朗读版：寄给特朗普或拜登的选票，展信佳—— | CGTN周末随笔

如今的城市街头，邮筒已经不是那么显眼的物件了。

三十来年前还不是这样。例如北京，绿油油的信筒或邮筒点缀着大街小巷，一大批80后才刚到可以和它们比个儿的年纪。小时候被家长抱着往里塞信封的经历，现在想想还有种暖。等着看邮递员叔叔“开箱”的过程也可以很有趣，小门打开那一瞬间好像是综艺节目揭晓谜底——有时候信件哗啦啦地涌出来，仿佛带着丰收的喜悦；有时候只是形单影只的几张明信片，空落落的。

那时候，骑着绿色二八大杠（00后的宝宝们请百度，歉疚脸）的邮递员叔叔一天才来两三回，但要辛苦地转好多户。下班、放学到家，第一件事就是从自家信箱里把牛奶、晚报和花花绿绿的信封一起掏出来。小伙伴们的来信上，不知什么时候开始多了个“H₂”的标识，女生常用，但男生也不嫌弃。

手机上的即时通讯，邮筒是怎么也做不到了。再怎么用力地把信塞进去，也不可能马上收到回信。写信、寄信、收信需要的时间，都被微信、邮件、语音、视频给省了下来。手机电脑上信封样的图标，算是给过去的时代留下了一点点面子。2017年的新闻说，北京还有五千个信筒服役，但开箱看见的信件已经不多，果皮纸屑冰棍儿棍儿倒是常见。当年的熊孩子们现在怕不得有一个半邮筒那么高了？鳞次栉比的高楼，让偶尔刷成五颜六色的邮筒更像是初进大观园的刘姥姥。

快节奏的时代里，一条微信发过去，看不到“对方正在输入”都可以焦虑，更别说等待一封手写的家信或情书。每天盯着美国大选点票数的人这几日的体会可能最深：几千万张邮寄选票要一张张打理，可谓投票如山倒，点票如抽丝。可惜安全性太难做到万无一失，不然特朗普总统估计也不会反对用推特@他和拜登的方法选总统吧。

这倒也不是第一次共和、民主两党就邮寄选票的事针尖对麦芒，1860年代内战期间就发生过，但彼一时此一时：当年是林肯总统带领共和党强烈要求允许战争中的联邦士兵缺席投票——烽火连三月，投票抵万金——但民主党不干。

虽然“从前的日色、车、马、邮件都慢”，但真正让信件显得难得、让等待变得抓狂的，是信中被空间、时间加成后的关切。当这种关切被几千万张邮寄选票进一步放大，其分量甚至让旁观者都觉得压抑。在疫情防控和恢复经济中、在自由与保守的分断中、在本国与世界的僵持中，“美国梦”在挣扎。谁能入主白宫挽救这样的“美国梦”？自然让身处旋涡当中的人感到等待尤为难耐。

过去这几个月，美国人民仿佛给未来的世界写就了一封长信。今天，信已封装随时会被投入邮筒。

四年后，当人们开始重读今天的故事，会有怎样的感受呢？

Sidelines | U.S. election blues

Sidelines is a Column from CGTN's Social Media Desk

Triggered by the U.S. general election stalemate that had increasingly revolved around votes by mail, a casual lookout for postboxes on Beijing's streets soon ended in slight nostalgia.

A few hours after President Trump threatened to dispute the legality of mail-in ballots, your columnist wandered from the office into a warm autumn afternoon for a break from an already 48-hour-long newsfeed bombardment. As the gentle sunshine eased my tensed nerve, a thought occurred: Isn't it incredible that the future of the world's most advanced economy is contingent upon the marks penned on a paper sheet mailed away with an envelope and stamp?

Dotting Beijing's streets, the usually green shaded postboxes were still very conspicuous during the time when most of the 1980s generation had yet outgrown them. The scene that a toddler in the father's arm thrusting a letter through the slot was common but touching. The excitement around the moment when a postbox was opened to unveil its interior was not dissimilar to when a TV contest reveals the champion: letters flooding out as soon as the door flipped outward felt emotionally rewarding, disappointing if there were only a few sleeping at the bottom – maybe not far from what some may experience in the ongoing U.S. election.

A half-empty box is more likely to be what postal workers expect today, not only in Beijing but also in many more places around the world. Sometimes it could be litter that got chucked inside, according to local media reports. The era of posting mail is not behind us yet, but the writing seems to be on the wall. The number of postboxes in the Chinese capital might not have changed from where it stood in 2017 – about 5,000 – but smart gadgets have eclipsed their significance in people's lives.

Letter correspondence is slow compared to "instant messaging." In the 1990s, it could take up to a day for a letter from one end of Beijing to reach the other – not that the green post office vehicles were slow, but the mail network operated with its own rhythm. Postmen only visited a neighborhood a few times a day, and they had to check sometimes poorly handwritten addresses to accurately deliver the post, walking door to door, a process an instant messaging app can wrap up in a minute.

The merits of technology are bound to make the idea of digitally electing the next Potus cross some minds – maybe by direct messaging a candidate on Twitter? President Trump would love that, wouldn't he? But before a watertight voting system can be designed and accessible to all, it remains sensible to count paper ballots.

The whole procedure of counting mail-in votes is supposed to feel slow, slower still centuries ago in the 1860s when the debate around absentee voting by mail raged on in the middle of the American Civil War. The Republicans, quite ironically, in light of what is happening today, led by President Abraham Lincoln, wanted to let Union soldiers cast their votes from the trenches, but the Democrats were against the idea.

It is not the time spent en route that makes a mailed letter a cherished item for many and waiting for it unbearable. It is the stakes attached to the message the paper carries: the well-being of family and friend, a reply to a love note, or proof of being alive from a frontline soldier. In the case of the 2020 U.S. general election, the outcome the mail-in-ballots deliver will affect hundreds of millions of lives amid the global novel coronavirus pandemic, the country's economic recovery and the future of the world. Will the next U.S. administration be reaching out to it or ignoring it? 

The election's outcome is clearer after Pennsylvania flipped to the Democrats. But the drama around the result is likely to draw on.

Regardless of who comes out occupying the Oval Office from January 20, these past few months have felt as if the American people as a whole were writing a letter to the rest of the world and are now about to seal the envelop and slip it into the postbox for everyone to read four years later.

Hopefully, by then, it won't prompt another nostalgic walk.

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