Disappearing popcorn, excellent prose

In Dai Wangshu's Rain Lane, there is a girl who is sad and hesitant in the rain. I remember there was always an old man in the alley. The man with his real thing shouted "popcorn! Popcorn ... "It makes me feel like I am in the countryside of my hometown, and I have an unspeakable homesickness.

I have been growing up with this voice. Since junior high school, I have been living in a foreign land, rarely with my family, and I am a real prodigal son. Although the prodigal son turned into a wave, the endless homesickness in my blood firmly linked me with my hometown.

Walking through the intersection of Zhong Zhen, there is a small shop selling "popcorn" at the corner. I spent ten yuan to buy a big paper cup and put several entrances in it, hoping to find some childhood flavor from it, but it tastes like chewing wax. It's all corn, but it tastes very different. Maybe the smell was blown out by a dumb machine, but the popcorn I ate when I was a child was baked warmly.

I stared at the popcorn in my hand, and my childhood memories filled with the smell of popcorn came alive before my eyes. The old man who fried popcorn used to be a soldier. When he was young, he was shot by the Japanese army to protect the villagers from escaping, resulting in disability of his right leg. I have lived alone all my life, and I spend most of the year mending shoes to earn some pocket money. As soon as autumn passed, I began to fry popcorn everywhere on a tricycle.

As long as the loud shouts ring, my ears seem to sing along with them, and I feel as if my grandfather came back to see me from far away, and I am very happy. I suddenly ran to the rice jar and scooped out a steel porcelain bowl of rice. I stood on tiptoe to set up a small bench, pulled a sieve from the kitchen wall and put it under my arm. Then I ran to my mother for a handful of change and ran quickly to the voice.

Although I run fast, there are still many people in front of me. Pots, wooden barrels, bamboo baskets, rice screens, bowls, etc. Everything is available, winding, like a long queue by the fire of grandpa. Most of the children standing by are children who are as fine as me but have a soft spot for popcorn. "Don't worry, children, one by one, there will be food soon …" Grandpa sat in a small chair, adding coal to the charcoal stove with a shovel in one hand and shaking the ring handle in the other. The creaking sound and image from the slowly rotating handle brought me into the train of time and space, and then I galloped in Qionglou Yuyu, and the skylight and Shui Ying were dizzying. People are intoxicated with it. Suddenly, it is as bright as Hong Zhong: "Get out of the way, son, it's going to blow up ..." This cry alarmed people and felt that they had landed before jumping out of their dreams.

The children ran to other places to cover their ears, and they didn't even dare to blink. But when I saw the old man tilt the pots and pans and aim at the big cloth bag with bamboo as the "striker", the lid of the pot was pried open with a bang, with a loud bang. Rice grains began to pour into a long-tailed white cloth bag in the dark gourd-shaped pots and pans. All the rice grains suddenly burst into smiling faces in spring, drunk like Nezha, and in heaven, hot wheels came back to the whole country.

The first pot of popcorn is usually because grandpa is afraid that the children will be so hungry. Everyone has free food. Maybe the children are familiar with grandfather's rules and rewards. Some children first took the dustpan from the tricycle and held it in their arms. Some children hurried to help grandpa lift the bag so that grandpa could quickly dump the sparkling popcorn.

Popcorn sleeping in a dustpan is like a silvery white world. Let the child plunge the whole little face into it and eat greedily, like snuggling in the warm embrace of white clouds. The small mouth that is used to being wordy on weekdays can't help talking at this time, laughing while eating. The mulberry trees in the alley were also infected by this harmonious atmosphere, and they shook up thin dead branches happily.

In this way, a handful of popcorn was quickly eaten by everyone. Grandpa grabbed it and put it in my coat pocket. I said, grandpa, you gave it to us specially. Why don't you take a bite? He said to eat it when he got home. Grandpa ate a pot of steaming popcorn, limped into the pot with rice and sugar, sealed the top cover and began to shake the handle. I saw that his hand was thin and cracked, and there were many bleeding holes. Asked how he got into this state, he said it was the wind. I don't believe it. I insist that the wind in your house is stronger than ours, otherwise it won't be like this ... Why don't you buy clam oil and put it in? He said, "No, everything will be fine after winter."

