Prose Chen: Everything in the world

Wen Yi Chen Wuyuan

one

Many times, we forget the land, and the place covered with cement has almost become a screen between us and the earth. The ground where I stand is covered with thick cement, bricks or slates, which are carefully polished and cut into various shapes. In the city, my feet can hardly touch the land. However, there is no shortage of filth and smoke in the city. In early winter, the sky gradually lost its moisture, and the blue seemed to be sucked away by dust and haze and turned into dead gray. I saw the shadow of the day on the pigeon feathers, and the dust had infiltrated its black pupils into cataract-like turbidity. Pigeons are getting fatter and fatter because they have enough food. They don't need to fly in the sky all day. Their wings have lost their endurance for a long flight. Even, they don't want to fly a few more laps between buildings to make the sky more agile. Fat pigeons are noisy in the low trees in the community, and some equally boring sparrows are fighting for territory. Picking up the food falling everywhere on the ground, the food left by human beings looks salty and greasy, and pigeons can't eat other food on the ground, especially pigeons in the city. Except for pet pigeons with fixed feed such as corn crumbs and millet sorghum, pigeons in the square have almost no such treatment. All the pigeons I met were adapted to such food without exception. On the roof of the residential area, some people scatter food to attract pigeons. More often, pigeons fly from other places after eating, and their voices are monotonous and dull. The streets and alleys are always shrouded in odor all summer, and the hot weather after the rainy season makes the fermented trees shed leaves and the dust on the lawn give off an unpleasant smell. The air is filled with smoke and dust from the subway station site. More than 20 meters high spiral elevators and buckets make a dull and continuous roar, and the mechanical impact is mixed with the wailing of the earth tearing. People on the ground walk like ants, and modern machines walk in underground caves. Soon, the space of this city will undergo new changes-a structured city like a honeycomb will replace the current single plane city. As Brodsky said in his poem: "In the cities we have walked through, there is no secret of space, and the land has gone far and dived deeper. We are ants like insects and can't see the horizon. "

The solidification and hardness of urban land make it impossible for rainwater to return to the land, so a little rainstorm turns streets into rivers, but we have not learned the ability of fish. Sometimes, watching a car break down in knee-deep water, flashing yellow or red lights in despair, we will feel guilty-that is, we have turned life into an impermeable pond, and the sudden arrival of water has turned all happiness into pain. Cars are struggling like beetles in the water, and the world is blurred in the chaotic rain and fog. Outside the window pane is the world of water, and inside the window pane is the world of darkness, so cramped and narrow that only one's soul can breathe quickly. The tree swayed in the wind and rain, helpless and strong. Unsupported trees are either broken, lodging or even uprooted. Rain is sweeping every square centimeter of the city, and the streets and alleys in the wind and rain are so strange that you can't see where the earth is. The lightning in the distance instantly shone on the void of the city, and the gray, pale and indistinguishable sky finally lit up, flashing like a flame or a blade. But this is a living phenomenon after all, and besides, there is no reference. "That kind of soft place is often a hotbed of life, and there are no flowers on the rocks." We live in rocks and are desperate weeds.

