The life of a kite
Text/Liang Xiaosheng
Many kinds of beauty are born at the cost of the destruction of many other kinds of beauty, and in this process and after that, there will be many boring and uninteresting things...
It's a bright spring day. The sun is gentle. The wind is gentle. Birds sang one after another, and a clump of young leaves talked happily in the backyard of a family. They are all feeling the joy of a vigorous growth of life, and they are all anticipating and envisioning their future. Some want to do a row. Some want to make masts, some want to make furniture, some want to make crafts... Another said, "I don't want to be made into anything else!" I just want to be myself forever and ever, a bamboo tree forever and ever! May the bamboo shoots grow on my roots, and let me grow from one to ten, and hundred, and grow into a bamboo forest..."
As soon as its voice dropped, a man came with a machete. He is a man who specializes in kites and sells kites. He was going to make another kite this day.
He looked up and down at the young bamboo bush. Under his scrutinizing gaze, they were all suddenly nervous and trembling.
At this moment, for the young bamboo, the thin, dark and unassuming man was the God who decided their fate. He made them feel incomparably intimidated.
His eyes finally focused only on the bamboo that "didn't want to be made into anything else." He slowly raised his machete... Without waiting for the bamboo to make a plea, he had cut it down with a knife - in a cracking sound like a groan, its branches seemed to want to hold on to the branches of the other bamboo, but they all held their breath and tried to shrink their branches as much as possible to avoid being implicated by it... It fell helplessly...
Dragged away...
The man who made the kite chopped it into several segments and chose the most satisfactory one. Then the section was split open and cut into countless grates.
He skillfully tied the skeleton of a kite with only a few grates. The rest of the grates were put in the cabinet. And the remaining paragraphs were of little use to him. Carried out by his woman, he threw it in the yard, just waiting for it to dry and burn firewood.
The beautiful, butterfly-shaped kite was quickly ready. It is made of well-ridden colored silk.
When the kite people admired it, the kite triumphantly imagined - ah, I was born! How beautiful and light I am! I want to fly high!
Later, the kite was bought by a father for his six- or seven-year-old son.
On another bright day, the father took his son and flew the kite. It flew higher and higher, higher and higher, to a height that a real butterfly could not reach at all. They also folded several small flower baskets with colored paper, one after another on the kite line, so that the wind could send to the kite... Many pedestrians can't help but stop and look up at the beautiful kite.
The kite also overlooks the ground from above.
It's even more triumphant.
It shouted to the other kite: "Look, how many people are attracted to my beauty and the height I have reached!" I'm flying higher than you!"
"I'm flying higher than you!" Those people were attracted to my beauty and the heights I reached!"
The other kite stood up unconvinced.
"I fly high!"
"I'm beautiful!"
"I'm more beautiful than you!" I'm like a butterfly, and you're like something! But like a normal single-colored bird!......."
So they quarreled in the air.
So they all ignored the tightness of the kite line, each desperately ascending to a higher place, all bent on exceeding each other's height... Unfortunately, the butterfly-shaped kite, first broke the line that controlled its height and steered its direction, and fell from the air upside down... A sudden strong wind blew it away...
The next day, a woman stood in front of her window, staring thoughtfully at it - it was wrapped around a wire... A few sparrows—the most common little things in the city, the most common coat color and the singlest color," fell on the wires. They were very curious about the beautiful, butterfly-shaped kite and chattered about it. Soon began to peck at it, and irreverently pulled on it... The first rain started...
Then the wind started blowing dusty and annoying...
The kite, wrapped around the wires, was wet and dry, dry and wet. It was dusty and dirty... Initially it only attracted the attention of some people. Once they find it, they can't help but stop and look at it for a while, and they will say a word or two of regret, or have some regretful thoughts in their hearts.
The kite was not only dirty, it was broken. Its skeleton, woven from bamboo grates, was exposed, like a fish's spine piercing out from under the skin of a rotten fish.
Once they found it, people quickly bowed their heads. It is easy to make people have bad associations.
Only the sparrows still want to fall close to it, still like to peck at it. Of course, more recklessly pull on it. It was as if the more wretched it became, the happier it became.
And the woman, who has been watching the process of changing from beauty to ugliness in the window every day.
She was a female essayist. The kite triggered some kind of vince in her. So soon she wrote a sentimental sigh essay and published it in the newspaper. As a result, this essay was reprinted everywhere for a while, and was included in the "Prose Collection" and won awards soon after.
The female essayist bought a set of fashions with a three-thousand-dollar bonus.