The villagers who heard "bang, bang" one explosion after another became active and rushed to tell each other, "Here comes the popcorn, it smells good, let's go out and have a look!" The quiet alley is very lively, with a sweater on her shoulder that is about to be finished, and her hands are like a girl who is still knitting; Women who have flying needles and don't look at the direction of stitches can take shoes seamlessly from time to time by scraping needles on their heads; A little girl with a hula hoop around her waist and walking like a flying girl; Grandpa is holding a pipe in his mouth, smoking a cigarette, opposing silence; Some grandmothers look around step by step with little feet to find their grandchildren to go home for dinner; There are many people, so I went back to my garden to pick up some vegetables and put them in the alley casually, for a few pence. ...

There is a hot fragrance in the alley, and it has entered the spring. When the weather gets warmer, people get warmer.

I just think grandpa's hand is amazing. It can burst out crispy and delicious popcorn and make the whole village lively and excited at once. I think I must have a pair of magical fingers like him when I grow up.

In the bleak winter, with the sudden sound of spring thunder, the village is more harmonious and warm.

I rushed home with popcorn, and my mother asked me to catch some for my neighbors. I handed it over in handfuls, and the warm and sweet popcorn in my small hand won me kisses and praises from many adults. "What a clever boy!"

It was getting late. When I ran back to my grandfather after dinner, most people had already left, and the red flame in the charcoal stove was still on. Grandpa's body was extremely lonely and cold in the twilight. I asked him if he was hungry so late, and he said he wouldn't be hungry if he was too busy. There are two families who can rest assured that they can call it a day after the explosion. When he finished blasting, I reluctantly asked, will you come back tomorrow?

"Also, every village nearby will go ..."

After frying the last pot, it was dark. He packed all his belongings and put them in a dilapidated tricycle. He shook the dust off his black wool hat and put it on again. He stepped on it hard and the car drove away.

Grandpa rode away on a bike. I haven't seen him take a sip of water or eat a popcorn for a long time. He has been busy, adding rice to the jar and pouring popcorn from the bag. Forget the cold wind, which cracked his wrinkled hand; Forgetting yourself also requires the rest and care of others; I forgot that year after year, I still wear the yellow cotton-padded jacket I wore many years ago ... I only try to think of others and charge a little processing fee to make a living. I wonder if he can have a hot meal in the middle of the night when he goes back.

I think today's children are addicted to games and the internet all day, tired of eating fish and meat, and afraid of eating all kinds of snacks. There are even adults leading behind, begging them for food. They seldom perceive the bright moon in the sky, throw two delicious popcorn into their mouths, listen to the villagers happily telling home-cooked stories, and listen to their grandparents happily telling fairy tales. What should it taste like?

Childhood memories, like mottled old houses, lock the past, while those family ties that can't be forgotten like popcorn, like moss and green, grow on the door of the old days.

Now that Grandpa is gone, I have never seen anything like Grandpa Popcorn. I am infatuated with the old fragrance of popcorn, which is a national sentiment and the root of my hometown. This made me taste the sweetness of popcorn from hardships, thus warming my loneliness in a foreign land.

The "popcorn" drifting away, the refreshing cry is like a lonely sail, sailing to an unknown distance in the smoke of years, leaving a distant and psychedelic dream.

In this warm dream, I hold up a long yellow pole, swaying my childhood wearing popcorn, singing with the frogs in my hometown, dancing with willow kites in the alley, waiting for a reunion with my long-lost grandfather with a group of naughty friends in the depths of the alley, meeting his amiable eyes, and entering the winter dusk according to the warm Yuan Ye in my hometown. ...