"See this weed?" When your father and I were hungry when we were young, we had nothing to eat, so at that time, we took your two uncles to the mountains to find this weed, and when we found it, we gave it to your grandmother, and there were side dishes to eat. "I stood by the scorched yellow hard rock, looking at the weeds in the cracks, looking at my father in a daze, looking at this little aloe vera-shaped thing, how could this be eaten?
On the boat, we got home. The crystal glass chandelier shines on the European-style blue and white sofa, and I still find it incredible that I have just had a conversation on the island. But I also know that the residence in front of me is what my father has saved step by step along with this era of development.
For as long as I can remember, my father has been out early with my mother and returned late. Before dawn, my father ran to the beach to pick up the fish and shrimp that had just arrived ashore and carried them to my mother's stall. At first, my mother had no fixed stalls, and where there were empty seats in the market, she carried her little bench wherever she went, spread out a large cloth, and shouted. I don't know when such days began, but the shift, I know. When I was five years old, the little boy who loved to run around had just followed his uncle to someone else's house to watch a martial arts show, and rushed to the vegetable market to find his mother.
"Mom, when are you not going to have to be in the alley?"
Are there stalls here?" Almost there! Did you see a wet market being built over there? Our family went to apply for a booth, good luck! I've applied! The stone table closest to the population will be our family's fixed stall from now on!" I looked away, and I was too young to know what the fixed position with the stone bench meant to the family. I just remember that it was an afternoon, the sun was slowly moving west, the sunset sun fell on the mother's smiling face, and in her long black hair, a few strands of silver fish-like hair loomed.
The improvement of life, young me is not sensitive enough, only feel, my father still went out at three or four o'clock in the morning, or kept saying: "Go late, good goods have been moved away by others!" At ten o'clock in the evening, he and his mother walked slowly from the mud with a long flat shoulder carrying a foam box containing ice cubes and fish and shrimp. "Slow down, slow down, you look downhill." This is the most common thing my father ever said to my mother. Our home is in the south, the market is in the north, every time we want to go to the market, we have to climb over a small hill, every time we go home, the uphill slope of the door becomes a steep downhill, and we have to walk carefully, if we bump and bump, and sprinkle the seafood that has not been sold for a day on the ground, it will only put a thick layer of frost on the tiredness.
Behind the old home, there is the sea. The waves roll in time, one-night one. Singing in the night. Dad told me to help my mother bring the cooked noodle soup to the workers, this is their afternoon snack, entertain the good master, they will help you do things in a down-to-earth manner, after all, this is where we want to live. Stepping on the gravel-filled cement floor, my feet suddenly turned gray and black, and I excitedly stepped on the still wet cement, a big jump, and the muddy water splashed my father's body, and he glared at me and scolded me to play elsewhere. Little by little, the new home was built.
The new home is also at the seaside, but now the sea is in front of the new home, three rows of houses away, the noisy vegetable market is next to it, and the sound of the waves at night is no longer so real. But every time you climb to the roof, you can still look at the stars in the night sky and the sea, and several ships on the surface of the sea are drifting, driving step by step into the distance, as if following the waves, step by step to the future.