Method (short story)

One

"It's not there, it's there, I'll find a way......" Aunt Zhao snorted coldly and said to Aunt Sun.

"What can you do?" Second Aunt Sun took a puff of cigarette, swallowed it, and spit it out again, "At that time, can I still let you?" ”

"You can see that I can't, I have a way." Aunt Zhao said firmly.

"Don't talk too much," Second Aunt Sun stared at the rising cigarette roll and pouted, "It's better to die than to live." If you don't have a fatal illness, everyone will talk about it. ”

"I go into the city to sell vegetables, and I often hear about people who sleep at night, you say, how good! What kind of blessing can be cultivated in such a world to die so unconsciously? Old grandson! The pain is unbearable! I've been caught by a kidney stone for the past few years, and I send it once a year! That pain is not a human sin! Look at Shufen, she has liver cancer, and it hurts to death! Poor people, when they get old, they get old, and they have to get sick! ”

"No illness will not send the old, old man!" Lao Sun sighed, blinked his little red eyes, lifted the corners of his clothes and wiped the corners of his eyes, "The same life, a hundred deaths...... I don't dare to think about it, I can't sleep if I think too much. Eat turnips, eat one piece and peel another. ”

Aunt Zhao glanced at her with contempt, "At first glance, she is afraid of death!" Rely on life, you really can't move, drag down future generations, what is the strength of life! ”

Aunt Zhao has been stubborn all her life. When she was young, she didn't want to die when she worked, and she was a little cuihua praised by everyone in the production team. At the age of fifty, the old man got a bad disease, and after two years of illness, he stretched out his legs and walked away. She gritted her teeth to support a family, swallowed the mud, built a bungalow, married a daughter-in-law, married a girl, and brought up her grandchildren. In the past few years, Aunt Zhao has had a very good life, her son built a new house next to the village road, moved over, and she kept the old house. Although it is a bit lonely to live alone in a large yard, she no longer has to look at her daughter-in-law's face, and she feels liberated all of a sudden.

Aunt Zhao is very confident in her body, she is cold, she will be too desperate when she is young, and she will not care about her body too much. She remembered that she washed her clothes on the third day of her life, and took the child to the health center. The cold that has been accumulated for decades has all flare-ups when I get old. First his back was hunched, then his legs were deformed from pain, and his feet were long and lonely. Lao Han's legs are the most tormenting, and he often cramps at night, and he jumps like pus. She asked the old Chinese medicine doctor to prick needles, used earthwork hot compresses, tried all kinds of tricks, and her legs were lame day by day, bending into an O-shape.

Two

After the epidemic was released, many people in the village were infected. Zhao San was so painful that he shouted all night. The next day, Aunt Zhao went to visit the third brother's family, and before leaving, her son warned her to beware of infection! Aunt Zhao didn't believe in this evil, and chatted with her brother-in-law for a long time. When I came back, I had a fever, and my whole body was like a beating. The eldest daughter sent cold medicine and felt better after eating it. She was also too careless, and immediately went to work in the vegetable field, tired and sweating. She took off her padded jacket, blew the wind, and got into a second fire, and she had a fever at night, vomited, and screamed all night.

Aunt Zhao thought that it was the same as usual, and she carried it over. Who knows that this disease is the same as glue, and it can't be pulled off if it sticks to it. First, he vomited for two days, collapsed all over, and went to the hospital. After hanging for a few days, the water was relieved, and the day after being discharged from the hospital, he vomited again, and began to cough, and was transferred from the gastroenterology department to the respiratory department. The doctor checked her nucleic acid several times, and all of them showed positive.

"You still stuck me," Aunt Zhao said angrily, "all bully me!" Look at it, I've been living for half a month, and it hasn't turned cloudy. "When her condition was serious, she once explained to her son what happened." I'll put the 5,000 yuan in the mezzanine of the cardboard box, and if I'm good, I'll keep the flowers for myself; Once it doesn't work, you quickly take it out, don't sell it as scrap. In addition, the broken quilt cover and broken cushion back on my bed were carefully searched, and it was not easy to burn it......"

The son nodded vigorously, "Don't you think too much, aren't you governing?" Maybe I can cure ......"

