A house of its own
At that time, my biggest dream was to have a house of my own. The thought struck me like a fawn and made me fidget.
I could no longer bear to live in the same room as my mother. An old, bulky wooden bed with a dark and shiny ass. I don't know whether it is crooked or the leg of the bed is rotten, the bed surface is always high inside and out, into a slope. There is no bed board, a few large bed braces cushioned with a pair of bamboo thin, bamboo knots are thick, in the summer can kill people. The bamboo foil is covered with broken cotton flakes, and some of them are the diapers we used when we were children. In winter, straw is laid, and on the straw is a list of patch stacks. To prevent us from stepping on the quilt, my mother patched each quilt cover, and the original soft cotton wool became hard. Mom also casually inserted the sewing needle into the straw mat and accidentally stabbed her ass. Because she was too busy, my mother rarely folded the quilt and threw her clothes on the bed. The kennel-like mattress bothered me a lot.
Everyone used light and soft yarn tents, and my mother used thick and black cotton tents. Dead mosquitoes beaten in the summer were wrapped in blood and glued to the tent. The pillow was older than me, long, stuffed with rice husks, stuffed too solidly, and some of the husks popped out of the cloth eyes. I haven't changed it once in more than ten years, like a pillow on a stone. The cabinet fell off the paint, the cabinet door could not be closed, it was so half hidden, there was a musty smell inside. My house is low,The back gully is not cleaned frequently, rainwater seeps in, and the ground is wet all year round. The picture frame hanging on the wall was moldy, the photo was damp, and the face was blurred. Open the frame, the photos are all glued and can no longer be removed.
The windows were covered with plastic film and nailed with large head nails on all four sides. Over the years, the membrane decayed, shrugged down, and the wind poured in through the pores, fanning and hula. By the window, there was a bulky three-drawer table with a slit under the table to insert a ruler. The rusty red paint peeled off, like an ugly face with potholes. Every drawer is not tightly closed, it is stuffed with messy food, waste flashlights, rotten batteries, rusty pliers wrench screwdrivers, rolls of torn linings, half-cut soles of shoes... The handle had long been deformed, closed and could not be opened, so I had to reach the bottom of the drawer and pull it up, exposing the opening of the drawer. On the table top against the wall is a mirror with a broken corner, one of which is cracked, the face is folded, the cheeks on both sides are asymmetrical, and the mouth is surprisingly large. The mirror is always covered with a layer of ash, and I can write on it. On the table, the comb grate is casually placed, the grate teeth are sandwiched with hair, and the comb teeth are full of dirt.
Behind the door, on the wall, there were iron nails, and one by one hung cloth bags containing rapeseed, bulging cotton bags, bamboo leaf tubes of bunched rice dumplings, and large bamboo qiangs, dustpans, and sieves, all covered with dust. An iron hook hangs from the roof beam, hooking the dead cat, containing the round balls fried at the end of the wax, emitting a strong smell of hara.
There is also a small wooden lattice window on the back wall, pasted with film. Standing against the wall, there was a large vat filled with wheat and a layer of green ash on top. These old grains consume a lot of our physical strength, and in the summer we move out to dry, and then we carry bags in, pour them in, and sprinkle grass ashes. The most annoying thing is the long black cow and moth, flying on the tent, on the sheets, killing and not killing, not clean, endless. I always wondered why I had so much rice and wheat stored, and my mother told me that I was hungry and afraid of cutting the cauldron in five or nine years. "The family has stored grain, and there is no panic in case of trouble." Where did she think that the family had stored grain and the rats were busy? At night, rats ratmed on the mat, slipped down the wall into the grain tank, and pulled down strings of rat droppings after eating.
I had seen the room of the village friend Rongzi, the white gauze tent, the flower sheets, and the neatly folded quilts. A writing desk is placed by the window, and a piece of polished glass is pressed against the tabletop, and the photograph is pressed underneath. A round mirror is placed on a glass tabletop. Sunlight shines in through the glass window, the room is bright, and the walls are dazzlingly white.
