiny. Yet, who among us truly comprehends their mysteries?”
A fleeting glance from Lian acknowledged the truth. Mortals and immortals alike remained prisoners of their flights, grounded by their yearnings. And as dusk painted squares of light against the darkening heavens, their shared reality was left hanging on a note of cynical mimicry—a dance amid life’s profound satirical stage.
Thus, in the satire of heights and flights, the story wove its final irony; the planes soared above, artificial and angular, reminding all of both mortality and immortality’s shared destiny—rooted not in aspirations, but in reflections on the paths not taken.