School Media Literature | Rain (Novel)

Author: Zhang Shiran, a student at Peking University (aged 21)

Courtesy of Visual China

On June 23, 2020, I made three full turns in the parking lot in front of my home, and finally waited for a parking space in the corner. The car was newly bought in 2019, when I had just worked in the company for 3 years, the performance was mediocre, and I almost spent all my savings for a car. I pushed gears to P, unfastened my seat belt, and relaxedly leaned back in my chair. The light of the phone notification didn't jump, and hopefully nothing happened tonight. Usually, I would go home between 10 minutes and half an hour after the boss left work and always get a message from the boss late at night. WeChat messages jump green light, DingTalk jump blue light.

Suddenly it started to rain. There was a thunder in the sky when parking, but I remember there was no lightning. There were umbrellas in the trunk, but the rain was already falling so heavily that it couldn't get out at all. That is, for a few seconds, if I had just stepped on the throttle and brakes a little deeper, or if the car in this parking space had left earlier, maybe by now I have arrived home, and I don't have to hide in the car to suffer from this difficult ghost weather.

very bored. Raining or not will not solve this problem. In fact, going home is the same, the same is to throw the tired body somewhere, one is in a small car, the other is a larger room. The bigger house is not much bigger, about 30 square meters. House prices in small cities are not particularly expensive, plus I have no plans to get married, so a house of 30 flats for one person is perfectly enough. When I first came here to work, I asked my parents to borrow some money to buy it. Sometimes when I get home, I'll lie on the couch for 45 minutes and swipe up on various apps. Lying down for 45 minutes, because I took off my clothes, after 45 minutes, I would feel terrible cold no matter what, which prompted me to go to the bathroom with my slippers to warm up. In short, now the rain is getting heavier and heavier, and I can't go back for a while and a half.

Today is Tuesday, the new project at hand has just started, and everything is going well. The department recently recruited several interns, and one after another came. One of them came with colorful hair, and the other also pulled a pair of slippers, walked outside the eight, shook and swung, and would put his hand on your shoulder and call you brother.

When I used to go to college, I went to the bar with my friends to drink, and when I came out at night, the cold wind was hot on my face, the bitter alcohol in my mouth was irritating, and the hormones were mixed with steaming anxiety, at least I felt like a living person. Now this feeling is not at all negotiable. Flat and straightforward work and life, can not make a marginal daydream. I didn't even play games, I went home and lay down after work, and if I didn't take off my clothes, I probably fell asleep directly on the couch and slept until midnight with a towel blanket from bed.

The rain was a little lighter than it had just been, and I was going to get out of the car, go to the trunk to get my umbrella, and go home.

When I heard the rain again, my dad called. He usually never calls, even if there is something, just a text message, and I often forget to reply. But he called today.

"Po, you've been doing okay in H City lately, haven't you?"

"It was ok."

"Is it raining over there?"

"It's down."

"Well, it's raining here too, so keep an eye on yourself."

"Okay."

"Bao, Dad doesn't want to bother you, but can you please call your mother?" It's not that Dad said, first, you haven't called your mother for a long time, and second, your mother drove to the countryside to eat and drink at night, and she hasn't replied to a message until now, and I can't get through to her phone. ”

My heart tightened. "Oh Dad, where can Mom go?" I'll give her a call and you'll be relieved. ”

"Good, good."

I called my mother, and there came a middle-aged female voice: The phone you made has not been answered for the time being, please dial it later. The phone did not turn off, there was also service. Where can she go? I dialed my mom again, still in that voice.

I went into the bathroom. The bathroom light has been broken for a long time, but I have not changed the light bulb. The curtains that had been used for more than three years were moldy, and the clumps of black mold looked like blooming black roses on the white background. Where will Mom go? At this time, the problem was also like a black colony, growing on the white curtain.

I'm going to take a shower first. The water from the hot water tap had spilled out of the white steam in attracting me. Sometimes the bathtub is like a snake that squeaks out its letter to me. Today is especially true. Where will Mom go? I took off my shirt and pants. In the mirror I, the bitter melon's face and the stacked beer belly. Then I took off my shorts too and threw them in the washing machine.

The rain outside the window was still falling, as if it had fallen heavier than it had just been. Where will Mom go on a rainy day? In fact, I have thought of all kinds of possibilities and am ready to accept them. I knew that where my mother went was a river and a narrow road lined with fir trees on both sides, and a road that had been built for eight years. Mom's car is also the same old Ford that she and Dad have shared for fifteen years. When I came home for the New Year, the car was still good to drive, but sometimes I had to break down halfway, and sometimes I couldn't light a fire. Mom told Dad to change cars, and I have the impression that there are several times, and Dad has been reluctant to change.

But where will Mom go? On a rainy night, she might have flipped her car into a ditch or collided with a truck rushing to deliver a delivery at a highway intersection. The ford's headlights were still on, the wipers were on, and I imagined the torrential rain wetting her body and hair, rain everywhere, heavy rain.

The water was finally hot enough. I put the shower over my shoulder and the burning hot water rolled down my shoulder. The rain outside the window was heavy, and a bolt of lightning flashed through it, illuminating the bathroom through the moldy white curtains. Where will Mom go? She just disappeared in the rain tonight. The sky never lights up, the rain never stops, the sun never comes out, and the night never ends.

It was like a dream. Is this a dream? I may be too tired to distinguish between dreams and reality. Isn't life a dream? What exactly is death? Am I walking in a straight line that doesn't look back? Ahead is a bottomless abyss. It's like this water goes all the way down, it goes through my body, it goes through the drain of the bathtub, it goes through the pipes of the layers of residents, it flows out of the house, it flows underground, it flows to some unknown sewage treatment plant. The following is always an abyss for me, and the night outside the window is always an abyss, like a mystery that cannot be escaped. Where will Mom run in this dark world? Whether she was alive or dead.

But what is death for me? Like hot water rolling on my body I feel burned, but what about death? Will it be a sharp pain? Besides, what happens after death? I do not know. The rain outside the window was still deadly, frantically and violently smashing on the ground, on cars, on trees, on bricks, on windows. My hot skin was turning red, and the heat was spreading from my pores and burrowing into my cold body. A pleasant moment.

Where will Mom go?

Where does she go and how important is my life?

Maybe Mom will come back. I remember when I was a child, it was also a rainy evening, and my father went out on a motorcycle. When I came back it was late at night, about ninety o'clock, and I was almost asleep. Dad opened the new security door of the house and followed Mom into the next room. They were noisy in the room, and there was also the sound of boxes and cabinets being turned over. I smothered my head in the quilt, afraid of the rain, afraid of the dark, afraid of things breaking. Then Dad came out of the room and went into the bathroom, and the sound of the water was the same as the sound of rain, and it was smashed in the bottomless night. The next day I learned that Dad had fallen on a bent in front of his home, one leg pressed under the car, his knee hit the manhole cover, and his skin was broken deep.

But Dad is back. It was raining that night, I was only a few years old, and I was already wondering if I might not have lost my dad. I knew the beginning and end of life very early, I knew it very early, and I started imagining it very early.

I crawled out of the tub and sucked the water dry from my freshly washed white towel. The braced shorts were pulled like autumn grass on the doorknobs of the bathroom, and the mirrors and lenses were fogged. I picked up my phone and planned to call my mom again.

The phone's notification light jumped with white light, and it looked like someone had sent a text message. I turned on my phone and it was a text message from my dad.

"Your mother is back and was just rubbing mahjong in the tea room downstairs." Rest early. ”

Source: China Youth Daily client