Novel | Annam Bamboo: The Man Under the Locust Tree

Man under the locust tree

Text/Annan Bamboo

Whoever promises to run aground for years, only wish a different as the first sight

- Caption

The gentle spring breeze brushed the earth slightly, and the old man sat under the locust tree, looking into the distance in a daze, and people said that he was thinking about the girl.

When the old man was young, he met a girl, when he was young and young, and many literate people went down to the countryside to make a little contribution to the development and construction of the countryside. The girl is not very pretty, but she looks watery, and there are two shallow dimples when she laughs, which makes people feel warm from the bottom of their hearts. It was at that time that the old man met her, when he was still a young man in the village, responsible for leading these young people to work, teaching the children to read, learn, and go to the mountains and go to the countryside.

The old man turned around like a top every day, and the village secretary always patted his shoulder appreciatively and said, "You have made a great contribution to our village!" The old man also just smiled and didn't speak. One day it was time to go up the mountain to pick tea leaves, a group of people carrying baskets to the mountain, the old man walked in front to lead the team. After a morning of labor, everyone put away their tools and went downhill. Suddenly, a deafening thunderclap broke the rare silence in the sky, and dark clouds gathered overhead, like a dark bottomless pit, about to swallow everything up. A group of people began to panic, carrying baskets on their backs, frightened by this position. One girl whimpered and cried, "I still have to go back to the city to find my parents, I don't want to die here." The girl's cries exacerbated the panic, and the crowd mingled and began to run down the hill in a panic.

The old man was anxiously comparing the movements, constantly waving his hands, signaling people not to panic. But at a critical moment in his life, no one listened to him, no one looked at his waving hand, people thought about running for their lives quickly, their great lives could not be buried in such a ghost place, they still had to go back to the city, the city that had everything. "Boom" A more powerful thunderclap sounded, as if to blow the sky apart, the rocks on the top of the mountain began to roll down rapidly, mixed with the debris of mud and stones continued to rush down, the old man was anxious, "There is a mudslide in such weather, I am afraid that there will be an accident." The girl suddenly ran to his side, took his hand and ran up, shouting loudly as she ran, "Don't panic, don't panic, don't run down, run down is more likely to be injured, run up, fast, fast." Everyone was half-convinced and didn't know where to go," Let's listen to this girl, run up, and if you don't run anymore, you will be gone." Someone in the crowd said that everyone began to change direction and run upwards, the rapid mudslides continued to roll down, and people desperately went backwards. The girl took the old man's hand and ran forward vigorously, running to a small cave nearby, and everyone else ran in. The girl let go of the old man, ran to the mouth of the cave and waved to organize everyone to go into the cave, with a relatively closed space, people's hearts eased up a little, the girl said to everyone: "It's okay, don't worry, this mudslide is temporary, it will pass soon, we will definitely be able to go down the mountain safely." These few words reassured people a lot, and began to find rocks in the cave to sit down and rest, "Girl, you are a cultural person, we believe in you." A thick old farmer said, and the girl smiled: "Well, I also believe that we can go out safely." The girl smiled clean and pure, there was a beautiful light in her eyes, she was wearing only a thin shirt, already soaked, and her slender body was a little distressing. The old man walked over to him, took off his coat, put it on her, the girl turned back and smiled sweetly at her, "Thank you" The old man stretched out his middle finger and shook it, and the girl's eyes flashed, probing and asking: "You can't talk, right!" The old man was stunned for a moment and nodded. Oh, no wonder you keep comparing! The girl saw that the old man was a little silent, and hurriedly said, "It's okay, I'll say what you want to say later, and you draw me to say." The old man smiled, and his handsome face was stained with a little bit of the shyness of the big boy, and he nodded to the girl, which was such a seemingly illusory promise, and the old man spent his life waiting.

After a few hours, the weather began to slowly turn clear. A lot of mud and dead leaves are piled up on the road, the old man walked out of the cave and led the people to clean up the road, and the stooped old man looked particularly serious, "If it weren't for the fact that he couldn't speak, he would be a very attractive person!" The girl looked at his back and thought about it, and joined their team. After that day, everyone in the village knew that there was a wise girl who saved everyone's lives, and everyone said that the girl was smart and clever, and whoever married her in the future must be blessed. The mudslide was like a mysterious line connecting two people who had no connection before, and something was slowly changing.

