北欧床垫 European Mattress

星期六早上九点半，我去中城办事。纽约人还没起床，街道上偶尔可见几个遛狗的人，或是从健身房出来的年轻男孩，短裤下的肌肉线条十分养眼。

我办完事，找了家小咖啡馆坐了下来，点了一杯滴漏咖啡和杏子挞。

咖啡馆的斜对面，有家床垫店。名字我再熟悉不过了。小学住的小区附近，也曾开过一家。有一天我放学路过，被巨大的落地窗，漂亮的大字体招牌，和门后面柔和的色调吸引了。我因为好奇，有一天走了进去。店员装扮得体，彬彬有礼。我虽然那时可能只有十二岁，店员还是给我倒了一杯水，耐心地跟我聊天，顺便给我介绍这家来自北欧的公司，有着前卫的设计理念，有机的原材料，等等，等等。他们看着似乎是刚刚毕业的大学生，英文发音标准，不像是一般商场里的售货员。我当然对床垫一窍不通，也没有钱，只觉得这样的成人世界光鲜亮丽，令人着迷。我想象着有一天我也会有这样的生活，一个明亮的属于自己的家，一张赏心悦目的床，周末的早晨，在这样的地方醒来，给自己煮一壶咖啡。

也是那几年，星巴克开始大规模进驻中国，也在那家床垫店附近开了一家。在那时，去星巴克喝咖啡可是稀奇事。我也和同学去那里看过“西洋镜”。我们隔壁坐着一个气质非凡的知性美女和一个老外，知性美女悠悠然走到服务员面前说“我要一杯卡布奇诺”。我和同学，背着书包，戴着红领巾，面对漂亮大姐姐优雅的风姿，呆坐在那里，像两只小鸭子。

十八年过去了，曾经梦寐以求的生活，在外人看来或许我已经实现了许多。我在明亮宽敞的公寓里醒来，在星期六的早晨用流利的英文给自己点一杯咖啡，我打开手机，三十岁的生活里，是同事的邮件，男人的短信，投资账户上的数字，家人的关切问候。

再次遇到这家床垫店，门面不再光鲜，字体显得过时，因为开在高楼林立的曼哈顿中城不起眼的角落，里面黑漆漆的。

这个床垫公司贩卖的精致中产生活，在我十二岁时就将我绑住了，让我兢兢业业了十八年，飞过太平洋，在地球另一端出现在我的生活里，阴魂不散。又怎么样呢，我看着黑漆漆的床垫店。我们都来到纽约了，又怎么样呢。

想到刚才路上遇到健身房男孩，他们何尝不是跟我一样，可以晚上和朋友们从下班喝到凌晨，但一个邮件就可以马上回家改报告，第二天早上，健身房刚开门，又马不停蹄进去操练自己。养眼的肌肉线条和闪闪发光的信用卡，都是在功绩社会里给纽约人的奖杯。

小时候的我，有着超越同龄人的野心，我用一个个奖杯不断填满它又扩大它，在三十岁时，发现停止在了这里，走不下去了。也许床垫公司已经找到了它的位置，我也已经足够幸运。

杏子挞吃到一半，一缕烟灰悄然落在桌面，我抬头，看不到人只看到空荡荡的窗户。我看了看烟灰，决定动身去下个行程。

English Ver (Translated by GPT, Edited by me)

Saturday morning at half past nine, I went to Midtown to take care of some errands. The New Yorkers were still asleep, and the streets were sparsely populated with a few people walking their dogs or young men coming out of the gym, their muscle lines under the shorts quite pleasing to the eye.

After finishing my errands, I found a small café and sat down, ordering a drip coffee and an apricot tart. Diagonally across from the café, there was a mattress store with a name I knew well. There used to be one near my neighborhood in my hometown. One day, after school, I was attracted by the large floor-to-ceiling windows, the beautiful large-font sign, and the soft tones from behind the door. Out of curiosity, I walked in one day. The staff were well-dressed and courteous. Even though I was probably only twelve at the time, they still poured me a glass of water and patiently chatted with me, introducing the Nordic company, its avant-garde design concepts, organic materials, and so on. They looked like freshly graduated college students, with perfect English pronunciation, unlike typical mall sales clerks. Of course, I knew nothing about mattresses and had no money, but I was fascinated by the glamorous adult world. I imagined that one day I would have such a life too— a bright home of my own, a pleasing bed, waking up on a weekend morning and brewing a pot of coffee for myself.

It was also during those years that Starbucks began to expand massively in China, opening a store near that mattress shop. Back then, going to Starbucks for coffee was a novelty. I even went there with my classmates to be "wide-eyed." We sat next to a remarkably elegant intellectual beauty and a foreigner. The intellectual beauty leisurely walked up to the server and said, “I’d like a cappuccino.” My classmate and I, with our backpacks and red scarves, faced the elegant demeanor of the beautiful lady, sitting there dumbfounded like two little ducklings.

Eighteen years have passed, and the life I once dreamed of, to outsiders, might seem like I’ve achieved a lot. Today I woke up in a bright and spacious apartment, ordering a coffee for myself on a Saturday morning in fluent English. However, I opened my phone, and my thirty-year-old life is filled with emails from colleagues, messages from men, numbers in investment accounts, and concerned greetings from family.

Encountering this mattress store again, the façade no longer shines, the fonts seem outdated, as it sits in an inconspicuous corner among the towering buildings of Midtown Manhattan, dark inside. The sophisticated middle-class life that the mattress company sold me at twelve has bound me for eighteen years, crossing the Pacific, appearing in my life on the other side of the globe, haunting me. So what, I thought, looking at the dark mattress store. We've both come to New York, so what?

Thinking about the gym boys I saw earlier, they are just like me. They can stay out late with friends until the early morning, but one email can make them rush home to revise a report. The next morning, as soon as the gym opens, they are back again, tirelessly training themselves. The pleasing muscle lines and the shiny credit cards are trophies awarded by the meritocratic society to New Yorkers.

As a child, I had ambitions beyond my peers, filling and expanding them with one trophy after another. At thirty, I find myself stuck here, unable to move forward. Maybe the mattress company has found its place, and I've been lucky enough.

Halfway through the apricot tart, a wisp of ash silently fell on the table. I looked up, seeing no one, only an empty window. I looked at the ash, deciding it was time to move on to my next destination.