"Start with certainty and write toward the void."
——Zheng Zaihuan
Away from the sau
Text/Zheng Zaihuan
After hanging up the phone, I went online to check the tickets. I knew my reaction was unsatisfactory, but I couldn't give a positive answer, and when I saw the ticket, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go back, although this time there was nothing to do. What kind of psychology is this, whether it is habitually not fond of saying positive words or because there is also a grudge against grandma, it is difficult to clarify for a while. I must have complained to her, and I felt better than my grandfather. At that time, I snuggled up with a group of cousins, ate the food she cooked, slept in her bed, and covered her folded quilt. She often complained that we were too noisy, and I just felt happy to be able to enjoy the naughty rebuke with everyone, which made me feel very happy. Once, I was playing too crazy, the crotch of my pants was torn, and I hurried to give it to her and let her sew it. Scolding us for being naughty and rescuing our wretchedness has always been her best trick. But that time, she refused. "If you let me sew, will you exhaust me to death?" — Rebuke us for being naughty. I held up my crotchless pants with a hippie smile and waited for her to pick them up. "Don't you have Grandma?" Take it home and let your grandma sew it. "—The wolf who refused to save me. So I could only get even more embarrassed, and soon became sad, because I noticed that she said "take it home", and it seemed that she did not think this was my home. Later, when I got home, I told my grandmother about it, but I didn't expect my grandmother to remember it fiercely as soon as she heard it, and after that, she often mentioned this paragraph in such a vivid way that even I had to wonder whether this little thing was in my memory or whether my grandmother helped me remember it. Anyway, I agree with her assertion that people still have feelings for the children they raise. "Her grandchildren were all raised by her, you passed out of thin air, of course she didn't hurt you so much." So I also accepted the fact that I was just a grandson, and my duty was to go to relatives every New Year's Festival. The same is grandma's indoctrination, in the first year of my grandfather let me go home, I did not want to go to his house again, it was my grandmother who drove me to the road with a bamboo pole and pushed me onto the bus. At this time, she is another set of words: they are not easy, so many children, can not take care of, upset is inevitable, you as a junior can not remember their revenge. She said both sets of words with sincerity, and it was difficult for a child not to feel confused.
I looked at all the trains and still didn't decide which one to buy. At two o'clock in the afternoon, I decided to order myself a takeaway first, and when I slid over the egg soup, I suddenly remembered that this time last year, my grandmother had called me.
She never called me, I never called her, and our interaction was limited to one family visit every year during the Spring Festival. Usually in the third year of junior high school, I went to see her with a box of eggs and a carton of milk, which was a gift that my grandfather had set when he was alive. One year he looked at the cookies and drinks I had brought with him and said you should stop taking these, let the children eat them, and bring me a box of eggs if you want to bring them. He said it very rudely, and I laughed and liked his unobtrusive temper in my heart. My aunt played a round field on the side, saying how can I still ask for gifts with people, and I want to say don't take anything, people will come. He also laughed (he rarely laughed) and said, of course, I don't want him to spend money, but since I want to spend it, I will spend it in the right place, don't spend it. Since then, I have only bought eggs, and then as the market has risen, I have added milk. Last year's Spring Festival, as usual, I unloaded the Red Bull for my uncles at the door, personally carried eggs and milk to my grandmother's hut, and just stepped into the door and was wrapped in a strange breath, but I did not react for a while, so I asked the stupid question: Why is my grandmother lying on the bed? She sighed and said weakly, Alas, I am paralyzed. At the same time, I also noticed the smell of defecation in the bedpan in front of the bed and in the air. I could only minimize the level of surprise and ask her when it was. It's been half a year. She said lightly. It dawned on me why I had received such a strange phone call last summer. It must have been when she had just fallen ill, and since she had never answered her phone, I was out of town and asked her if she was okay. It's okay, I just miss you. She said. If it was Grandma, I would definitely say without hesitation that I miss you too, but I just smiled. Oh haha. Now I can accurately reproduce this laughter, which is a sound that I use very often, mainly to alleviate embarrassment. She asked me about my life and work, and I said it was fine. I asked about her health and the weather, and she said it was fine. After a short silence, she asked me if I was married, and then I cried without warning, what if you don't get married like this? I'm going to miss you now. Like the sudden confession of an old classmate who is not very familiar, it