Modern prose appreciation - "The Lost Forest" - Xu Daran

"Lost Forest" - Xu Daran

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You probably remember my monkey Ashan. When you first came, I took you upstairs to see it, and it opened its mouth and eyes fiercely staring at your friendliness. I said you come often, and it will be very kind.

But I don't often go back to Tainan, you don't come very often.

I was working in Taichung at that time. In fact, there is nothing to do, so I read the books I like to read. At that time, after the salary was used to eat and buy books, there was no money left to go home, and going home was a luxury for me. Even if you have money to go home, it is rare to see your father who runs north and south to support his family and his five younger siblings who go back to the east and west for some learning. Even if you see it, it's hard to talk about. Even if we talk about it, we can't talk about things in the East and the West. When you come home, you can always see your mother, because the housework is her job, and Ah Shan, because it can't run, it is always locked upstairs. But I hadn't been home for so long, and when it saw me, it opened its mouth and eyes strangely stared at my kindness, touching its head, as if it were thinking of something, as if it were familiar, but it couldn't remember me, a person who didn't come home very often. Even if it still recognized me, I could only watch the sky with it, not chat with it. Monkeys are monkeys, and there is less "organized noise" between people ———— language. These noises turn out to be very long civilizations. It is not a rare civilization, but it is locked up in civilization and forced to see everyone who is not a monkey. Watching people fight with people, people have long thought that the monkey has lost and do not want to fight with it again. And people have nothing to see after watching it for a long time, so I went home and only had one more person to see. After three or four days at home, when I was mixing with it again, I left home again. I said I was gone, and it looked indifferently at me, the civilization of self-talking, with its eyes wide open.

After I left home, everyone had to do something. Only my mother was willing to tell me about Ah Shan's life, but my mother could not read.

In fact, there is nothing special about the life of a monkey. To be alive is not necessarily to be safe, and to be safe is not necessarily to be happy. And making a monkey happy in the human world is not necessarily the civilization it wants. I didn't ask Ah Shan if he was happy or unhappy, because he couldn't understand the noise, and because I never asked that question. I remember when someone asked Kafka if he was as lonely as so-and-so, Kafka smiled and said that he was as lonely as Kafka. Ah Shan is as lonely as Ah Shan, its world is in the forest, not only do I not have a single tree, I don't even have a place to plant trees.

I knew it was alive in a place that did not belong to it, in a chain that should not belong to it. It is we who give it chains, and when we put it on, we know that it is civilization. It is we who force it to live, and it lives to know what it is like to endure civilization. We are selfish and cruel, but we flaunt compassion, not only for people but also about animals.

Then there were two cold weeks in a row, and it sat in a corner, ignoring anyone. Even when my mother brought it food, it didn't jump around as excitedly as before, but just sat there quietly and ate. The mother thought that the weather was getting cold and she didn't want to move, but the monkey's sudden Sven made her feel strange. Once, when I was going to bathe it and pick it up, I realized that a section of the chain was already inside its neck. When the veterinarian took out the chain inside Ah Shan's neck, blood spurted out of its neck and dripped from the chain...

I seemed to see it grow helplessly again. Growing up or not growing up is the same for it, just getting old. But we still force it to grow. The chains around the neck will rust but will not grow. It wanted to get rid of the chain, but the more it struggled, the more the chain rubbed its neck, and the more it rubbed the neck, the more blood flowed, and the more blood flowed, the more rusty the chain became. The neck became bigger and bigger, and a section of the rusty chain seeped into the neck. As the days went on, the meat wrapped the iron. It hurts, so it barks. It's called, but often no one hears it. Occasionally someone comes to see a monkey, but looking at it doesn't mean caring about it. Occasionally they heard it calling, and when they couldn't understand it, they scolded: "What is the name of a person who has eaten enough?" "Later, it was no longer called. But not screaming does not mean that it is not painful. It hurt, but I had to sit there and endure it. What does man endure for, and what does he endure for? It endures, so it lives. It lives, so it endures.

If iron is lonely, it cannot be pulled out, and it is allowed to wrap it in flesh and blood. Wrapping a piece of hard, rusty loneliness in flesh and blood is just getting more and more painful. Maybe the piece of iron was a protest, but the protest that could not be taken out made it weaker and weaker the more it struggled. Maybe that piece of iron is hope, the hope that can only make it pus and inflame.

Iron is iron, not loneliness, not protest, not hope, so after it is taken out, it is still powerless and lonely to sit and protest to sit and hope to sit. Life is no longer jumping in place

The absurdity of running and walking, but the boredom of sitting and sitting. Absurdity is not necessarily boring, but being boring about it is nothing but quiet absurdity. Looking up, it is the day that can't change any tricks. Even if there are many stars at night, although the night is not their chain, they do not dare to run around. It is always there, looking at the sky that is always there, and there is no interest in calling it. It is to applaud it, and the sky is blind and invisible. Looking down, it was the chain that only rusted after eating blood. But it no longer wants to play with the civilization that encircles its life. In the past, it used to play with the chain, because it could touch it as soon as it reached out, and if it didn't play with the chain, what was it playing with? Playing with chains is playing with yourself, and playing with yourself is bullying yourself. Later, it didn't even have the strength to bully itself. Looking forward or backward is the same for it, and it sees a shadow of its own meaning other than black. But that black is not paint, it cannot be used to draw pictures. And even this little shadow night of it often has to be taken away. Night can't force it to sleep, and it doesn't mean it has to wake up. Time passes, time comes again. Time is its loneliness, loneliness is its chain, and this long sitting with chains and boredom is by no means a portrait of Ashan in the past.

But a friend of my mother's was very fond of Ah Shan's Wenjing and repeatedly wanted us to give it to her. However, my mother was reluctant to raise Ah Shan, who had been a part of our family for seven years, and never agreed.

But then my mother remembered our six children, the woman was married, and the man was a soldier and a soldier and was studying outside. In the past, Ken and Ah Shan played together, leaving behind a shadow that he could not run after himself when he grew up. Except for my parents, it couldn't see some familiar faces in the house. It doesn't know where we are? We know where it is, but not at home. Every time my mother saw it, she remembered the fun our six children had playing with it and was even more worried about us who were not at home. My mother remembered that we were also worried about Ah Shan. Thinking that Ah Shan has always liked children, and remembering to give it to a friend who has several children who have not yet grown up and left home, maybe it can be taken care of more carefully and will be happier, so he gave it to his friend.

Soon, Ashan died.

But you must remember the living Ashan. When you last came, I took you upstairs to see it, and its wide open eyes reflected the cloudy day in August Tainan and your sorrows. I said that I would not recognize me again when I came home, and I said that if we came to see it often, it would still not be happy, but it would not be so lonely.