Original Zhong Zhihong about the reading room
"Why do I always have tears in my eyes / Because I love this land so deeply..."
At the end of the last century, in the waxing moon, I was trapped at home after being laid off from the company, and my mood was like ice and snow outside the window.
After the beginning of spring, I had no choice but to follow the call of my old friends and go to the Gobi Desert in Karamay, Xinjiang, to become a temporary worker on an oil well.
Located on the edge of the Junggar Basin, the Gobi Desert is cold in winter and hot in summer, dry and rainy.
When I stood on the high platform of the oil well and looked at the world of "flat sand and reckless yellow into the sky", I could only swallow the blood that bit my lip.
A long team of masters, the liver-colored face of the pig is covered with deep lines, and the long years of sunshine and sand have made him grow old and grow old.
One spring evening, he glanced at the sky, and then casually threw a sentence at everyone: "Finish the work - the strength of this wind is not small!" ”
His voice sounded like the trumpet of the great retreat, and the workers hurriedly dropped their tools and scattered the birds and beasts.
The master saw that I was indifferent and dragged me fiercely: "You boy looks at the scenery, and he is not quick to hide!" ”
In a moment, the blazing sunlight disappeared, and a "yellow dragon" said that it was late and then quickly pounced on me, and the sand and gravel on the ground were like steel needles, stinging me and holding my head.
At the same time, the screeching sound of steel pipes colliding with each other was heard from the derrick, the wires separated by wooden strips were intertwined in mid-air, and the sound of "crackling" was accompanied by a ball of purple-blue fireballs, which was particularly eye-catching...
In the summer, every night the glow fades, and the mosquitoes make it difficult for people to worry about the attack of the group army.
Because collective operations are difficult to repel mosquitoes, plastic bags with pores cut into the hood are the most effective measures. However, with the help of the surface temperature reaching sixty or seventy degrees, the taste of sweat like a river and a stuffy head is indescribable.
In the harsh natural environment and harsh working conditions, our amateur life is also monotonous:
Take a nap at noon, wrapping Mohe cigarette with a piece of paper is the main item after the meal, two mouthfuls down to choke out is a short period of contentment and comfort, everyone is still happy to do this; after work, back to the train car modified mobile room, on garlic or green pepper painfully drink inferior liquor, occasionally someone takes advantage of the wine, roaring two voices of hometown minor tunes...
On that day, after two days of strong winds, there was no sign of retreat, and we could only huddle in the room.
The bottles bottomed out, there were few cigarettes left, and the life supply car that was supposed to arrive was delayed by bad weather. Due to the shortage of food and drink, the master, who had no interest, lay in bed early and slept.
Idle, I diligently rolled a cigarette for the master and handed it to me, and found him peeking at a thin book facing the wall.
I said casually, "Master, do you also love to read?" What book? ”
Or because of the bribe of the cigarette, the expressionless man took the cigarette and stuffed the book into me.
It was a fragmented collection of poems, and the pages were yellowish, prompting me that it was weak.
I joked to my master: "These are all books with first-degree disabilities, and you should still be treated as a baby." ”
He let out a puff of smoke and said distraughtly: "If you like to see it, don't look at it and pull it down!" ”
A co-worker next to me covered my ear and said that he had been in the well for fifteen or six years, and he had not borrowed this collection of poems from his master; he also said that the master wrote his own name without horizontal and vertical, and could he read a few words and read a few lines of poetry? Hey.
I carefully flipped through this book of poems, which was not unfamiliar.
On the campus of the middle school, I once read aloud "Dayan River, deeply in love with her breasts / During the New Year's Festival, for him, busy cutting the candy of the winter rice / For him, I often quietly went to her house on the edge of the village..."
However, in this desolate world where "there is no peace in the rhyme", the zero distance from the "Ai Qing Poetry Collection" really activates my indescribable nostalgia.
As the page numbers turned, I noticed a blank space with faint handwriting, illegible because of the long time.
The worker who was still doing good things revealed: "This is a poem copied by your master: 'She is a little girl / Looks prettier than me / Two eyes are watery / A braid is so long!' ’”
Without waiting for the voice to land, the master he twice, then got up and sat up, his thick voice raised an octave: "She is barefoot / Pants on her knees / On her arm / Hanging a large willow basket ..." The crowd laughed loudly.
The master, who did not laugh, quickly lay down and said to himself: "On the Gobi Desert with only men, there are not as many women I see in a year on a bus..."
Although I don't know how much joy and anger poetry brings to rough men, the face of the poetry collection is not easy to speculate, it really adds a living element to the Gobi, and gives a lonely man a touch of comfort to the fact that -
I can ignore the romantic love song under the moon before the flower, but I can't ignore the real existence of the barren smoke vine, especially in a corner far away from the wind and snow moon, which is still full of painting and poetry:
Outside the house, like the fierce wind of the wolves, there is a great tendency not to engulf the world and die; inside the house, although there is no catalysis of alcohol, the workers either sit on the bed or simply stand on the table, and the high decibels of the same voice shield the wind and thunder:
"There is pain on the wire bed / There is rejoicing on the straw heap / Gift in the time of scarcity / Theft in the time of abundance ..."
"Its face and body / Like a knife cut / But it still stands there / With a smile, looking at the ocean...";
"Without you, the sun / all life will crawl in the shadows / Even if it has wings, it can only be like a bat / Fly in the eternal night"...
Perhaps, this group of people who are far away from the countryside and relatives and artificial friends just pass the difficult time in the way of chanting poetry, not everyone is well versed in poetry and understands the charm, but their attitude and true feelings are clear and recognizable, which makes me touch the true nature of watching and the true color of emotion.
The master said that every time he turned over the poetry collection, he was one day closer to the day of returning home.
He promised his children to use the year-end bonus to buy more new books, let the children read all the books they had not read, and hoped that the next generation would also write poetry, although it would not become Ai Qing.
The master and disciple took over and said that the fiancée living in the mountain village was almost admitted to college, but she still couldn't understand what it meant to "ask the singer to sing a song to welcome / with the sound of grass and dew seeping in", he asked her to consult Teacher Wang at the cultural station...
I said, the wind outside has stopped, let's all go out and sit on the Gobi Desert, watching the shooting stars sliding through the night sky, like a line of poetry?
"It's like a pioneer / bathed in sunshine / facing the Gobi / shining with hope in both eyes."
When I left the Gobi Desert, I made a special trip to the "Ai Qing Poetry Museum" in Shihezi, just to say in front of this great poet that there is a family of men reading your poems and writing a different kind of "poem" by your side.
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