Stayed in the hospital until the Chinese New Year, followed by the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. Aunt Zhao felt weak and had difficulty breathing. The doctor said that there was fluid in the lungs, so he placed a catheter to draw water, and 500 ml of lung water was withdrawn at a time. As a result, nutrition was lost, and for a while, Aunt Zhao could barely stand up, and she even needed someone to help her go to the toilet.

Aunt Zhao was hospitalized four times, but her condition did not improve at all, and she felt that it was definitely not a small problem. The last time I went to the Chinese medicine hospital, there were four elderly people in their eighties in the ward. Among them was an old man, who looked very healthy and had a good complexion, not like a sick person. He went to the hospital every morning to hang up the needle, and he also hung two leather bags on his body.

"What's the matter with you?" The old lady next to her asked.

"Fluid in the lungs, you have to pump ...... every day" The old man lowered his head and looked gloomy.

"Why? Why can't I always smoke clean? ”

"What is the reason? It's definitely not a good thing......" The middle-aged woman who accompanied the old man muttered with a sad face, and later learned that she was the old man's sister and took care of the old brother's daily life. Every time, she accompanied the old man to the hospital for examination and treatment, and the old man had two sons and never showed up.

"The doctor suggested a stent, and they said I had a bad heart...... "The old man called his son, his voice timid.

"Racket? How do you think a play is a play? An angry voice came from the other end of the phone, "The problem now is lung water!" Lung water! If the lung water is not solved, what is the point of building a stent! ……”

The old man lowered his head, stunned, and didn't speak for a long time. His sister looked at him sympathetically, her brow furrowed.

"Whew, son!" Aunt Zhao was lying on the hospital bed and muttered to herself, "From the time I was hospitalized to the present, my daughter-in-law has not come to see me once...... See you? See if you're dead ......"

None of the old men spoke.

"Oh, as the old saying goes, there is no filial son in front of the bed for a long time, let's see for yourself......" The old clinical lady sighed, "I'm fine, my children and grandchildren are full, my grandson just added a big fat boy, look, one of them came to see me?" Fame ......"

Three

"I watched, they wished I was dead,......" Aunt Zhao called Sanni, she said now to take a breath, "When I was hospitalized, your sister-in-law cleaned the house, just waiting for me to do the funeral...... I stay in the hospital for a day, and for every penny I spend, they get less......"

"Mom, Mo Duo thinks, your illness can be cured......"

"I'm afraid it won't be cured," Aunt Zhao chirped, "When that time comes, I'll find a way to ......"

"What do you want to do?" Sanni immediately intercepted her words.

"If you live to be 100 years old, you will die," Zhao said, "Even if you die now, it is not a short life - 86 years old, you have enough to live." My mother lives 84. Sanni and her father have been dead for more than 30 years...... I ate and wore it, so I had nothing to regret......"

"There has been a shadow for a long time," Aunt Zhao remembered, or half a year ago, once she carried a mandarin basket to sell vegetables home, when she passed through the Great Wilderness Mountain, she saw a big house in the small peach forest on the mountain, glazed tiles, resplendent gold.

"Who built the house there?" She asked Second Aunt Sun.

"Don't you look dazzled?" Lao Sun Bai glanced at her, "That's righteous land, where did the big house come from?" ”

"It's really a strange thing, it's obviously a house with a big ridge tile, and it's still golden." Aunt Zhao carefully searched for the location of the house - in the southeast of the small peach forest, is the grave of Sanni's father.

Aunt Zhao firmly believes that people have souls. She is convinced that people are dying, that their souls are out of body, and that they can see things that they shouldn't see. She still remembers a dream of Da Peng, wearing a beautiful shirt and pants with lace rolling at the hem. She stopped Aunt Zhao who was picking up a dung bucket on the steep mountain, pointed to her placket with her finger, and said, Look at you, why is there on the placket? She looked down, but no, there was all over the placket. Isn't this illness sticky?

"What about the children?" Aunt Zhao's heart suddenly pinched, as if she had been pierced sharply by a needle. "A son is a wrongdoer, and a daughter is a debt...... As the old saying goes, who can let it go? Fathers and mothers treat their children for a long time, and children treat their fathers and mothers for a long time, which is not as good as a long shoulder...... My daughter-in-law wishes I was dead...... The ancestors have passed it down like this. The most pitiful is the son, the son...... The daughter-in-law is born to someone else, and the son is the flesh that falls from the body...... The son is still filial, he has been serving since he was sick, and he has been running at both ends in the hospital, he has lost a handful of bones, his eyes are sunken, and his face is even darker. Alas, Erhei, who was born sick and calamitous, almost took stupid food from snack medicine, thank God, it was a family...... The daughter-in-law is too strong, and the son can't straighten his waist for the rest of his life, so he can't manage so much. The eldest daughter said, you are not doing well, can my grandmother still crawl out of the old grave? After fighting with his daughter-in-law all his life, his son was fed up with splinting and went with him, but he couldn't control it......

