1. Last weekend, Daniel spent 43 hours straight with his daughter Esme. Nearly two whole days. Nearly. Now he is 30,000 feet up on a red-eye heading East, looking at a picture she has posted online - a 'selfie' and the shadow of his face. He is not tagged. Planes, hotel rooms, toilet cubicles off quiet corridors. These are the sliver-thin places where he finds a little time, like a fisherman standing in a fast flowing river, hoping to hook something beautiful, reel it in, hold it for a while.

上周末，丹尼爾與他的女兒埃斯米一起度過了整整43個小時，也就是將近兩天的時間。那可是將近兩天啊！此時此刻，他正坐在3萬英尺高空的一架飛往東部的紅眼航班上，看著女兒發(fā)布在網上的一張自拍照，照片上映著他臉部的陰影。他沒有被標記。飛機、旅店客房、遠離安靜的走廊的衛(wèi)生間隔間，只有在這些狹小的地方，他才會找到些時間，就像一個站在快速流淌的河水中的垂釣者，期盼著大魚上鉤，然后收緊釣線，再溜它一會兒。

2. He spends these moments 'liking' her uploaded images - the lemon drizzle cake she made, Esme with a ginger-hairedgirl he doesn't recognize, her new patent-leather shoes. Or typing funny comments about cold feet, hair braids, boys in spectacles; thumbing love into the holy blue glow of the screen, as if a string of 0s and 1s were invisible threads that joined them.

他會利用這些時間欣賞埃斯米上傳的照片——她親手制作的檸檬糖霜蛋糕、她和一個他不認識的姜黃色頭發(fā)的女孩的合影、她的新漆皮鞋子；或是輸入一些關于冰冷的雙腳、辮子、戴眼鏡男孩的有趣評論；或是在那發(fā)著藍光的神圣的屏幕上點上一刻愛心。似乎那串0和1組成的代碼已經成為系在他們父女倆之間的一條隱形的紐帶。

3. Another flight, a few weeks back. A stewardess, greying and flat shoed, saw a picture on his laptop. She asked: "So, is that your daughter? "The picture wasn't her, not really, he said. None of it was, the patchwork of messages and posts and the slow, twitching images of video calls.

幾個星期前，在另一架航班上，一位穿著雙灰色平底鞋的空姐，看到了他筆記本電腦上的一張照片。她問：“嗯，那是您女兒嗎？”他說，照片不是她，真的不是。而且，那些混雜在一起的消息和帖子，以及那些圖像顫動、斷斷續(xù)續(xù)的視頻通話也都不是她。

4. "Zoom in. Just zoom in and see just how pixelated she gets," he said. When she turned away wordless, he regretted his candour, the potential rudeness. He was relieved a little late when she brought him a whisky, unasked, leaned in and told him it was on the house, saying she had kids, was divorced, understood.

“畫面放大些。放大些，好看看她那邊的像素如何。”他說。當那位空姐無言以對地轉身離開時，他為自己的坦率，甚至可能有些粗魯?shù)男袨槎械胶蠡凇Ｖ钡剿o他拿來杯威士忌，什么也沒問，只是俯身告訴他這是免費的，并告訴他她有孩子，離婚了，能夠理解他時，他才松了一口氣。

5. Today the stewardess is different, young and brisk, and he sits quietly, held down by the weight of the laptop and the phone, silent, in his pocket. Finally, he lets himself think about last weekend. That fat, cold Friday, Daniel had driven through a blizzard to his ex-wife's house and taken Esme back to his too-hot, too-small new place where they scoured peanut butter straight from the jar and gazed at the ghost prints of birds in the snow.

今天的這位空姐不太一樣，年輕、爽快。他安靜地坐在那里，感受著筆記本電腦的重量，手機安靜地躺在他的衣袋里。終于，他讓自己的思緒飄回到上周末的時光。那個肥宅專屬的寒冷的星期五，丹尼爾駕車頂著暴風雪來到前妻家，把埃斯米接回了他那個非常狹小并且熱得要命的新住處。在那里，他們一邊直接把手指伸進罐子里抹著花生醬吃，一邊凝視著雪地里小鳥留下的若隱若現(xiàn)的腳印。

6. When the snow relented Esme insisted they go out, so they bought a plastic sled and drove out to the hills near to where he grew up. When they crossed a bridge at the foot of the slopes, Daniel stopped and told Esme about how snow changed the sound of everything.

