Farewell, my teacher

(Prose)

Text/Wei Linxu

After dinner, my eyes occasionally fixed on the two big blessing words on the balcony window.

It was last year's Chinese New Year's Eve, and I braved the snow to carefully select from the Front of the New Year Painting Stall and paste it on the window.

Winter, spring, summer, and autumn rotate, and the original bright color has obviously faded to white and gray, like a wrinkled couple who have entered the twilight of their twilight years.

So I suddenly woke up, and another year was about to pass.

I can't help but feel a little sad in my heart: life is only a few decades, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, it seems that day by day is like turning a book, turning it over and turning it into a teenager, into a youth, into a white-haired old age.

I remember the first image I left for myself was a four-inch black-and-white photo, which was decades ago on the doorstep of the classroom of the second and fourth classes of my alma mater. This is a graduation group photo. Sitting in the middle of the first row was my homeroom teacher, Mr. Jia Yong. Teacher Jia was about twenty-three or four years old at the time, and he was very lean but a little thin, so this big man of one meter and eight meters always had a bit of a flashing feeling when he walked. He had a hot, partial head that was more fashionable in his time, a high and sharp nose bridge, and slightly thick lips that always had a gentle smile. Those deep glowing eyes always reflected a youthful, handsome, energetic look. The reason why I can sketch his appearance so clearly after many years is that he was once an idol I worshipped in my mind.

Ms. Jia is my political science teacher and the first professional counterpart teacher from our school who graduated from the Department of Politics of Normal University.

I remember that when he took us to political class, it was exactly the period of the Cultural Revolution when he "criticized the forest and criticized the holes and countered the right-leaning trend of overturning the case." Until now, I also clearly remember Mr. Jia's language style and dynamic look in life when he lectured, and his most iconic action was that whether he was chatting with people or walking on the road, he always liked to put his hand in his pants pocket, and from time to time subconsciously threw the fluffy black hair outward, which was simply cool.

Teacher Jia's most common cigarette is the "Haihe brand" cigarettes produced in Tianjin, although a pack of a few cents, but at that time it was also relatively luxurious. His addiction to smoking was so great that whenever he put down his chalk after class, he would quickly take out a delicate yellow tin cigarette case from the inner pocket of his trench coat and draw a cigarette from it. In fact, he was not in a hurry to smoke, but first put the cigarette on his nose to smell, smelled it and then licked it wet with his tongue, and finally clicked with a lighter to light a long breath and took a few long breaths and slowly spit out the smoke. So without much effort, the whole classroom was filled with a faint smell of smoke.

Although Mr. Jia is seven or eight years older than us, his innate lively personality is destined to become the big brother who is most keen to play with him by the male students in the class from the beginning. In their free time, these little brothers often make some "disrespectful" behaviors towards him, but Teacher Jia never bothers to think about it, as if he is a peer. But in the formal classroom, he is so strict that you are not allowed to act arbitrarily, Teacher Jia said: This is the rule. Naturally, we have never dared to make a mistake.

I remember one day in self-study class, one of my pranks, made me feel uneasy after being afraid.

Because it is not a formal class, the students in the class all do their own things. Some are reviewing their homework, some are practicing writing brushes, and some are even reading extracurricular books, but the order is still quite orderly. At this time, Teacher Jia pushed the door and walked in, he was patrolling the class, while lighting a cigarette, and conveniently tucked the "tin box" into the back pocket of his pants, in fact, he rarely put the cigarette box in the pants pocket. Because the pocket was lighter, a small part of the box was exposed, and as he walked past me, I quietly pulled it out and stuffed it into the table bucket, originally trying to tease the teacher, but he returned to the office without knowing it until the end of class.

At this time, I was suddenly a little scared and overwhelmed, took the initiative to send it back, but because it was something that happened in class, although it was not a formal class, but according to the rules, the teacher would definitely blame me, but what should I do if I did not send it? The more I thought about it, the more frightened I became, so I walked into the physics class again with a state of anxiety. Sitting on a stool I was distracted. At the moment when I threw my head out of the window, I inadvertently saw Teacher Jia through the gap in the window, and in the distance I saw him walking around the edge of the playground with his cat waist up and down. Was he looking for the lost "tin box"? Yes, it must be. You see the funny look like a penguin in a cage looking for a way out. So I couldn't stop laughing for a moment. In the awkward situation of not being able to explain, I was invited out of the classroom by the physics teacher. When I stood on the steps outside the door, I was seen by Teacher Jia, and he hurried over in confusion and whispered to me what was wrong? I hesitated for a moment, and finally I pulled out the tin box, and he suddenly put away the smile, threw his hair away, and flicked his finger on my forehead and said: You wait, and then turn away. But who knew that he did not take a few steps but suddenly turned around, lifted the "tin box" and shook it at me with a crisp snap finger, and quickly returned to the house with a ghostly smile. After the teacher left, my heart was tingling, and I didn't know how he would clean me up. But as the days passed, everything was calm as if nothing had happened. After a few more days, he still did not wait for Teacher Jia's punishment. What's going on in my mind? Moreover, what did Teacher Jia mean by all his actions that day, whether he was blaming me or thanking me, I still can't figure it out.

In the blink of an eye, two years of junior high school life passed quickly, when the group photo was taken, Teacher Jia arranged for me to stand behind him, my hand was on his shoulder, the teacher smiled, I also smiled...

Since then, I have had my first photo of my life.

But what makes me sad is that this graduation photo when I was sixteen years old turned out to be a lifelong parting photo of me and Teacher Jia.

I graduated from high school two years later. One day, the bad news of Teacher Jia's death in a car accident suddenly came into my ears, I was momentarily stunned, for a while both legs were a little weak, I subconsciously looked at this pair of hands that had taken the "tin box", and the uncontrollable tears had long blurred my eyes. On that day, I had a hard time eating, and my mind was full of the teacher's cute and respectable imprints.

Late at night I thought a lot, when I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep, I solemnly told myself that there would be no more Teacher Jia in the world, and what use would it be...

Time is really fast, it seems that decades have passed, the sun and the moon are like these two big blessing words, as if they were only pasted yesterday, but today they are so old that they will be replaced by the new.

The sun and the moon are constantly changing, and Fu is still the same pronunciation, but this year's Fu character is no longer last year's Fu character, just like today's me is no longer the same as when I was a teenager.

How I wish I could turn back the clock, but how can hope become a reality?

Written on 2021.11.1.Finalized on November 6.