Later, I met a lot of nice guys, but none of them were you.
— Caption
1. Meet
The first time I met her was at dusk in the summer, her skirt was flying, her steps were light, and she danced in the gentle evening wind, with a graceful dance posture and a calm smile, like a blooming lotus.
He lit a cigarette at the stone flower bed in front of the radio station and watched silently at the dancers in the setting sun.
That dusk, the evening breeze was gentle and the sunset was beautiful.
It was his first day on the job, and the flappy skirt horns and the summer twilight became memories he could not erase.
He began to make excuses to go to the radio station, to talk to her consciously or unconsciously, and sometimes, when he heard the music of the radio station ringing, he watched from a distance, watching her arms dancing with the music.
In order to reach her, he tried everything he could, first to teach himself to dance, and then to learn to dance with her. In the 80s, there were very few dance halls in Mohe, and more often than not, they danced in abandoned warehouses. The space that could only accommodate two positions, the orange lights, the dust on the ground, could not stop their enthusiasm for dancing, and the two people were wantonly exerting their youth in the crowded warehouse.
He had just graduated from college and started working, she was an ordinary worker at the radio station, and fate had put the two young people together.
He told her about his experience studying in Beijing, about the jeans worn by young people in Beijing and the big hot waves. He said he must take her to Beijing to see how the young people there dance. He awkwardly put the newly purchased jade bracelet on her wrist and saw her smile sweetly.
At that moment, their eyes were all about the future.
The summer in Mohe is short, but it is very warm.
This summer, the air smells of love.
Two young people met because of dance, and they became acquainted with dance. Soon, they entered the palace of marriage.
In the days after marriage, chai rice oil and salt are accompanied, gentle and happy, leisure time, most of them are in the dance hall to pass the time.
After Labor Day in 1987, he was going on a business trip to another city, and he said that when he returned, they would go to Beijing to see the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, and when they came back from Beijing, they planned to have a child, and when the child was older, they would teach him to dance.
Such a life design, which seems to be thin and long-flowing, is plain and unremarkable, but in fact, how many people can't reach the day.
The night before they left, they went to the dance hall and danced a drunken tango, and the beautiful dance provoked the envy and jealousy of others.
No one could have imagined that this would be their last dance in this life.
Create and make people.
2. Separation
On May 6, a fire fell from the sky, and the flames roared over the county seat of Mohe, and the whole territory of Mohe was in a hurry. When he heard the news, he bought a ticket and boarded the train on the return journey, and after getting off the bus, the bus stopped, and he ran to the radio station twenty kilometers away in one breath.
After the fire, the rows of neat houses were left with only lone chimneys, full of remnants and broken walls, scorched earth and ruins everywhere. He rushed into the rubble like a madman, calling her name, but did not respond. He found only the jade bracelet in the charred ruins, only half of which had been smoked black, alone in the corner, and the other half, without a trace.
May 6, 1987, for him, is the end of the world, everything is over, and from now on, the whole meaning of his existence is memory and thought.
Winter is coming, and the winter in Mohe is cold and long.
He was used to waking up in the morning to cover her with a quilt, and now the pillow next to him was empty, and his heart was empty. Every day when I got home, I called her name, but no one ever responded. That beautiful dancer is no longer there, she has gone, she has gone to another world to dance. He didn't believe it, he'd rather believe it was just a dream, and when they woke up, they would still dance drunken tango in the ballroom.
I don't know, how she angered the gods, or whether the gods were jealous of her beauty, and a heavenly fire took her away from him, leaving him alone to experience the most empty and empty human journey for the rest of his life.
Sometimes, a dream is a lifetime, and you don't know if you're in a dream or in real life.
Later, a new dance hall was built next to the abandoned warehouse, called the Mohe Ballroom.
He went there every day, rain or shine. A man sat in the corner, smoking a cigarette silently. Only when the familiar melody sounds, he will slowly walk to the dance floor, others dancing in pairs, and he dances alone on the dance floor.
He never cared about the surprised eyes of others, as long as the lights came on and the melody sounded, it was the happiest moment of his day. Only at this moment did he feel that she had not left, always in his arms, and they seemed to be back in the small warehouse, dancing to a cheerful rhythm.
3. Thoughts
Every day, he told her the stories of what happened in this world, about the spring, summer, autumn and winter of Mohe, about the dance hall of Mohe, and about his slowly growing old.
He said to her in the letter: "In the fifth year of your visit, Mohe held the Aurora Festival, which is beautiful. In the desert river where you are absent, the summer is still short, but no longer warm; the winter is still long, but it is even colder. ”
"In the tenth year of your departure, I still go to the Mohe Ballroom every day to dance solo, which has become an irreplaceable part of my life. Here, I met a lot of nice people, but none of them were you. ”
"In the twentieth year you have passed, the suffering has passed and the world is good. If there were a tunnel leading to another sleepless tunnel, I would drive my dark brown jeep and roll down the creaky crunchy windows that were frosted by the cold, and I would like to show you my indestructible clasp and the longing that I have not shaken for a day. ”
"Thirty-four years after you've gone, if you have time to come back and see me, be sure to turn your head and be surprised, I don't want you to see the tears and old age I miss, after all, we haven't seen each other for a long time."
He was confident that she would receive his letter. He believed that she was right next to him and could hear what he was saying.
But Heaven, did not reply.
Thirty-four years, that's pretty much the whole of his life.
The so-called love is nothing but the happiness of getting and the thought of leaving. This happiness is so short- and this longing, so long and tormented!
Countless times, he dreamed that the fire ignited the hem of her skirt, and the flames flew up inch by inch, and soon spread to her whole body, and she was swept by the fire, running desperately, shouting his name with tears in her heart, and he was not by her side.........
He never went to Beijing again, never married again, never had children in his life, he had to seal his memories, seal the date of her departure.
Others said that he drew the earth as a prison, he ignored it, in his eyes, the sun, moon, galaxy, mountains, rivers and earth, all of them were her.
Is there anything wrong with him telling her about the days of painting dungeons?
Man, you can only live in one way in this life, and you really have no right to talk about other people's lifestyles. Because you can never participate in the happiness or sorrow of others.
As time grew older, he continued to dance alone on the dance floor day after day, year after year, from youth to middle age, and from middle age to old age. Seemed to await her arrival.
It turns out that in this world, there are really people who can live by memories and thoughts, and there are really people who can like a person when they are young and then love with a lifetime. Whether poor, rich, born or separated, dead or dead!
The snow wouldn't age, her eyes wouldn't melt, and she wouldn't come back to see him. If there is a sound in his thoughts, then his thoughts must be deafening!
Love rises in the east and falls in the west, and romance is unswerving to death. This rare love is precious, in this impetuous era.
If one day, this love is not worth showing off in the world, then let it be dusted into the sea!
Postscript: In 1987, the "five, six" fire in Daxing'anling, without warning, shocked the whole country, and almost only half a day, the rapid fire burned Mohe County to the ground. The fire caused a total of 1.01 million hectares of forest to burn, more than 50,000 people to be affected, and 211 people to die... Among these 211 people, including the wife of Zhang Dequan, the protagonist of this article, Kang Shi.
33 years later, a musician named Liu Shuang went to Mohe to collect wind, heard this story, and wrote a song "Mohe Ballroom", which touched many people, including me, just because of this loyalty! In this age of fast-food love.
So, I tried to restore their love story, in order to commemorate love, but also to add a touch of warmth to this cold world.