Girls like to read, Sanmao's "The Story of the Sahara", Zhang Ailing's "Love in the City", Lao She's "Camel Xiangzi", she always holds a book and reads it to the old man seriously. He also explained a sentence to him in a serious way, analyzing each chapter. When she encounters a place she particularly likes, she will be particularly excited to show the old man, "You see, you see, I like this section the most." "The contract between life and death, said zi cheng. Holding the hand of the son, growing old with the son. It is really the saddest poem, death and life and parting, are big things, not at our disposal, compared to external forces, how small we are, how small, but we want to say, 'I will always be with you, and I will not be separated for a lifetime.' It was as if we had done the Lord. The girl suddenly lowered, and her eyes dimmed suddenly, "Yes, we always think that many things can be done at will, but life is so simple." The old man saw her low look, picked up a pen and wrote a few words on the paper, "Laugh at life." Then he pushed the paper in front of the girl, pointed with his finger, and motioned for her to look. The girl looked up and said with a little appreciation, "You learn quite fast, such a life attitude is very positive, very good, and it is not worth my painstaking efforts to teach you!" The girl quipped that he smiled, and his mood suddenly improved, and the old man saw her happy look and smiled softly, and there was an indescribable tacit understanding in the air.

The girl would often boil soup for him, because she heard that drinking more soup could help her throat recover, and the girl thought that one day the old man's throat might really get better, and he would be able to speak like a normal person. The old man often takes these young people to pick tea leaves, plant corn, hoe grass in the field, teach them a lot of agricultural knowledge and skills, when will the grain be planted and when will it be harvested? The hoe field should be divided into several ditches, and what kind of corn harvest is the best. The girl also learned very seriously in a group of people, "A girl in the city, not dirty nor afraid of tired, a job is an afternoon, really a good girl!" "People in the village praised her like this," These days, there are not many such good girls," someone jokingly said to the old man, "You must hurry up, don't be robbed by others when the time comes!" The old man smiled modestly, looked at the girl's back, and seemed to be thinking about something.

Before everything could be spoken, before something was finished, the village chief said they were leaving, that the time for going to the countryside was over, and that they were going back to town. A group of people at the entrance of the village laughed happily and embraced each other excitedly, "I want to go back, I want to go back, I finally want to go back." "Yeah, yeah, I'll miss the taste of the city and never leave it again." The old man and a group of villagers stood at the entrance of the village to send them, and the old man's face could not see the joy and anger, but it was as calm as ever. The girl paced to him, looked up and showed a familiar smile, "I went for a while and came back, the book I gave you has not yet finished, there are many chapters you have not yet learned, when I am not there, you also have to work hard to read the book, do not understand the drawing, wait for me to come back to explain to you?" The old man reached out and brushed a strand of her messy hair behind her ear and nodded. The girl smiled and said, "Well, when I come back, I must wait for me to come back." The old man smiled slightly, afraid that she would not be at ease, and nodded his head again. Gone, gone, it's time for us to go. "Okay, here it comes." The girl waved vigorously to the old man, turned to keep up with the crowd, and the group slowly walked away, walked away, and gradually became a tiny point, gradually disappearing into the old man's vision.

The old man returned home, there was still the "Love of the Fallen City" on the table, there was a mark on the book made by the girl, Juanxiu's font was very good,The old man picked up the book and brushed through the lines of text, "Maybe the city is the place that really belongs to you, where there are books you like and pens that you have used." ”

The girl never came back, some people said that she must have been married in the city, maybe she had children; some people said that only the poor old man was obsessed, and had been waiting for her; some people said that in fact, the old man was very good, handsome, and did things well, but unfortunately he couldn't speak. They all remembered that there was once a group of young intellectuals who spent some time in the village, and there was a clever and clever girl who was very popular, but no one remembered the original vow.

It was another spring, and the gentle spring breeze gently blew across the earth, and the old man sat under the locust tree, looking into the distance in a daze, as if waiting for something.

The promise seemed to ring in my ears again, "Wait for me to come back," and a powerful voice floated in the distance, echoing in the air for a long time, "Good." ”

【About the Author】Annan Zhu, Anshunren of Guizhou, a member of the Communist Party of China, a national outstanding volunteer, a contracted writer of the 7th Changhe Poetry Journal, has won the second prize in the 15th National College Students Literary Works Competition, the third prize in the 15th New Olympiad Composition Competition, the first prize in the 16th National University Students Literary Works Competition, and the third prize in the 16th New Olympiad Composition Competition. His works are scattered in "Mountain Pomegranate" and "Learning to Strengthen the Country". "We have been growing all our lives, and we may all have light in our eyes and live like we like."