One winter day that year, the frost and wind were blowing and the cold was overwhelming. Because of some trivial matters, I went back to my hometown in the countryside. After lunch, idle, suddenly remembered the old house in the mountains, did not go to see for a long time, and did not know what it was like. So, take a slow stroll to the depression deep in the Sipo Mountain.
In fact, the old house is not very old, and the history is not thick. However, after a new house was built outside the mountain, the family lived outside the mountain, and the empty house that was uninhabited became an old house.
The old house in my hometown is engraved with the past time. (Source: Fukayagi Anden)
Along the wall of the neighbor's house, step on the grassy dirt path, turn a corner, look around, and find that the old house has collapsed and collapsed!
The earthen and brick walls had completely collapsed, weathered into piles of dust and rubble, lying in a messy and lonely place under the broken branches and leaves, most of the broken rafters, most of which had been picked up for firewood, and the rest were scattered everywhere, full of traces of smoke and blackening. Only that hut, lonely clinging to a few old pines, looking at the crumbling look, but still have to support strongly, refuse to fall, but no matter how insisted, even if you can survive this winter, the rainy season after the next spring, I am afraid it will not be able to survive.
On the ruins of the old house, my father reclaimed a few new vegetable fields and planted some turnips and greens, which had grown lush and green at that time.
Standing in front of the ruins of the old house, I couldn't help but have mixed feelings and mixed tastes. More naturally, I think of my mother, if it were not for her premature death, I believe that the old house would not have collapsed so quickly, so completely - or even not at all!
Two or three years after my mother died of illness, my brother built a new house outside the mountain, and my father moved in, and the old house has been empty ever since. At first, in order to make the house dry and ventilated, my father opened all the doors and windows, and the room was cleaned as usual, and even the leaves, weeds, vines and the like around the floor were also cleaned up by the father. Every three to five, I went to check it out, so for a long time, the old house was generally preserved in its original appearance, and there was no heresy.
I once went into the mountains to see it once. Open the fence door, cross the threshold, and enter the hall house, like a wanderer who has not returned home for a long time, familiar and down-to-earth, warm and kind. Due to the addition of furniture to the new home, most of the original objects of the old house have not been removed, and they are still placed there according to the original location and appearance. The house has not been inhabited for a long time, and a thin layer of dust has fallen everywhere, which is even more lifeless.
Walking into the kitchen, in the dark light and shadow, the adobe brick stove, you can faintly see the dark red stove surface. Water tanks, cupboards, small stools under the stove, and the bamboo nails that the mother nailed to the wall to hang the water spoon, the iron hooks hanging from the drainage, are all above the side of the water tank, the cupboard, the deep bottom and dark ceramic jar, is used to hold the lard refined from the slaughter of pigs, the mother who is good at housekeeping is best to hoard these, and also placed on the bottom cabinet board, memory, this jar is always filled with snow white lard, we once used lard to mix freshly steamed white rice with lard, eat a few bites, a unique flavor of incense spilled from the corner of the mouth, I still remember it vividly. Above the mouth of the stove is a row of hooks covered with black lacquered smoke, which the mother used to smoke bacon, and with the mother, the bacon on the hook has never been missing. This small smoky space used to be the place where my mother and I spent the most time. Every morning when I woke up, my mother and I were busy in the kitchen, across the stove, she cooked and cut vegetables in front of the stove, and I chopped wood under the stove and burned the fire. After breakfast, I went to school, my mother went to her school, I went to study, she went to teach. When I came back in the evening, my mother and I met again in the kitchen, and she started cooking dinner, and I set up a charcoal stove for the morning fire the next day. I would also tell each other anecdotes about the school, and this situation continued until I left home to go to high school. The old things are still there, the Si people have gone, seeing the things and thinking about people, staring at everything familiar, it seems that the figure that has been busy in the kitchen all year round, and then faintly emerge in front of the eyes, it seems that the thin figure who is tormented by illness is struggling in front of the eyes, watching, thinking, the eyes are misty, and the tears that cannot be stopped are pouring down.
Father said that due to the disrepair and rain leakage of the house, the earthen wall showed many cracks, and it was already overwhelmed. After a torrential rain at the turn of spring and summer that year, the back wall of the old house was soaked and softened by the rain, and finally collapsed, the kitchen and the miscellaneous house instantly became a ruined wall, and the front few main rooms were struggling to support for some time, and they were also precarious. After a while, he did not escape the doom of collapse, and the furniture and other objects were buried in the rubble. After the loss of a large house in a second, the territory under the perspective is particularly narrow, and even the hills around it seem to be much shorter.
The small earthen area in front of the house, as well as the adjacent sunshine valley plain, was once the paradise of our childhood, playing badminton, kicking shuttlecocks, in the summer night when the moonlight melted, laying bamboo beds, burning mosquito coils, shaking old fans, humming serenades, listening to the nightingales crying, cooling in the mountain breeze, it is already a happiness that cannot be replicated. On the edge of the earthen flat, the position where the mother fed the chickens to place the food bowl, and now it is overgrown, she always wields a broom, drives away the appearance of stealing pheasants, she waits for me to come home on the weekend, looking forward to the road, the gesture is still vivid, but the world is uncertain, everything is scattered with the wind, and finally only the residual tears are left, and the liver and intestines are broken. In the first few days, after reading the words of Anping and Qiangen's two literary friends who were angry and complaining about the old mother, they were very envious, and there were still old women who could complain, who could be intimidated, who could be willful, who could be spoiled, and who were not a great and happy thing, and I, many years ago, had lost such good fortunes, lost my mother's love, or even complained. Thinking about this, looking at the picture of his mother on the wall, he couldn't help but feel sad and sad.
The disappearance of the old house, I have some regrets, and even some resentment towards my father. Since then, I have often dreamed of the old house, dreaming of my mother who seems to be cured of illness and silently busy in the kitchen, but no matter what, I can't see my mother's appearance clearly, nor can I recognize the appearance of the old house. After waking up from the dream, I couldn't help but feel a little sad and sad. I know that I, perhaps in this life, will be more difficult to go back to that mountain, that homeland.
The old house has collapsed and collapsed, my mother is long gone, and even I myself can't bear those sorrows and sorrows. Quan will keep those innocent, beautiful, and simple childhood memories in my words and seal them in the depths of my heart. As I get older, I may awaken my thoughts and unseal my memories, not for anything else, only for the old house, only for my mother. (Author: Hongyuan)