Yang Guoliang: Stone Mill

I don’t know since when, my relationship with Shi Mo began to become inextricable. It sleeps with my little village every night. I was confused in my sleep, and when I ran over with a smile and wanted to push the stone mill one or two more times, the dream suddenly shattered, and I felt lost in my confusion. Modern trains, airplanes, tall buildings, and traffic on the streets all occupy the space in my dreams, crushing my rustic memories.

It is another season of endless falling trees. When I once again arrive at the small village where I was born and raised, the leaves of the huge walnut tree at the entrance of the village have withered away, and the dry and cracked branches are falling towards The gaps between clouds stretched out. Under the tree, Shi Mo meditated silently, like a lonely old man entering his twilight years, with melancholy flowing out of his eyes. Patches of moss have grown between the two bluestones, which are traces of the passage of time. What on earth is Shimo thinking about? Or why does it meditate?

There is no way to verify when the stone mill came to my small, isolated and warm village. When I was a child, I heard my grandma say that the stone mill slipped off the crowbar amidst the sonorous chants of the men in the mountains and settled firmly under the shade of the walnut tree. The villagers lined the streets to welcome, with drums blasting and firecrackers blasting. This scene was no less than the arrival of the rural social fire on the 15th day of the first lunar month. Grandma said that the village hired a storyteller for Shimo, and the whole village gathered under the walnut tree to hear that the storyteller told "Water Margin" for three days and nights. Grandma’s wrinkles are filled with memories of stone mills, and there is an indelible emotion in her vicissitudes of voice. Because in the eyes of farmers, the value of stone mills is far greater than five or six cattle, or there is nothing that can be exchanged for the meaning of stone mills. The stone mill, with its freshly chiseled outline, quietly accepts the love and worship of the villagers. Today, grandma has passed away, but the walnut tree and the stone mill are still there.

The arrival of the stone mill brought celebration and joy to the peaceful small village, with red chili powder, white wheat flour, waxy cornmeal dough, delicious tofu, and golden polenta soup. These are all due to the turning and plowing of the stone mill round and round. Time flies, the walnut tree grows thicker year by year, its branches and leaves cover the sky, and the treetop has touched the shy face of the moon, while the stone mill is rotated day after day by the steps of the old cow. .

The people in the village are like crops in the fields. One crop is cut off and another crop breaks through the ground and regenerates. The villagers who traveled westward by crane did not leave any traces. They were born in this land and buried in this land. Only Shimo witnessed everyone's footprints. Only Shimo remembered the simple survival philosophy of the villagers in their hearts. . Almost everyone, including those who have passed away and those who are still alive, their words and deeds are engraved in Shimo's memory. The men sat beside the stone mill and smoked pots, chatting about the hardships of working outside and their not-so-real romantic encounters. The women washed their clothes, did needlework, and talked about their parents' affairs beside the stone mill. Children dodge cats and cats on the stone mill, chase cattle, fight, and hide tomatoes and corn cobs stolen from neighbors under the stone mill.

The image of stone grinding is still clearly visible in my memory. The villagers poured the bright yellow wheat freshly washed from the river onto the top of the stone mill. The old cow pulled the stone mill to rotate at a constant speed, and the gray wheat mixture floated down. The old yellow dog was lying next to the stone mill, watching his master's busy figure. The woman squatted on the ground and shook the sieve, and the flour fell into the willow basket like snowflakes. The woman grabbed the bran and put it into the dustpan, moving quickly and briskly. The old yellow dog blocked the woman's hurried steps back and forth. The woman kicked the yellow dog angrily, and the yellow dog stood up wagging its tail knowingly and lay down in the shade of a tree a little further away with its head hanging down.

The twelfth lunar month is a day when stone mills are most popular. Every household is busy grinding tofu. The soaked watercress is poured from the grinding hole, and the white bean-scented juice trickles out from the grooves of the two bluestones. There is joy and peace hidden in the smiles of men, women and children, and their words are full of auspicious words. The noisy children ran around the stone mill, and the naked boy climbed up the tall walnut tree and slid down again amid the scoldings of the adults.

The extraordinary significance of stone mills makes people not think that stone mills are just stone mills. Stone mills are inexplicably given the image of gods. In the dead of night, through the window paper, you can see the curling fireworks beside the stone mill. The rising smoke contains the simplest hopes and expectations of the mountain people.