Her friends and relatives said that she looked particularly dignified and dignified in that set of fashions, in short, particularly extraordinary. She wears it at cultural events and social occasions, and even when walking on the road, it often attracts the eye of surprise. She needs this too. This can also make her woman's heart greatly satisfied. She was secretly grateful to the kite that was entangled in wires... No, more really and accurately, it was secretly grateful for "capturing" the kite's wires... There was a photographer who read the essay of the female essayist from the newspaper, and she also knew from the newspaper that her essay had won an award.
So one day, carrying a camera and carrying a tripod to the street where she lived, following the clues provided by her essay. Male photographers are influenced by the process of turning a kite from beauty to ugliness described by female essayists in sentimental words to take an artistic photograph of the unfortunate kite. His first thoughts did not have any utilitarian purpose, but he was driven by the sentimental and sad mood that middle-aged people often have, and wanted to express the melancholy feelings of hanging on something in the form of photography.
He chose the angle, held the tripod, patiently waited for the change of light, and shot a roll before leaving.
He rinsed the film out and was pleasantly surprised to find that one of the pictures was particularly well photographed. He performed several more artistic treatments in the darkroom, making that one a very unique art photography.
Later, he held a solo photography exhibition, and that one, of course, was also magnified and suspended. It is titled "The Dying Time of a Kite".
He was a well-known photographer. There are many people who visit. Many people meditate in front of "The Dying Of a Kite", or pretend to meditate.
In fact, it is not a good photographic work, but it makes people feel sad and melancholy after watching it.
But the problem of contemporary people is that the material standard of living is raised, the mood is more melancholy; the richer the content of spiritual life, the more empty the spirit is; the less there are many things worthy of sentimentality, the more unprecedented sentimental. It's a fashion, a fashion, a disease, a disease that is contagious and has no cure. People feel as if they are dying, including young men and women.
The agent who runs the photography exhibition for the photographer predicts the commercial value of this artistic photography from the people's looks. He had underestimated it at first. He asked his men to secretly steal the price tag for him, planning to add another zero, or two more zeros... Suddenly, a child's cry sounded: "This is my kite!" I've looked for it everywhere! I could recognize that this was my kite!"
The child had been very sad to have lost the kite. There seemed to be a feeling between him and it.
He begged his father to buy the photograph for him...
When the father could not bear to refuse the son, he led the son to find the agent.
The broker held out a finger.
"A thousand?"
The agent shook his head and showed the father the price tag—a thousand had been added to a zero.
The child is very sensible. Knowing that this was completely beyond his father's financial strength, he burst into tears and followed his father step by step... The photograph was immediately bought by a "big money". "Big money" doesn't like it very much. What he likes is the good feeling of buying anything in public when others can't afford it.
The photograph was reported by a "large sum" who had bought it for ten thousand dollars, and the news reported that it was accompanied by the photographic work.
When the female essayist read the newspaper that day, she immediately called her lawyer - pointing out that this was a blatant infringement, even a blatant plagiarism. Because the idea of the photographic work clearly comes from her essay that not only won awards but also was included in the "Prose Series"... So a "copyright" lawsuit was reported again.
The lonely press was overjoyed, and "fried" to a "turning the world upside down" was done.
When my father saw the relevant newspaper reports, he thought that if he said "copyright", "original copyright" belongs to me!
He sued both female essayists and male photographers, adding to the displeasure of the press. Radio and television stations are not far behind, and conduct interviews separately. Because of the uniqueness of the case, the legal profession was finally seduced and consciously or unconsciously involved in the big discussion. The media contributed to the discussion and developed it into a debate. So the economically minded man wasted no time in organizing a debate contest for law students on this matter; so the students were at odds with each other on television; some people made a big profit from advertising; thus aroused the criticism of this phenomenon by an essayist; thus aroused the fierce "discussion" of another essayist; so some people supported the former, some people supported the latter, and set off an essay war, which filled the war in various newspapers and smoke billowed in the war. As a result, some sociologists are worried, and another part of sociologists think that all this is actually very normal, and there is no need to worry about the world... One day in the spring of the following year, in the backyard of the family, the bush of young bamboo, which had grown a few knots taller, was talking happily again:
"Remember our brother who didn't want to be made into anything else?" Poor fellow, it turned out to be a corpse!"
"Hi, you don't mention it, we forgot about it earlier! I don't sympathize with it at all, who called it so arrogant?"
The man who had finished using the bamboo grate came with a machete again.
The bamboos were suddenly all frightened and silent, and even the smallest leaf did not dare to shake... Another beautiful kite will be born.
Another bamboo fell apart.
Image source: Network