Text: Fang Zhongxian
In 2016, the government renovated and the old street was demolished, and I returned to the old home. I don't know why, as long as I pass by the city gate, my feet will not move, and the old courtyard has now been swallowed up by the parking lot, and my old house is gone.
The old courtyard was built in the Qing Dynasty. My old house is in the old courtyard of the main gate of the house where the family used to live, after the land reform, it was assigned to my house, wooden structure, one floor and one bottom, a total of three rooms, in this old street called Democracy Middle Street. In the autumn of the year when I was twenty-three, I was sent to the countryside and went to Sun Bay. The first 33 years of my life left me with the deepest memory, because these 33 years included the childhood, adolescence and adolescence of my life, which naturally could not be matched by the years to come, especially the days of decay after old age. This time is like a seal carved in a stone, the years grow in the tree, it is difficult to be washed away by the flowing water of time, especially in the 60 years, "Liangguan" suffered from edema, three swelling and three elimination, almost starved to death, eleven-year-old I was seriously damaged, starved to the small bed in the house.
I remember the fifth grade of primary school when I came home from school, I was so hungry that I panicked, and my feet flashed and I planted my head on the ground, and in the winter of that year, I ate wild vegetables "goose herbs" and gnawed "puffed chicken roots" At that time, the old street had not yet been transformed, and the streets were full of old people and children, all of whom were skinny and skinny, and most of the young people starved to death in the streets and alleys because of the large amount of food. Although it is a little dilapidated, the old courtyard is like a wind and rain old man, so kind, and the old people in the neighborhood call me in the cold wind.
Now the old house is gone. The earthen tile wall of the city gate cave has been torn down, and the 300-year-old purple cypress tree in the courtyard is gone. In my memory, in the first few years of liberation, I was well fed, warmly dressed, and at night the shadow wall covered the moonlight and lights in the courtyard, and the surroundings were dark. In the summer, we put the fireflies we caught into small glass bottles, and then took the bottles and ran around the alleys of the city gate holes, comparing with our friends how bright the fireflies were. In winter, rolling hoops on the old streets, the cries of the race and running seem to still echo in the ears.
The double wells next to the trail were filled with tap water. It was two deep wells dug six meters underground, and when I was a child, I used to get into them and hide them, like the scene in the movie "Tunnel War". I dressed up as a little eight-way and held a wooden pistol that I had made in my hand, like a little hero in a movie.
Now in the courtyard, the old cypress trees left by the former Qing Dynasty no longer exist, and now the road is built to lead directly to Xiaoping Mountain. There is a weir built for the power generation of Dongfanghong Power Station, and when the hot day comes, my friends and I will soak in the water every day to swim, catch fish, and catch shrimp.
The twelve east wings in the innermost part of the old courtyard are my house in front. The old cypress tree in front of the house had a craggy trunk and withered branches and leaves. Those three rooms originally belonged to the Kuang family. When my family first moved in, I was already two years old, and I crawled on the floor of the hall in the old courtyard with my bare buttocks, and the "heaven" and "earth" "Jun", "pro" and "teacher" near the south are to warn us to respect heaven and earth, the emperor, the elders, and the master to promote Confucian culture to respect the teacher. When the shrine was demolished, I had an argument with the Red Guards for a long time, but in the end it was not saved by me, but now the way of the world has changed, the concept has been renewed, and some people have not listened to the words left by the ancestors.
Many people in the old neighborhood are still there, and they are very happy to see me, and they have come out of the house and ask this and that, especially the old people have given me a thumbs up for my works published in major newspapers and magazines across the country. An old neighbor accompanied me to the old house and told me that a writer from the provincial town had come that day. It means that my essay is well written, and a dozen middle school students are clinging to my < > novels under the eaves<太阳湾>. A retired commune secretary has given me a matching number for my work, and he has come to my door, and he is gray, hunched back, like a giant gecko clinging to the patio, stubbornly looking at his former time as an official.
Closing the door, I picked up my pen in the room to create my soon-to-be-finished <鸽子花恋歌>< >, sweating profusely, and turned on the fan. When I was in junior high school, almost every month after school, I was writing articles at the desk, and a good female classmate Wei Yiyi and I sat side by side, writing her poems, and when we were tired, we talked until dark; on a cold winter night, I insisted on writing in cotton clothes, and the first draft that I had worked so hard to write was stolen by mice, and the rat uncle "Mr. Gao" scurried around unscrupulously, biting the words on it, and making a rustling sound.......
For a long time after that, I came to the old courtyard again and again, and many friends who loved literature often came to visit. There seems to be some kind of magic in the old courtyard that attracts these friends to come to me often.
Once, I relied on the old cypress tree, recalling that Wei Yiyi, who often came to my house to work with me in primary school, shed tears, 20-year-old I had the budding of love, I walked to the door of her house, the old door was replaced by the new owner has been replaced by an anti-theft iron door, Yiyi she left here with her parents and went to the provincial capital, but the laughter with her in front of her house is still ringing in her ears.
Ding Qiang's family in the old neighborhood died in the "grain gate", and I stepped on the street of his house, the original pattern has not changed, but all of them have been turned into new houses. When people go to the empty house, the yard without any debris accumulation seems more secluded, as if it is much smaller than the yard when I was a child. Without the fireworks of the past, the empty courtyard of the Ding family seems to have emptied the stage of all the props, and it looks cold I sighed and thought to myself, if it weren't for the era when I couldn't eat enough, Ding Qiang would be older than me now.
Walking out of the house, standing in the empty old courtyard, looking at everything that was once familiar around me, I seemed to see the images left by the years and hear the sound of time passing. How many childhood joys, teenage sorrows, and adolescent restless emotions have overflowed here. How many people come and go, birth, old age, sickness and death, love and hatred, have become the intricate memories of the old hospital.
Nostalgia not only refers to the distance in space, but also the loss of time, and the demolition of an old street tells you: no matter from the space or time does not exist, the only thing you can remember is memories.
Fang Zhongxian, a writer from Sichuan, is a member of the Ya'an Writers Association. He used to be a special reporter of Chongqing Culture Daily and the secretary-general of the Yingjing Writers Association. His works have been published in Chongqing Culture Daily, Oriental Tide, Sichuan Workers Daily, Sichuan Forestry News, Sichuan Rural Daily, Ya'an Daily, Shanghai Literature, Beijing Literature, Liaoning Literature, Yangtze River Literature and other newspaper websites. In 1997, he won the Silver Award for the Essay Contest held by the Chongqing Federation of Literary and Art Circles to celebrate the return of Hong Kong, and in 2016, he won the essay "Remembering the Rain in Mengshan Mountain" and "Beautiful Wawu Mountain" held by the Ya'an Municipal Government. In 2008, he published his personal collection "Sun Valley" and "Pigeon Flower Love Song" by Beijing Writers Publishing House, and "The Fragrance of Time" is currently awaiting filming of two novels and two TV series "Pigeon Flower Love Song" and "Ancient Tea Horse Road".
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