two

Solar terms are a terrible law of time division. When I was in early spring, the earth was still dead. On the warm sunny slope, the treetops have blossomed delicate new buds, while deep in the park, the mole suddenly wakes up and sings occasionally. The trees in the block can't see any change, and they are blown half dead by the winter wind. Most leaves are yellow and covered with thick dust, but deciduous trees are sparse and tidy. Winter in the south is always not serious, like the continuation of autumn or the long prelude of spring. Frost and snow change is not obvious. The wind will make people feel that it is winter, but suddenly, it is the beginning of spring. The sun rose earlier, and suddenly a light flashed in the building in the southeast corner, and a trace of warmth passed like a wave. In the air of the block, the gray haze gradually dispersed, and the messy dust and smoke were blown away by the wind. The slightly damp wind makes people look very excited. The same is true in spring in the south, which is not obvious. The words on the calendar remind me that today is the beginning of spring. "As soon as the east wind thaws, the stinging insects start to vibrate, and the fish will fall off the ice for the third time." The east wind obviously came, and the flowers and plants on the east window began to shake, as if celebrating an event. The mole cricket began to vibrate, rubbing its wings and vibrating its feathers. At night, the sound of insects gently rings and gradually melts into the ocean of adult voices. Owls, yellow owls and horse owls have drilled out of the cave. There is a bambusa bambusa in the flowerpot. With a winter's fatigue, it timidly climbed to the branches of lemon blossom, trying to flap its numb wings. The voice is crisp and shy, only occasionally it has a bright and amazing voice. When the sun shone on the balcony, it was gone. The grass in the flowerpot also began to drill out, and the clover clustered together, grabbing the surface of the empty pot soil. Ye Zhi's poem: "Clover is full of paths, and the oak tree is knocked down in spring and becomes its companion." The year before last, I went to Delft, the Netherlands, where my daughter studied. It's a small village with dense rivers and sparse population. Nederland lives a natural life and likes flowers and green trees. Therefore, although it is close to the seaside, there are often strong winds of magnitude 7 or above, and the terrain is low. Driven by windmills, the river flows into the main irrigation and drainage channels leading to the North Sea step by step. Delft's houses, except churches, are basically three or four-story buildings with towering roofs in northern Europe. The streets are paved with dark gray Shi Zhuan, leaving gaps where you can see the soil and grass. In spring, you can always see the grass coming out of the gap and growing into a landscape at will. Cleaners generally don't pull up these weeds, except for important streets, they always try to keep the most primitive natural state. The river is not very clear, but it is clean. People often hold such and such activities. When the midsummer festival comes, besides the carnival of music and dance, they also compete to swim in the river. All kinds of men, women and children can participate. On the banks of the river, there are Dutch and German national costumes in medieval costumes, dancing cha-cha or foxtrot. Men dressed as waiters walked around the crowd with beer and cups, serving delicious draft beer. At noon, I took a nap in a chair by the river on the street. In the shade, a cool breeze blows gently. I feel that the summer here is a bit dreamy, like the spring in Fuzhou. The sea breeze is suddenly very strong. There are usually showers in the afternoon, and then it suddenly becomes cloudy that day. The wind is blowing hard and the river seems to be boiling. A thunderstorm started in Fuzhou. The rain arrow was born in vain and fell to the ground. The grass is shaking and the leaves are dancing. The trees here are mostly buttonwood and oak, and some are beech and birch. All grow into umbrellas, covering the sky and the sun. There are few trees near the Dutch church, only flower beds. Outside the church gate, the square is a small market, a coffee bar and a small round stage for citizens' activities.

From time to time, I met the ducks in line by the river and crossed the road leisurely. At this time, all people or cars, even trains, must stop to make way for them. The wild ducks here have almost no worries about their lives, no natural enemies, no eagles or sea eagles, no shotguns or nets, no poisonous baits and traps. Seagulls act as robbers from time to time, especially citizens who have just bought fresh fish and seafood from the supermarket. Watch out for robbers who suddenly fall from the sky. Those arctic grey-backed gulls are very strong, and often take the fish away with bags, which makes you break out in a cold sweat. It flapped its wings proudly, skimming over your head and flying far away. My daughter has seen several squirrels. They took a fancy to the pine nuts in her hand for baking bread. The smell made the squirrels anxious, so they jumped on her bike, tore off a big piece of bread and ran away quickly. The daughter photographed the funny appearance of the squirrel couple. It can be seen in an instant how equal and intimate the relationship between local animals and people is. Bridges in Holland are mostly movable bridges with no high span. Except for a large turntable that can rotate 90 degrees in the middle of the bridge, they are all flush with the road surface. When a big ship passes by, the bridge will turn in the direction of the river to make way for the ship. All cars and people will wait patiently on the bridge. Everything is very slow, time is flowing leisurely here, and almost no one is pressing the horn anxiously to urge the car in front. Bicycles are the main means of transportation here. Usually, in their spare time at work, comfortable Neanderthals ride bicycles, ride along the narrow roads of the dam, listen to music, or throw their food to seagulls from time to time, but this is allowed by law. The dam is a solid structure with steel and cement walls, but the surface is a clay box with flowers and plants. The water quality in Holland is salty, and only salt-tolerant aquatic plants can grow in this clay box. There are thistle and mint, as well as parsley and verbena. Inside the dam is a sunflower field and a salt-tolerant plant. Outside the isolation belt of Pogostemon fragrans, it is regular farmland. It is all produced by mechanical chemical plants, fresh cut flowers, and common plants are potatoes, chicory, celery and so on. In some parts of South Holland, there are wheat fields.