Dani's brain is not enough, she is forgetful, and she speaks upside down...... She is not as old as me, I am not deaf or blind, and I can still thread needles. She's sick, and that's so bad that she takes medicine to dull her brain. Fortunately, her son-in-law is good-natured and does not have the same knowledge as her...... Dani stepped on my heels the tightest, she was tired for the rest of her life...... People's fate is destined, what did the person who looked at it say that year, your eldest sister is a girl's life, panic inside the house, panic outside, don't panic for a while, and panic in my heart! It's like seeing it with your own eyes! Run for a lifetime...... Well, Dani still has two daughters, and her daughters will feel sorry for her......

Sanni, Sanni...... As the old saying goes, grandparents hurt their eldest grandsons, and fathers and mothers love broken intestines. Sanni had a big life, and when she was pregnant with her, she was just in time for family planning, and she went to the commune health center, and the doctor saw that it was seven or eight months old, and she didn't dare to fight, so she gave birth. If it were the current technology, it would be possible to play in nine months...... When her father was alive, he often said, "Alas, it would be nice if Sanni were a son." Fortunately, it's a daughter, no matter how good the son is, there is a daughter-in-law in charge, and the daughter-in-law wishes I would die...... Several hospitalizations were advocated by Sanni, if it wasn't for her, she would have died a long time ago...... The day before yesterday, Sanni had a headache, she cried in pain, and she did a CT, but she didn't find anything wrong...... She had a headache when she was a child, and she rolled on the ground in pain...... At that time, I was poor and did not cure this problem......

And the grandson, he is taller than his father, will he be promising? Is there this artemisia on the grave of Lao Sun's family? Let him be, one generation will be in charge of the other...... One is better than nothing, and finally there is one who sends a lamp to the grave......

Seeing that this disease can't be cured, why did you stay in the hospital several times and didn't look back? The old man also pumped lung water, and his sister said that it was not a good phenomenon...... I can't walk, I lie down all day, and my days are hard...... It doesn't taste anything, isn't that pinching my omission......"

Four

What Aunt Zhao is most afraid of is that she can't sleep all night, and she feels uncomfortable, who to look for? In the middle of the night, who wants to get up and serve a patient? She asked her son to find a doctor to prescribe a plate of An Naijing, and when she first took one tablet, she fell asleep, then she took two tablets, and now it doesn't work to eat three tablets. This is drug resistance. Alas, in previous years, it was so good to sleep that I was so tired that I fell asleep as soon as my head was next to the pillow. Therefore, you have to be a healthy person when you eat and sleep. When I get sick, I don't eat meat and sleep well. When is such a day a head?

"It's time," Aunt Zhao, who had eaten four slices of An Naijing, made up her mind that it was time to go. "Isn't it death to live to be 100 years old? What a sin! Oh, those who slept all night are really blessed, and they passed before they knew it, what kind of blessing did they cultivate in their lifetime? Maybe I killed someone in my previous life, so I was punished for not dying well...... Call Sanni, but what's the use, the disease is rooted, and it's not a burden, so you can share it......"

"It's all early and late," Aunt Zhao gritted her teeth and sat up, her left lung ached faintly, and she was killed before it hurt. Shufende's liver cancer died of pain! She won't be able to suffer from that sin, and she won't even have a chance to die then...... Didn't Lao Zhou just jump into the pond, what a good dance! Poor Lao Zhou, every time they met, complained bitterly, saying that he was in pain, and no one asked, "Lao Sun, live a day and suffer a day of sin!" It's good to die early...... "Lao Zhou made a bitter face, and couldn't stop sighing, she was full of teeth, and she didn't eat anything fragrant. She gave birth to four sons, and she was most envious of having daughters, and she talked about it all her life...... Alas, what about having a daughter?

