At the end of February 2007, a small village called Niucheping in Liuzhou City, Guangxi Province, had just ended the lively Spring Festival, and people saw a skinny man, with a weak woman and a young child, limping back to the village.
"Isn't this Ah Kun?" The villagers with sharp eyes found that this emaciated man with a dull face was Ah Kun in the village.
Graph source network
In the impression of the villagers, Ah Kun's family conditions are not good, so he went out to work when he was more than ten years old, and he has not returned for more than ten years.
Some people in the village said that Ah Kun had become a big boss and lived the life of a rich man.
Some people also say that Ah Kun is working as a horse boy for the big boss, very flamboyant...
Regarding this man who has not returned to the village for more than ten years, there are various rumors in the village, but they all say that he mixed well.
However, when Ah Kun really appeared in front of people's eyes again, everyone found that he was not living very well.
Figure | Aaron playing with Old Black
Now he drags the family with his wife and son, and he looks very depressed, and no one knows what he has experienced.
Ah Kun is anonymous in the village, living in seclusion, and seems to have some unseemly secrets.
Both he and his wife looked seriously ill, and it was a terrible disease.
Sudden change
Within a year, the accident did happen.
In early 2008, Ah Kun's wife, who had been lying in bed, died.
The source network | rural funerals
For the small village, this is undoubtedly a big news, a young woman, what kind of disease will she die?
Some people say that Ah Kun's family has physical problems and often sees him and his wife uncomfortable, but the child Aaron is slightly better and does not have the symptoms of his parents.
Everyone asked Ah Kun what kind of illness his wife had, and he refused to say it, and over time everyone stopped asking.
After all, ah kun in front of him was already sallow and dying.
Sure enough, in the second year, Ah Kun also died, leaving only the lonely child Aaron.
Pictured| Aaron
The villagers jointly performed An Kun's funeral ceremony, and everyone found that when Ah Kun died, like his wife, he was skinny and boneless, and he was tortured by disease.
What kind of illness did these two people get?
For a while, rumors spread in the village, and I don't know which experienced villager said, "They are suffering from that 'unclean' AIDS." ”
As soon as these words came out, people soon began to panic, although everyone had no culture, but they all knew that this was an incurable terminal disease.
The villagers have turned their eyes to Aaron, who is only 6 years old, will he have AIDS like his parents?
No one knows, but just in case, everyone tries to avoid contact with Aaron, and does not allow their children to play with Aaron.
Although everyone thinks that he is very pitiful as a child, because his parents died because of AIDS, he is a small doll, and he may die at any time.
Everyone felt that Aaron would not live long.
Walking throughout the village, Aaron noticed that everything had changed.
The villagers, who used to see themselves greeting each other kindly, now see themselves hiding away, and the look in their eyes is contempt and fear.
The little friends who used to play with themselves every day now run when they see themselves, or simply shout: "Don't come here!" ”
Even if there are occasionally one or two bold friends who are willing to play with themselves, their parents will appear every time and take them home by the ear.
"How many times have you been told, don't play with Aaron!" Don't understand, right? ”
Even her own grandmother began to alienate herself, and she did not live with Aaron, nor did she let Aaron live with her.
Aaron lived alone, and his grandmother would only occasionally come to bring him something to eat.
Pictured| Aaron and Grandma
A man huddled in that little room, lying on the bed where his parents had died, Aaron clutched his knees and buried his head in his legs.
The six-year-old didn't know why everyone had to stay away from him, he knew he had done nothing wrong.
Tragic childhood
After all, Aaron is just a six-year-old child, who can't cook, can't wash clothes, can't work, and can only eat and drink.
If this continues, even if he starves to death in his home one day, no one will find out.
When the villagers saw such a situation, they must immediately think of a way, and it is best to find someone outside the village to adopt Aaron and let him leave the village.
So, the staff of the village committee published a message in the newspaper, hoping that someone with good intentions would adopt Aaron and treat Aaron as their son.