當雪變小了時，埃斯米堅持要跟他一起出去，于是他們買了一架塑料雪橇，驅車前往距離他長大的地方很近的山丘。當他們經過山坡腳下的一座橋時，丹尼爾把車停了下來，向埃斯米講述了雪是如何改變世間萬物的聲音。

7. "Listen to the stream, I mean really listen to it," he said and was silent for a long time, until Esme pulled on his hand, said she wanted to have fun. He watched her sail down the hill, time after time, worrying about the cold and the night and what they should eat when they got back.

“聽溪流的聲音，我是說真的去傾聽。”他說，然后是一段長時間的沉默，直到埃斯米拉住他的手，說她想好好玩玩。他看著女兒一遍又一遍地滑下山坡，與此同時擔心著寒冷和夜色，以及回家后該吃些什么。

8. Then she said "let's build a snowman" and they worked together, heaving a great ball of snow around the bottom of the hill, a lesser one for the head. He gave up his scarf and his hat and Esme made a face from twigs. When they had finished she adjusted the cap to a better angle, then patted its belly.

然后，埃斯米說：“我們堆個雪人吧！”，于是他們父女倆開始一起忙碌起來——他們繞著山腳滾起了一個大雪球，然后又滾起了一個稍小的，當作雪人的頭。他摘下自己的圍巾和帽子，獻給了雪人；埃斯米用樹枝做了一張雪人的臉。完工后，埃斯米將帽子調整到一個更好的角度，然后拍了拍雪人的肚子。

9. "Looks like you dad." Against the hum of the plane's engine, Daniel remembers how, as they were leaving, he turned and saw the swathe of grass they had exposed all round the snowman, bright green, incredulous in its colour.

“爸爸，看起來很像你。”在飛機引擎的轟鳴下，丹尼爾記起，當他們離開時，他是如何轉過身來，看到在雪人周圍因他們堆雪人而裸露出來的一長條草地，是翠綠色的，這顏色真令人難以置信。

10. He stares out at the vast fields of clouds that stretch, white and unending, to the horizon. He thinks about what lies below. By now the snowman would have melted and the deep, bright grass would be an unremarkable piece of field. Maybe someone walking there might see a hat and scarf, a pile of twigs. They might wonder, just for a moment, about who left them there and why.

他凝視著遼闊的云海，潔白無瑕，延綿不絕，一直延伸到地平線。他思考著這云海下面會是什么。此時，雪人可能已經融化，那片深深的翠綠色草地可能已經與周圍的環(huán)境融為一體。也許當有人經過那里時，可能會看到一頂帽子和一條圍巾，還有一堆樹枝。那么一剎那，那個人可能會想知道是誰留下了它們，為什么把它們留在這里。

11. He didn't take a picture of the snowman, neither did Esme. There had been no profile update, no location marked, no online record uploaded, filed or shared. But when Daniel closes his eyes he can hear the trickle of a stream dulled by snow, the sharp pipe of his daughter's laughter in cold air. He can smell crushed grass and he can feel the wondrous weight of tiredness in his limbs as he carried his own sleeping daughter to bed that night.

他沒有給雪人拍照，埃斯米也沒有。沒有配置文件更新，沒有標記位置，沒有上傳、歸檔或共享在線記錄。但是，當?shù)つ釥栭]上雙眼時，他依舊可以聽到因雪的阻擋而減緩的涓涓細流，以及從寒風中傳來的他女兒那銀鈴般的笑聲；他依舊可以聞到碎草的氣味，依舊可以感受到，在那夜里，當他抱著自己熟睡的女兒上床睡覺時，壓在自己疲憊的四肢上的那種沉甸甸的感覺。