The first time I saw them was on a rainy day in late spring.
Before that, I already knew about their existence. As a new daughter-in-law, she is usually told about some related people and things in the village. They should have known about me too. New people have been added to the village, especially the newly married daughter-in-law, who will always be talked about and discussed after tea and dinner. The simple villagers seem to be born with a full of curiosity, and this curiosity is mostly used on people and things outside of themselves. Some people will feel that too much attention and discussion from the people around them will affect the lives of the people involved. But I feel that this curiosity is actually the existence of the heat of life, which ferments and steames in the country land, but it can drive away some loneliness. This is one of the reasons I like to live in the village, to open up my true self, to feel the fumigation of this hot air, and to be able to approach myself easily.
I don't know how they know me, much less how I exist with them. What is certain is that I know that their process is not mixed with much goodwill. Maybe it's because they act differently than the rest of the village.
"These two people..." Behind each time they wanted to say something was a look of disdain. The speaker's face must have a smile, a laugh with mockery. But I still want to mix some sympathy and hatred for iron and steel.
"Man! Going up the East Head? "It was raining lightly that day, and on the way out of the village, they greeted me with a smile on their faces. I was immediately sure that for me, they were happy. In the information I don't know much about them, they are loners. I felt the joy in their eyes that I was like the wind of the seasons in their lives.
I rejoice too.
This was true of every encounter we had since. They were smiling and felt like I was their daughter-in-law. I should have called them uncle and aunt, but I've never called them that before. They didn't care either, they were still smiling and warm and close.
I have heard that whether it is farming or life, they will always do something different or even ridiculous than others. For example, planting land, the seeds are sown and no longer managed, the drought is not watered, and the grass is not removed; For example, her dependence on him, as long as he goes out without taking her, she will cry, and even sit on the road and cry; What is even more frightening is that one day the woman ran back to the village from outside the village crying, saying that the man was going to jump into the river, saying that he did not want to live, and someone followed the woman to a large puddle outside the village, and the man really sat by the water's edge, wet all his pants... In this way, they attracted the criticism of the villagers, and they were labeled for a long time.
Most of us have something in our hearts that we want to hold on to, good or bad, that is hard to change, but it's not hard to forgive. For those attachments that remain in the minority, we seem to have difficulty understanding, and even feel that it is shameful. Over time, they became more and more out of place and eventually classified as outliers. In my judgment, they are the kind of people who have been separated, and this feeling is subtle and certain.
I once heard a teacher who was engaged in poetry writing say that he was once ridiculed by someone close to him:
"I heard that poets are all two balls?"
I think this is similar to "why not eat meat", but they can't see each other's lives. There are very few outliers in this world, but who can say that the truth of life will not exist in these few outliers?
In addition to land, their means of subsistence is to pick up scrap. Every time I met them, most of them were on their way to pick up scrap, or to go out or back. A small tricycle is their means of transportation and transportation. The tricycle consists of the former manpower, the current electric, the man in front, the woman in the back, carrying them back all day long. Occasionally women are seen sitting next to the driver's seat. The driver's seat of a tricycle in the country has a relatively wide one, and although it is a one-person seat, it can also squeeze the next two people. In this way, in the eyes of others, their behavior seems a little greasy. It seems to have something to do with shamelessness or something. Someone spoke again.
"Uh-huh—a handful of age, still as young as a young man." Don't be a diaphragm! ”
What others said, her face was always smiling. It is this smile that is strangely given another meaning by the people around it. It is not necessary that the person who says this is not out of envy, but the person who speaks is to blind his true heart by denying others. Most of us are like this, dissatisfied with our own rigid life, but not accustomed to the bravery of others.
I heard that when men were young, because they were too honest and their families were poor, they did not say anything about their relatives for a long time. Later, someone introduced the woman, and the woman's father was an ordinary farmer. When it was learned that the woman's mother and a younger brother were mentally abnormal, a sister-in-law in the near family told the man not to register with her first, and to look at her after a while, and if she felt that it was not possible, she would be sent back.
"What's the use of marrying such a wife back?"
"Yes! Figure her stupid? Not even a child could be born. Just like this, I heard that housework is not willing to let her do more. ”
Not even being able to give birth to a child is the most critical. She couldn't have children, and they didn't have children. I don't know how many men can keep their wives without children. Not counting the years before I met them, only in the next twenty years, she did not leave, he did not give up. Nor had he ever heard him accuse, be rude, or dislike her. He was thin and short, his back was straight, and his eyes were never evasive, not impatient. (I'm not sure if his firmness came from some faith.) ）
Although they did not have children, as long as anyone in the village had a child, they would both take a gift. So some people talked again, some said that they were stupid, they had no children, and they couldn't receive back the gifts they went out with, and they hit the water; Some said that they were hungry, saying that they could only go to the banquet if they followed the ceremony. From this point of view, human nature is really complicated enough, whether it is them, or me, and everyone around me.
On the first day of the Chinese New Year, we have the custom of going to the homes of the elders to pay respects to the New Year. During the Spring Festival of the first year of marriage, Chu Yi followed his family and brothers all the way to visit the New Year. As I passed by their doorstep, I hesitated for a moment and then walked quickly in the footsteps of a crowd of people. We should have gone to pay homage to them according to the generations, but no one had ever proposed it, and they all tacitly agreed. Every year after that, we didn't go to their home.
On the first day of the Chinese New Year of another year, when passing by their house, they happened to run into them going out. I was too embarrassed to talk to them, and I didn't have the courage to look up at them. Like a cat who had just been reprimanded, he hid to the side in a sad way, pretending to leave the crowd as if nothing had happened. They seemed to glance at me and didn't say hello to me.
Their home was a low, old brick house. The outside of the low courtyard wall was brushed with a layer of cement to prevent the erosion of wind and rain. Outside the ten-meter-long courtyard wall, there are several moon trees, pink and red; There are two cannabis plants, goose yellow, open on the curtain spread by the rough gray wall, and there is really a posture of beauty dancing by herself; Next to the low gatehouse, there was a pot of unnamed leafy green plants, in an earthy red tile pot, lush and wet by the rain, like spring. It was another rainy day, and I was holding up an umbrella and trying to walk through the alleys of the village.
Their lives are just quiet and good. That's what I found out later.
When we met again in recent years, the enthusiasm on their faces had faded by the most. In retrospect, maybe it was after that awkward encounter. I feel deeply guilty about this.
They retreated back into their own areas of life and kept their distance from me. It's sad, for me.
About the author: Zhang Yiman, likes the delicacy of words and the magic of insight into the world, hopes to experience life in the jump of words, and feel the mellowness and richness of life.