In the long summer, the climate here is still as cool as spring. Occasionally, there is a cloud floating in the sky after a rain. The cloud is scattered, as white as cotton, and the sky is polished as transparent as crystal. Blue is the most primitive color in nature. I used to be familiar with it when I was a child, but now, the summer sky is always filled with a layer of gray matter, which always makes the blue color discounted.

three

The south of beginning of autumn always comes quietly in an inexplicable silence, and the change of solar terms is not obvious. The only change is that the shadow of the sun moves south, giving birth to some coolness in the shady place. Although not obvious, summer is no longer dull and hot. Camptotheca acuminata will be covered with branches, Milan or Murraya, and Ficus macrophylla will occasionally sprout new buds, making such early autumn ambiguous. In the countryside, it's time to start brewing rice wine. The rice was put away and ground into rice, and the fragrant rice floated far away in the streets and lanes of the country. Wintering in winter is an important item on the agenda. The new rice needs to be exposed to the hot sun for several days until it shrinks into a transparent jade shape, and then it is screened in the mill for several hours to make the rice embryo fall off completely. That rice is simply a jade carving, and the lines are transparent and lovely. Wash the rice in a bucket, steam it in a steamer, then pour it into a brewing tank for primary fermentation, and then add distiller's yeast. After a night of fermentation, the rice balls gradually liquefied and the rich aroma of distiller's yeast overflowed. Then fermented for two days, sealed, sterilized in a steamer, and then released and stored in a cool underground wine cellar until autumn. In the next few months, the rice koji in the jar was fermented, saccharified and converted into alcohol, while the distiller's koji turned into orange-yellow wine color until all the rice grains became liquid, leaving only a small amount of insoluble substances to precipitate at the bottom of the jar. In the dark basement, wine feels the external changes of yin and yang, with yin gradually nourishing and yang gradually declining. On the day of summer solstice, there will be shrike calls outside the window. This bird is sensitive to changes of yin and yang. There are three stages in the summer solstice: the antlers are untied, the deer is a yang beast, and the yin is known to solve the angle; The song begins to sing, and the singer, the hidden thing, begins to sing when it is unearthed; Pinellia ternata is born, Pinellia ternata likes Yin, and it is born when it is sensitive to Yin. When we arrived in early autumn, there were three times: the cool wind came, the dew fell and the cold was ringing. The earth's atmosphere began to get cold, but the west wind was born. All day, the wind came, my body felt cold, and the rain was getting heavier and heavier. Dew is born in vegetation and is white, indicating that autumn is golden, cold, cold, small and purple, like a cockroach. It was born in late summer, and its voice is long and soft, like helplessness, like nostalgia, and its voice is sad.

Shrike was an ominous bird in the eyes of the ancients, named Kun. In the Book of Songs, it is sung in July. Yuan Wucheng's "Twenty-four Solar Terms" says: Cao Zijian's "On Bad Birds": White old people sing in May, and the sound is ugly, the prey is exposed, and the sound is ugly. However, shrike is the most faithful messenger of climate. The summer solstice rings and the winter solstice stops. The bird lives alone among thorns. No matter what it catches, insects, frogs or snakes hang on spikes to show their bodies, and no bird dares to get close. In the vast fields of the countryside, shrike haunts everywhere, but it flies not only over the hills, but also away from rivers and forests, with a shrill and alert voice. Recently, shrike appeared in this city, feeding on its ability to steal young birds from other birds. Scholar is the first, and laborer is the strength. Rural people like it because it is good at driving away birds. There are shrikes in the rice fields, and sparrows fly far away. There are many pests on fruit trees, such as beetles, grubs, gnats and bedbugs, and even tiny fruit-drilling bees, small fruit worms and scarabs are listed as recipes. Rural people call it a guest bird because it is not seen in winter and spring. In autumn and winter, the fields are gradually deserted, and there are really not many birds and insects to catch in the dead corn stalks, dry straw stacks and empty fields. The shrike was still busy until the solstice of winter, and gradually disappeared. In Horton's Miscellanies of Birds, it is said that the existence of birds is actually another way of time existence. If there were no birds singing, how terrible the world would be. Even though its voice is not very nice, it reminds us how important certain times of the day are, just like chickens crowing to maintain discipline. In winter, the field finally returns to peace, just like a person's winter break for a year. The rice wine in the cellar is ready, and the opening of the winter festival begins with wine. In some mountain villages in northern Fujian, winter will not appear flatly. The smell of wine reminds us of another way of winter. This wine is full of fragrance. Families send wine to the grain fields in the village, pour it into vats and mix it into wine. Then each family took the wine back from the barrel and put it on the edge of the grain field for people to taste. The wine festival is like a carnival in the country. On the wine-red earth, spilled wine juice is flowing, and it shines red like blood in the sun. In the smell of wine, the villagers' passion keeps heating up until it boils.