After all, the child is not wrong, his parents do not know why they have AIDS, but it is not the child's fault.
With the help of the villagers, two young people from the city finally came to the village, and the purpose of their trip was to adopt Aaron.
They took Aaron away, saying they wanted to give him a new life.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long for them to send Aaron back untouched.
Figure | HIV-positive report
The two said that they took Aaron to the hospital for a test, his HIV antibodies were positive, and the village cadre scratched his head and said that he did not understand, and the two explained:
"That is, AIDS."
At this moment, word spread throughout the village. Originally, everyone was just speculating about Aaron's parents' illness, and it was only a matter of heart to say whether Aaron himself had inherited the disease of his parents.
But now, all the rumors have been confirmed.
The 6-year-old child is really an HIV carrier.
The news soon spread throughout the village, making the villagers more reclusive of Aaron, and when people saw him, it was as if they had seen the plague god, and they quickly hid away.
Although the spread of AIDS is only blood-borne, sexually transmitted and mother-to-child transmission is three routes.
That is to say, in daily life, there is no risk of being infected by normal contact with AIDS people, even if it is shaking hands, hugging, eating together and other behaviors.
But people don't understand, thinking that as long as they come into contact with Aaron, they will suffer the same disease as him, and eventually get the same tragic end as his parents.
Therefore, Aaron became the most unpopular person in the village, and everyone who saw him had to retreat.
Naturally, a young child does not understand this, and he does not even understand what death is.
Pictured | Aaron reading a book
The day his father, Ah Kun, left, he was lying on the low wall in the courtyard, motionless.
Their neighbors told him to eat that day, but Aaron suddenly said that his father was not moving.
The neighbor ran over and looked at it and found that Ah Kun was dead.
But Aaron didn't know what death was, and he didn't cry, he thought that death was not moving.
So the gossip in the village didn't hurt him, because he couldn't understand what the adults were talking about meant.
Pictured| Aaron and the other children
The first problem he had to face was how to survive.
Hard to live
"As a word, 'alive' is full of power in our Chinese language, and its power does not come from shouting or attacking, but from enduring, to endure the responsibility that life has entrusted us, to endure the happiness and suffering, boredom and mediocrity that reality gives us."
Six-year-old Aaron, how should he live?
Sometimes, grandma, who lives nearby, would come over and take care of Aaron, but she never spent the night here and never intended to take Aaron away.
She was in her 80s, short, faltering, and spoke a dialect that only local old people could understand.
Aaron's grandmother did not want to live with Aaron because she was also afraid of getting sick, because she also felt that AIDS could easily take people's lives, and she was also afraid of death.
Although many people say that after all, she is Aaron's only relative, will it be a little too cruel to do so?
But the relationship between the two grandchildren is so indifferent, they usually rarely speak, and they rarely get close.
Even with his grandmother's occasional care, it was not enough for Aaron, and if he wanted to survive, he had to learn to survive on his own.
Therefore, the little one has already shouldered the burden of life, and when other children have just entered the first grade and are busy going to school to learn knowledge, Aaron learns how to wash and cook at home.
Pictured| Aaron's cooking
Slowly, he also learned to chop wood, learned to grow vegetables, and it was difficult for a small child to learn to work like an adult.
Perhaps out of an instinct to survive, Aaron did it, and there was too much on his shoulders on his small body.
In order to survive, Aaron had to enjoy the years of his childhood, constantly polishing himself and learning a lot of things that he had never tried before.
Once upon a time, although the family was poor, Ah Kun never treated him badly.
He will also have toys that other children have; he will also eat what other children can eat.
Pictured| toy at Aaron's house
The illness took away his parents, leaving him alone.
Aaron, who has nothing, can only live in this small village if he is strong.
The place where Aaron lived was small, just a few square meters of small nest, not the old home at that time.
Because the old house where he and his father once lived had long since become a dangerous house, the village cadres let him move out and found another place for him to live.
The old house had long been in tatters, as broken as his family.