Everyone in the village uses a stone mill, but they have never blushed because of the stone mill. The simple folk customs make the people in the mountains understand humility and respect. When someone's family has trouble, the whole village becomes anxious. The old village chief led everyone to brainstorm ideas under the walnut tree. As long as we are in this village, there is no threshold that everyone can't overcome together.

When I was two years old, it was common to get sick and catch colds. I was as skinny as a little lamb without milk. My mother was worried all day long and spent the whole day talking to the village goddess. Early the next morning, my mother walked through the morning fog that had not yet cleared away. She took me, who was sick, and kowtowed a few times in front of the stone mill. From then on, the stone mill became my godfather. My mother said that if you kowtow on the stone mill, you will be as strong and strong as the stone mill. Strangely enough, from then on I became happier day by day.

Since I became stronger and no longer soaked in medicine jars all day long, the effectiveness of stone grinding in the eyes of the villagers has become more profound. It is no longer used to grind delicious food. The stone was ground. The dense smoke of incense lingers around the branches and leaves of the walnut trees, and the green smoke from the incense sticks will drive away the singing cicadas that fall on the trees in the evening.

This is my childhood memory of stone mills, and these are the threads that often enter my dreams. The feasting and feasting in the city occupied the content of my dream, but it could not remove the memory of the village and the stone mill like a sarcoma. I feel like my roots are rooted in the cracks of Shimo, and besides, I have called Shimo his godfather for several years. This silent godfather once watched me walk out of the countryside, out of poverty, and into a world full of flowers.

I am back, carrying the weight of longing. The villagers squatted in the corner to bask in the sun. They wore black cotton-padded jackets, put their hands in their sleeves, had honest smiles, had black and yellow teeth, and smoked self-rolled cigarette leaves. , the kitten curled up greedily in the little girl's arms and purred. These make me feel friendly, familiar and peaceful.

Seeing me back, the old boy from childhood walked enthusiastically to the yard and greeted me with his calloused hands. He stretched out his hands and then suddenly took them back, while smiling in embarrassment. At the same time, I asked the children to find a bench for me. After sitting down, the conversation began to revolve around what was new in the village. The children brought walnuts from the house that had just peeled off their green skin.

When talking about the past events of childhood, everyone seemed to have found a common topic, the atmosphere suddenly became lively, and the conversation was no longer so restrained.

"When we were children, we put the green persimmons in a stone mill, and when they turned sweet, we rushed to eat them." The memories of our friends are warming us, and they are also eliminating the gap between us that we have not seen for many years.

"Does anyone still use stone grinding to grind flour?" I asked tentatively.

"Where do people still use stone mills now? A stone mill grinds grain for one day, and an electric mill grinds it in two hours."

The village did not think of today, it was a long time ago It is the paradise described by Tao Yuanming, and it is Sihao's secluded place in the late Western Han Dynasty. Nowadays, the developed and fast transportation information network has brought about an unprecedented revolution.

The villagers told me about the changes that modernization has brought to the village. The highway passes by the river beach. No one uses big iron pots to cook. The villagers use rice cookers and sleep in Simmons. No one listens to the ancient art of storytelling because many families have home theaters, VCDs and cable TV.

Young villagers fought fiercely for the right to mine sand in Shahe River. The awareness of money is spreading in the minds of young people. Whose chicken stole the vegetable seedlings of whose family, the tough woman began to criticize the mulberry tree.

My village is sick, but I am just a literati wandering in a foreign land. The anguish in my heart can only be vented to my pen.

I am leaving with a lot of regret. I can’t draw any firm conclusions about what the future village will look like. I carried my luggage and stroked the lush moss on the stone mill. Shi Mo was silent, and so was I, but I felt that Shi Mo and I were connected. Maybe Shimo is more sad than me, and the only thing it can do is silence and sigh. It has been abandoned in the corner by the world. It is like an old soldier in his twilight years. The charge with bullets and the momentum of the sword are completely gone. And all I can do is comfort and say goodbye, and mourn for the simple and kind people in the village who have passed away.

Farewell, Stone Mill.

Farewell, village.

About the author: Yang Guoliang, a native of Luonan, Shangluo, Shaanxi. He has written more than 500,000 words of poetry, prose, and reportage. More than 100 works such as "Slim Hands and Steel Guns", "I Wish to Be the Only Green" and "Border Monument" were published in "Border Police" magazine, "Border Police News" and " Tianshan Net" and other media, the reportage "The Wind Rises and the Red Flag Flies" was published and distributed.