Shrike passed through my village/season and was torn like a reed flower and scattered all over the floor/what was in his heart as strong as wine? /I picked up the fallen leaves and wanted to return them to the earth/like an ancient sacrifice/with my blood or flesh as my soul/for the earth.

Red is the color of blood, the wound torn in autumn, the shrike dismembering its prey, and the exposed flesh is the silent note of the season. So the ancients called the seventy-two solar terms an epic description. I believe that every solar term is a silent and secret step of the earth. Therefore, I am afraid of the red color of rice wine and the rice wine itself. This is an ancient ceremony and a sad song of the season. When everything is no longer lush, when the autumn wind withers all the vitality, I cherish and fear all this process, just like the shrike laments the bodies of its prey.

four

I'm afraid of everything in life, including life and death. My father died three years ago. The night before he died, we were at the bedside. He was half lying under a quilt. This room is a symbol of death in a hurry. I can feel it coming, it shouts excitedly and even dances. It looks forward to his father's last moment. Father has been panting, and he seems to want to say something. Actually, dad doesn't like talking very much at ordinary times. He is always silent, watching TV alone, with a strange smile on his mouth. Father suddenly breathed a sigh of relief, but he never inhaled any air again. He became weak and hung feebly by the bed, his head hanging feebly to one side. The air in the room is as cold as death. We are busy washing his body, and his heart is still hot. I pressed my face against his heart, but nothing happened. Father fell asleep. He is too tired to wake up. Such a farewell seems cruel, but I know that everyone has such moments. I held my father's body, let my sister wipe it, then put on a shroud and let my father lie down. He is no longer suffering from illness, and he doesn't need to struggle with breathing difficulties. He followed death without a step, like a gust of wind. When I took the urn, my heart suddenly twitched, and my eyes were black and I almost staggered. My father turned into such a pile of bone residue, beige as ivory, which glowed softly in the light. I gently covered the small brocade quilt and closed the altar cover. I carried the urn to the funeral carriage.

The sky is still blue, and the sun is dazzling, stinging my skin. I clung to my father's urn, which was still warm after the flame. How rugged the road up the mountain is. Thorns pierced my body. I feel my father in my arms is very kind. He is still sleeping, like a baby. He will go back, back to earth. That is his forever home, and it will be my forever home. Later, one day, my friends and I went to Guling and found a coffin stone called Guo Shitai. He said with a smile that life is so quiet that death belongs to the stone platform. He regards death as a ritual to the earth. I thought of Seda Gyatso in Ganzi, and I attended his uncle's funeral. His uncle was tied into a white pillar. On the way home after incineration, we silently recited the spell and watched the gurgling river at the curved valley bottom and the eagle figure appearing from time to time on the steep cliff edge of the donkey cart, rustling in the wind. The earth is so quiet that you can even hear the creaking sound every time a stone is crushed.

We sat on the grass, scattered highland barley flour and Darron into the air, and heard the buzzing mountain wind. The white urn is placed behind the mysterious altar, which is another village of their ancestors. This is similar to the meaning of our back mountain, which is the village where our ancestors reunited again. Under the deep blue sky, we became part of the rocks in the sun. After silence, we said goodbye to them. Mountain wind hunting, dehydrated rocks for many years, there are more tears we just shed. The earth stretches into the distance as far as the eye can see. Every time I touch the chest of the earth, I seem to whisper to a great mother. That is the source of everyone, the source of everything, and it will also be the destination of us and everything.

Everything is soft/goes deep into the earth/happens for no reason/disappears for no reason/needs no explanation/hopes for an answer/no, everything is in vain/all life and all death are equally meaningless.

I thought of an urn made of pottery and an instrument made of pottery, which can turn my breath into sound, and it doesn't matter if I spit. I want Long song to give Tao Xun a long blow.

Chen: Writer. His works can be found in October, Selected Works of China Literature, Hua Shan, Tianya, Selected Prose, Guangzhou Prose and Literature and Works. He has been selected into the annual prose anthology for many times and won the Sun Li Prose Award and other awards.

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