The forecast says there will be snow tonight. The heart began to stir.
In order to see the moment when the snow fell, I washed up early, listened to the story with the child, and when he fell asleep quietly, I quietly stood in front of the window, holding a book in my hand, watching and waiting.
Outside the window, it was gray and black, only a few points of light from the street lamp, lonely like the sound of the night watchman, coming from the distant streets and alleys, illuminating the windows and squeezing into my heart.
When we were young, a few of our sisters, together with the young boy Duoduo and the children of the neighbors, frolicked in the upper yard after the snow and had snowballballs and built snowmen. Grandma saw it and said to us: In the past, Qi Laoliu built a snowman on the back of the bay cliff, facing Wan Shun's house, and in the spring of the next year, Wan Shun died when he was old. So, frightened, we twisted the snowman's face north, toward a place where no one was home.
Today, Grandma is nearly 100 years old and has been raised in her uncle's house for a long time. And our sisters, the Young Boy, the children next door, have long been scattered in the ends of the world, and the joys of childhood, snowball fights and snowmen, will always exist only in memory.
A few more pieces, a few more clusters, drifted by the dim light of the street lamps, slipped quietly from the window ledge, silent, as if they hid the feet of the night, and escaped from the confines of the sky, just to see a few orange lights.
Snow, falling everywhere, at this moment, high walls and low ground, tree trails, about all have its figure and footprints. It was close to the dry grass, leaves, and dirt on the earth, whispering and whispering love words that I could not understand. The difference between thousands of years, at this moment, is the evil fate of life, allowing them to be close to each other and pour out endless thoughts in their hearts.
People say that snow is dirty. But I firmly believe that snow is pure.
When I was a child, after the heavy snow, the north wind blew strongly, and my mother would carry a bucket of water, and together with the women of each family, go to find the snow edge in the leeward, dig the snow with a horse spoon, fill the filled bucket, take three steps and two slips, carry it back in an iron pot, and burn a handful of firewood to make the family. When the snow is all melted, there will be a thin layer of fine mud at the bottom of the pot.
It was not the filth of snow, but the suffering of the world.
Snowflakes are still fluttering. They touched the window frames and the glass, and did not cry out in pain, nor did they have a look of pain. Winter's pity and affection for snow is cold and cold, whether it is the north wind, the earth or the long sky.
There are so many snowflakes, and what I am fortunate to see is just a little bit of it, and my memory and cognition of snow all come from such a lump, like a porridge and a meal, nourishing my body and mind.
Before my son went to sleep, he whispered in my ear: "Tomorrow, I will get up early to build a snowman, and then go to school." His voice was so small that he was afraid of scaring away the snowflakes that had not yet arrived.
"When you're done, you'll take the snowman to school with you!" I said this, and he grinned. When he fell asleep, when I got up and got out of bed, there were still traces of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
In the winter when he was three and a half years old, there was a heavy snow, and we made a little snowman in the garden downstairs. When he put his nose on the snowman with his frozen red hands, he stood in the snow, and the milky laughter echoed between the buildings, as if he could melt all winter.
Later, every winter, he longed for the arrival of snow, just like he longed for Christmas gifts, longing to have a lucky mallet, knocking out the golden pig cake and yokan cake, knocking out an inch of mage, and growing tall in the blink of an eye.
Half a month ago, the first snow of this winter fell in the capital, and everything in heaven and earth was white. We took him to Orson Park, where the golden sun probing his head in the southeast corner of the sky was just a dot.
In the park, adults and children, the garden is full of sparse loose cloth, sometimes there is a noise and shouting, all kinds of cotton clothes and down jackets, can not hide the joy of the snow on everyone's face. There are already snowmen with neat eyebrows on the side of the road, waving and smiling at people.
On the snow, there are occasional strings of footprints, zigzagging into the distance. The white snow reflects the sunlight and illuminates the shade of the trees in the backlight. The snow on the branches, clumps, clusters, blooming to the fullest, far away, it seems that you can smell the fragrance of a wisp of snow, ruomei chrysanthemum, ruozhu orchid.
The snow on the tall branches, unable to bear the burden of the sun, "poof" from time to time, hit the snow, turned into many small eyes, and looked straight at the sky. That's where they came from, but at the moment, it's a vast expanse of blue.
The son ran and ran in the snow, shouting, shouting, like a caged bird returning to the forest. In the garden, he is one of the birds of the forest.
When the excitement was almost released, he ran over and took my hand and said, "Daddy, let's build a little train, okay?" ”
"Don't build a snowman this time?"