Pictured| Aaron chopping wood
Aaron never went in again, but sometimes he would come to the door of the old house and stare inside.
Sometimes, he would talk to himself and talk to the house as if mom and dad were still inside.
Back in his nest, Aaron began expertly stacking firewood and preparing to cook today's dinner.
His little nest was actually very tattered.
There is no furniture, and the so-called stove is just a few green bricks stacked together.
Aaron's bed was a few wooden planks, and he put them together, barely able to sleep.
Pictured| Aaron cooking on a fire
Everything else in the house is picked up everywhere and not wanted by other people's homes.
Surviving is not an easy task for Aaron, after all, he is still just a child.
His hands were already scarred, scars of any kind, in any position.
Some, when cooking on the fire, I accidentally got burned by the fire.
Some of them were accidentally scratched by plants while working in the fields.
Picture | Aaron's hand wound
Aaron didn't have the heart to deal with these wounds, but he had been taught that salt water could kill bacteria.
So he would sometimes pour salt into the water and wash his wounds.
A child facing such a life alone, will he be lonely?
A way of pastime
None of Murakami's children play with Aaron, and Aaron's best friend is "Old Black", a black dog.
He was very loyal, and old Black had been with Aaron since he was a child.
Pictured| Aaron and Old Black
When everyone hated Aaron, Old Black was always by his side.
Although it can't speak, it can express its feelings through companionship.
Sometimes, Aaron would also talk to Old Black, and although he couldn't understand it, he would always lie silently next to Aaron, as a quiet listener.
In addition to playing with the old black, Aaron usually likes to watch TV.
After his father's death, the second uncle's family once bought Aaron a television set, but then took it.
Picture | Aaron's home
Because Aaron was too young to have self-control, he would watch TV all night and not sleep all night.
Within a few days, the TV was broken by him, and it was the same after it was repaired.
Therefore, in order to ensure Aaron's rest, they had to take away the TV set.
Aaron's biggest hobby is learning from the TV set - learning martial arts.
He was deeply influenced by the martial arts films that were broadcast on television, and especially liked to practice martial arts in front of the open space in front of his home.
With his memory, he reproduced the moves and styles in the TV series, although not so standard, but it was his biggest hobby.
Pictured| Aaron who learns martial arts
However, it is not the death of his parents that brings the greatest harm to Aaron, nor the pain of life, but the school.
He was supposed to be in the first grade, but he was not welcome in the village school.
Although they don't know, they will try to excuse it, such as: the school has already started, and the textbooks for this semester have been distributed.
Or maybe the class was full and there was no place for him.
In short, the school broke Aaron's heart, and he knew that no school would accept him just because he was an HIV carrier.
After Aaron's affair was reported, more and more people paid attention to him, people understood the embarrassment of his life, and felt sorry for the unfair experience of this child.
Someone donated daily necessities to Aaron, and he accepted them and expressed his gratitude.
Someone donated money to Aaron, and he never took it because he had no place to use it.
It seems that life is nothing to look forward to for Aaron.
But when Aaron was eight years old, he was so hungry for knowledge that he commissioned well-wishers to help him carry a few books.
He hadn't been to school, and he didn't know what the words in the book meant, but he could read the pictures on them.
The world in the book is much better than the cramped and narrow reality.
Slowly, Aaron learned pinyin and also learned to read, although the learning speed was not fast.
His life was slowly getting better, and his eyes were slowly shining.
Being able to survive is already a gift for Aaron, not to mention that he is doing well now.
However, it has been twelve years since Aaron's last report.
As the years passed, some said Aaron was sent to the government to alleviate his condition with medication.
Pictured| Aaron writing
Some say he was adopted and had a good life.
Some people say that he did not survive after all, and has left this world...
But no matter what, I hope that Aaron can be happy, can be happy, and can get rid of the disease.
-Ends-
Text/Han Ling
Resources
Sanlian Life Weekly: "6-year-old AIDS orphans face survival dilemmas: parents' grievances cause villagers to stay away"