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，丹尼尔与他的女儿埃斯米一起度过了整整43个小时，也就是将近两天的时间。那可是将近两天啊！此时此刻，他正坐在3万英尺高空的一架飞往东部的红眼航班上，看着女儿发布在网上的一张自拍照，照片上映着他脸部的阴影。他没有被标记。飞机、旅店客房、远离安静的走廊的卫生间隔间，只有在这些狭小的地方，他才会找到些时间，就像一个站在快速流淌的河水中的垂钓者，期盼着大鱼上钩，然后收紧钓线，再溜它一会儿。

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.

他会利用这些时间欣赏埃斯米上传的照片——她亲手制作的柠檬糖霜蛋糕、她和一个他不认识的姜黄色头发的女孩的合影、她的新漆皮鞋子；或是输入一些关于冰冷的双脚、辫子、戴眼镜男孩的有趣评论；或是在那发着蓝光的神圣的屏幕上点上一刻爱心。似乎那串0和1组成的代码已经成为系在他们父女俩之间的一条隐形的纽带。

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.

几个星期前，在另一架航班上，一位穿着双灰色平底鞋的空姐，看到了他笔记本电脑上的一张照片。她问：“嗯，那是您女儿吗？”他说，照片不是她，真的不是。而且，那些混杂在一起的消息和帖子，以及那些图像颤动、断断续续的视频通话也都不是她。

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.

“画面放大些。放大些，好看看她那边的像素如何。”他说。当那位空姐无言以对地转身离开时，他为自己的坦率，甚至可能有些粗鲁的行为而感到后悔。直到她给他拿来杯威士忌，什么也没问，只是俯身告诉他这是免费的，并告诉他她有孩子，离婚了，能够理解他时，他才松了一口气。

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.

今天的这位空姐不太一样，年轻、爽快。他安静地坐在那里，感受着笔记本电脑的重量，手机安静地躺在他的衣袋里。终于，他让自己的思绪飘回到上周末的时光。那个肥宅专属的寒冷的星期五，丹尼尔驾车顶着暴风雪来到前妻家，把埃斯米接回了他那个非常狭小并且热得要命的新住处。在那里，他们一边直接把手指伸进罐子里抹着花生酱吃，一边凝视着雪地里小鸟留下的若隐若现的脚印。

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.

当雪变小了时，埃斯米坚持要跟他一起出去，于是他们买了一架塑料雪橇，驱车前往距离他长大的地方很近的山丘。当他们经过山坡脚下的一座桥时，丹尼尔把车停了下来，向埃斯米讲述了雪是如何改变世间万物的声音。

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.

“听溪流的声音，我是说真的去倾听。”他说，然后是一段长时间的沉默，直到埃斯米拉住他的手，说她想好好玩玩。他看着女儿一遍又一遍地滑下山坡，与此同时担心着寒冷和夜色，以及回家后该吃些什么。

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，埃斯米说：“我们堆个雪人吧！”，于是他们父女俩开始一起忙碌起来——他们绕着山脚滚起了一个大雪球，然后又滚起了一个稍小的，当作雪人的头。他摘下自己的围巾和帽子，献给了雪人；埃斯米用树枝做了一张雪人的脸。完工后，埃斯米将帽子调整到一个更好的角度，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，看起来很像你。”在飞机引擎的轰鸣下，丹尼尔记起，当他们离开时，他是如何转过身来，看到在雪人周围因他们堆雪人而裸露出来的一长条草地，是翠绿色的，这颜色真令人难以置信。

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.

他凝视着辽阔的云海，洁白无瑕，延绵不绝，一直延伸到地平线。他思考着这云海下面会是什么。此时，雪人可能已经融化，那片深深的翠绿色草地可能已经与周围的环境融为一体。也许当有人经过那里时，可能会看到一顶帽子和一条围巾，还有一堆树枝。那么一刹那，那个人可能会想知道是谁留下了它们，为什么把它们留在这里。

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.

他没有给雪人拍照，埃斯米也没有。没有配置文件更新，没有标记位置，没有上传、归档或共享在线记录。但是，当丹尼尔闭上双眼时，他依旧可以听到因雪的阻挡而减缓的涓涓细流，以及从寒风中传来的他女儿那银铃般的笑声；他依旧可以闻到碎草的气味，依旧可以感受到，在那夜里，当他抱着自己熟睡的女儿上床睡觉时，压在自己疲惫的四肢上的那种沉甸甸的感觉。