When will I have a room of my own?
When I was a child, the whole family lived in a room, and the family of five slept in the same bed. After my sister went to junior high school, my mother cleaned up another house for her to live in. After my sister got married, my brother lived in it. If my brother went out to work, my mother would put away the bedding and pile up straw, cotton, and various farm tools. Large dustpan two dustpans, bamboo sieves dustpans, rake nail rake flails. There was no floor for even the feet to be put. The most infuriating thing is that my mother always regarded me as a child and never considered my feelings.
"Mom, I want to sleep in a room by myself..." My voice was as small as a mosquito's, my face was feverish, and the atmosphere did not dare to come out.
"Huh?" Mom's face sank, and she glanced at me, "Can't sleep in the house?" ”
I don't say a word. In the mother's consciousness, as long as it can be squeezed down, it is pure waste to decorate the room for the child. She would rather improve the living conditions of my old sow than waste time and energy cleaning a house for me.
I could only swallow my breath and continue to sleep in the bed that was high and low, covering my mother's hard quilt with dense stitches.
Later, my brother got married, and the house became his new house. My desire for a house of my own was completely dashed. There are only two bedrooms in the house, in addition to the kitchen of the black hole hole and the damp tofu shop full of tofu fishy smell.
But I was more and more eager to have my own independent space, even if it was just a room, a chair, a table and a bed, if I could have a lamp, it would be a supreme pleasure. This desire seduces me and torments me. I finally plucked up the courage and decided to use my own strength to open up the world. My target is a tofu shop. There are two tofu shops with no partitions in between. The south head supports a large cauldron of burning soy milk, as well as a wooden squeeze, a large vat. To the north is a large iron pot with a bean beater, scattered and masonry with slurry water. There is a vacant lot on the inner edge, and I remember that my father used to make a small bed there when he made Tofu. Now there was a wooden bed that had been removed from my brother's house.
The current difficulty is that the ground is potholed and even the bed is unstable. Without opening the shed, I looked up and saw roof beams, purlins and small black tiles. The beams of the room are covered with spider webs, and a wisp of ash hangs down. Can't take care of so much, first lay the ground level. Where there is mortar, it doesn't matter, there is a piece of laterite on the ridge, and it is sticky. Just do it. I shoveled clay one by one, filled in potholes, sprinkled some water, and photographed them.
Dreams make people brave. I was like a stubborn little ant, building a nest for itself with the most primitive tools. My movements finally caught my mother's attention.
"What are you mad about?" Nothing to worry about? She asked as much as she could.
"I'm going to live by myself..." I patted the soil with my head down, not looking at her gloomy face.
"And the other way around—you can't live in the house?"
"I want to live separately..." I continued to pound the clay.
"Well, that's me?" Are the wings hard? Mom didn't say anything more, and even helped shovel a few shovels of clay and fill in a few deep ones. My confidence was boosted, and the dream of owning a room of my own seemed even closer.
But I didn't end up living in it. Halfway down the horizon, I was discouraged, the excavated loess and sand, not very viscous, a room of sand, how can not be swept clean. The most annoying thing is that the walls are still adobe, not even a thin layer of lime is brushed, and the big holes and small eyes are small. There are still a few square holes in the back wall, and the wind is directly pouring in. The gray hangings on the roof beams fell down, the rats fought between the beams, and the door leaf was not tightly closed, creaking, like a person before he died. Sleeping in bed, the mouth is accidentally opened, and at any time a hanging ash falls into the mouth. Not to mention that the fishy smell of tofu over the years can choke people to death.
Until I left home, I never carved out a house of my own, even if it was a bucket room, a chair, a table and a bed, if I could have a lamp, it would be a great pleasure.
About author:Wu Feng, a native of Shangcheng, Henan. He 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 a solid and deep layer of soil, with quiet words, remember the years like water. The novel "Cockscomb Blossoms" won the first prize of the National Novel Essay Contest held by the "Writer Shinkansen" platform.