is confusing and embarrassing. I could only persuade her not to cry, to tell her not to think so much, and to tell her that I was doing well. Her cries never stopped, and I quickly became impatient, pushing that something had happened and hanging up the phone. The thought of the phone she was making while she was lying in bed made me feel guilty for the first time. After everyone had finished, she quietly told me that grandpa had left a lot of money for her. I can't spend this money. She said with regret. Of course, she didn't say she was going to give it to me, or tell me to give it to anyone. She just revealed her true feelings, regretting that after finally being financially free, she lost the ability to spend money. This is what I admire most about her (all these years, I have painstakingly preached this to my grandmother, never to any effect, she would rather die than spend money on herself), she has given birth to so many children, she grew up in such a traditional environment, but she has never let everyone advocate the spirit of dedication to swallow herself up, she always adheres to the principle of taking care of others first - speaking of which, I seem to understand a little bit why she does not sew my pants, maybe this is her good intentions? Let me learn to take care of myself from a young age – of course, saying that is tantamount to a joke, oh haha, if you see it here and don't laugh, it's because you don't know how deceptive family affection is to say (especially to write). But jokes can also be the truth, and it's the most difficult kind of truth to come by, so I thought that jokes will always be told, and when they are said, the truth will flash by, and then only the joke will be left. The criterion for respecting the truth is that you must never speculate, and once you start speculating, the best result is to come up with a joke, which contains a flash of truth, followed by endless jokes, and the worse result is nothing, falling into the infinite abyss of speculation. So I can't say if she loves me or not, we're not there, I can only be sure that she doesn't have a bad eye for me, and will treat me to the best of her ability. For example, when I was a child, I didn't eat fat meat, and every time I went, she would prepare lean meat and only make it for me to eat. It was already a good relationship, but unfortunately I didn't understand it at the time. When I was a little older, I heard my grandfather say that in the first few years of my mother's death, she didn't even want to see me, because she would be sad to see me. But she still endured the sadness to see me, and prepared me with lean meat. With this in mind, it is not an exaggeration to say that she is a modern woman.
I bought a ticket at nine o'clock the next day and sent a screenshot to Haibo. He was already on his way.
Zheng Zaihuan
Born in Zhumadian, Henan In 1990, he now lives in Beijing. He is the author of "Zhumadian Sad Story Collection", "Reunion Is Always Before Separation", "Killing the Enemy All Night" and other short story collections.
Zheng Zaihuan's self-questioning and self-answering
When it comes to "parting", how do you feel?
In my sixteen-year-old QQ space, there is such a sentence as "light separation, light life and death, all because love is too shallow... A thin piece of paper is angry and relieved to spend, just because it is money..." Is this a reflection on separation? Definitely not. At that time, I wanted to leave the familiar people and environment to go on a rampage, and the reason why I wrote such a sentence was probably just that I thought these two words were cool.
Correspondingly, at the age of twenty-four, he also wrote a poem, which is too long to be put here- it is a parting poem, written after sending off his girlfriend, and the last few sentences are like this :now /we are separated again/and separated/only temporarily/forever separated/I prefer to call it /separation". After eight years, it is an update to the understanding of "separation", but I dare not easily use "love" to attribute it.
What about dying goodbye?
The first time is actually not sad, it is dazed. For a moment, it seemed to be close to the void of death, the chaos, just for a moment, and then there was dazedness, dazedness about the void and chaos. The word "death" is not taboo for young people and often hangs on their lips... No emotion of the word can be felt anymore. It was only when the inherent bondage was cut apart by the word that there was a lack of recognition of it.
After the dazedness, try to look back, with the eyes of the living, only the life of the dead can be recalled. Therefore, this word is still difficult to get squarely faced, which can't help but remind people of the taboo of the elderly, for death, they not only do not say it themselves, but also do not allow others to say it. Young people are always dismissive, thinking that it is nothing more than a superstition of self-deception, and now it seems that this may be a strategy after seeing more deaths.
What about this novel?
As I said before, don't make me dazed by death. Dazed people have no right to speak, and after about ten days, this confusion is still lingering, so try to write it. Start with certainty and write toward the void.
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Long parting
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