Aunt Zhao felt very thirsty, her mouth was dry, and it was as astringent as raw persimmons. She opened her mouth wide and swallowed the air with difficulty. It was late at night, and my son slept in a hut next to the gatehouse. He was busy all day and slept very hard. Aunt Zhao doesn't like to trouble people, and she will never call others if she can do it herself. She wanted to drink the boiled apple water, but she didn't want to move, and she gasped violently when she moved. She knew that her mouth was still dry even after drinking water, which was a problem left over from her youth. At that time, she was too busy, she worked all day, she was thirsty, and she didn't even have time to drink water, so she endured it all the time. My throat is so dry that I smoke. "You call it a lack of stomach water." The doctor told her. The problems I had when I was young have flare-up when I am old. Now no matter how much water I drink, my mouth is still dry and astringent, and it is as astringent as raw persimmons.

Aunt Zhao hummed and sat up, fumbled to the cup, and took a sip of cold water. The night was as quiet as death. She drank two more diazepam and closed her eyes. Still not sleepy. She leaned into the bed, and since the tube was intubated, she was used to sleeping face in. There is fluid in the left lung, and it is easy to suffocate when it is tilted to the left, as if it will suffocate to death if it does not come in one breath. If you really want to suffocate to death, you won't be angry with illness. Now it's even worse, and I don't feel sleepy at all. She asked Dani to tell her fortune to see if she could do well, or when she would leave.

"Sir said, it's good to survive February, and there is still work to do." Dani told her.

How can you survive February, this year it is leap February. It's hard to do it right now. "Wanzi killed eight old ladies in a row, and three of them jumped into the pond." Aunt Zhao remembered that in the month before last, Li Sangu, who had broken her leg, got up in the middle of the night and fell into the big pond at the door. It wasn't until dawn that the son found out that he was frozen hard. "Children are false. Since Li Sangu collapsed on the bed, her daughter-in-law wished she was dead. A small family eats in the house, and they don't shout the old. Alas, I can't stand the cold rice when I eat it, and I can't stand the cold face. Li Sangu was really lucky, she happened to be next to the big pond, and crawled out in the middle of the night. How do I get there? ”

"If you want to die, there is a way, I won't accept this anger!" Aunt Zhao remembered arguing with her daughter-in-law in the past, she said angrily, I won't be angry with you, and when I can't move, I will be cold-faced by you, so it's better to find a way as soon as possible. If you talk too much, your daughter-in-law will become numb. Once, she said to her mother-in-law, don't you figure it out yourself, do you want to!

"Hmph, she thought I wouldn't dare. Who is not afraid of death, life is so good, no one wants to die...... But it wasn't time...... Now is the time...... So what are you waiting for? "Aunt Zhao has been planning for a long time. When she came home from the hospital for the last time, she asked her son to remove the bamboo bed outside the stairwell, "You can sleep in the hut next to the gatehouse, and if I need anything, I will call you." The gatehouse is a long distance from the stairwell where Aunt Zhao sleeps. Sanni proposed many times to move the small bed again, closer to her, so that it was easy to take care of, but she was scolded by Aunt Zhao.

Five

At 4 o'clock in the morning, Erhei suddenly woke up. He had a terrible dream and was scared out of a cold sweat. He glanced at his phone, which showed two missed calls. "My mother! She called me, why didn't I hear me at all? Ah, how did I sleep so dead last night, it's like sleeping dead! He scrambled to his feet and stared out the door. When he saw the light in the stairwell on, his heart chuckled, and he was subconsciously nervous. "Broken, broken, broken! Why is the stairwell lit? How did my mom get to the stairwell? His heart was pounding, his back was swishing, and his scalp was tingling. He wanted to fly over with one lunge, isn't it just two corridors, a matter of a dozen steps, but he felt that his feet were shackled, his legs were weak, and he couldn't stand still. He felt his lips cold, his eyes widened, the light was so blinding, it was terrifyingly white in the dark night. "Mom-" he shouted. No one agreed. The voice was so strange and hard that it startled him. "Oh no, something happened!" He ran down the hallway drunk, and with trembling hands pushed open the wooden door to the stairwell.

Aunt Zhao, Erhei's mother, was quietly hanged on the stairs full of debris, without railings and handrails.

Author: Wu Fang, a native of Henan Mall. She loves to read and write. Record the bits and pieces of life and show the folk customs of the small town. Willing to step on the solid and deep soil, with quiet words, remember the years like water.