"Next time I'll pile it up. Today I want to pile up the 'Polar Express'. ”
He carefully explored the terrain in the snow and began to roll snow. The snow was like a mille-feuille cake, with dry grass and brown leaves, wrapped in it, and he was so tired that his face was purple, and he asked me from time to time if I was big enough.
Locomotive one, coal carriage one, passenger car five, guard carriage one.
The rough blanks had been put in place, and under a large willow tree we looked for a stone chip as a knife, scraped the snow into shape, found thick branches, folded them into sections, connected the carriages, and finally we used snow balls to build chimneys on the locomotive, and a "polar train" was completed.
The son took a few steps back, stood in the dappled snow, looked at the freshly baked train, nodded, and said that it was what he wanted.
In the process of making the little train, three or four families came one after another, stood not far away, watched us busy, talked a few words, and then walked away.
Each time, the son would guard against them with wary eyes. I snickered inside.
My hands were already cold and dark red, and my son said his gloves were soaking wet. But he refused to stop, crouching down in front of the carriage, cleaning up the dead leaves and grass roots so that they looked smoother and smoother, rather than a string of hedgehogs rushing forward.
His earnestness raced over a woman who was a new mother breastfeeding a baby, and over the weighing and awe of every step he had just learned to walk.
Then he wrote the number on the top of each carriage with the sharp corners of the stone pieces, and asked me to write "Polar Express". Stroke by stroke, with a sincere heart, solemnly.
After the decoration, he put the stone pieces on the guard car, looked at the sun in the forest, and asked me: "Daddy, will the sun sunburn our train?" ”
"Our Polar Express, going to the far North Pole, to meet Santa Claus, and many children, where the temperature is low, it is not easy to melt it off."
He smiled, and the sunlight on the snow reflected his smile was golden.
My wife called and urged us both to go to the playground to see her and her niece stock up the good snowman, and said that just now a few idle people had passed, intent on destroying the snowman, the snow dog, the snow bear... They stood by and let their snowmen escape.
I promised a few times and seized the time to take pictures of the child and the Polar Express. His expression was rarely calm and composed. He had something on his mind, but he wouldn't tell me. I don't ask either. Fathers who ask too many questions are annoying to their children.
We were about to leave the "Polar Express", after seven or eight steps, we both turned around together, and saw it under the oblique light of the sun in the forest, and the majestic, bubbling snow smoke, began to move forward in the forest, the sound of clicking, one after another...
"Dad, no one is going to spoil our 'express train', is it?" His heart finally came out.
"It's hard to say. Our train is so beautiful, no one can bear to destroy it. Relieved by this, we walked out two or three times until the train faded behind several large trees and snow slopes, and we could no longer see.
The son's face was filled with pity, worry, and reluctance.
For hand-completed objects, people will have a kind of cherishing in their hearts. Because in the production process, time, focus and enthusiasm are poured into it, as well as the exploration and imagination of the world.
For the objects that accompany them for a long time and give themselves happiness, warmth and protection, people will also retain the feelings of pity and cannot bear to discard them. This is true for adults and so are children. Every time the son went out, a wooden stick, a snail shell, a few stones, or a few leaves, he was regarded as a pearl in the palm of his hand, and he must take it home and place it in a corner where he thought it was appropriate. We waited until his emotions slowly shifted elsewhere before we dared to clean up.
Perhaps, building snowmen, building trains, and piling up everything that can be piled up are our most primitive emotional outpourings, the most important umbilical cords that we have a connection with the natural world.
White sparkling snowflakes cover the earth and decorate the imaginations and dreams of children and adults. At this moment, in my son's dream, are there any snowflakes fluttering?
I waited by the window in the middle of the night, waiting quietly and watching their arrival. At this moment, outside the window, the snow fell silently. But my heart is full and full.
When the snow comes, I rejoice; if it does not come, I have no regrets. Because the snow in the sky, the snow in winter, has always been in my heart, in the memory of my past few decades of life, enough to warm a lifetime.
【About the Author】Chu Guangchong, born in the 1970s, a native of Heicheng, Guyuan, Ningxia, is now teaching in Changping, Beijing. No ambition, no strength, only a green lamp, half a volume of idle books, chatting about the taste of life. He is a member of the Beijing Changping Writers Association and a contracted writer for cutting-edge prose. His essays have been published in Beijing Youth Daily, Yuanzhou, Bishu Bao, Shi shi, Changping Literature and Art, Changping Bao, Huluhe and other newspapers and magazines. More texts can be found on literary WeChat platforms such as "Cutting-edge Essays", "Qinglongshan Book Club", "Speechless Years", "Art Style Art" and "Qingmei Gossip".