Chapter 48 canal

Until now, when I talk about Yanzao or others, I always use "he".In Maqiao, there is also "qu" which is synonymous with "he".The only difference is that "he" is the person in the distance, which is equivalent to him; "qu" is the person in front of him, and the person nearby is equivalent to this him.Maqiao people find it inconceivable that outsiders can't tell the difference between "qu" and "he" in Mandarin, which is really ridiculous. They also have some jokes: for example, "his father, his son", is a ridiculous expression of arrogance when describing a humble person before others—at this time, although "he" and "qu" refer to the same thing, they are completely different in nature. They must not be confused.

The ancients also used "canal" to refer to people. There is a saying in "Three Kingdoms" that "the son-in-law came yesterday, it must have been stolen by Qu".The ancients often used this word when writing poems: "Ask where the canal is so clear, only the source of running water"; The near meaning of "qu".I have always secretly felt that deliberately and stubbornly distinguishing the spatial position of others in language may be purely a meddling of Maqiao people, and there is no need for it. So far, Mandarin Chinese, English, French, Russian, etc., which people think are completely sufficient, do not make this distinction.

Many years later, when I went to Maqiao again, I heard the word "qu" again and again, and saw faces familiar or unfamiliar—qu.I haven't seen Yanzao as a "qu".I remembered that he often helped me pick firewood back then, and was teased by us many times, such as stealing his pesticides by taking advantage of his unsuspecting, mixing millet to poison field mice, chickens and ducks, or simply getting a refund from the supply and marketing cooperative. The money was exchanged for flour to eat, which caused him to bear a lot of scapegoats and was scolded by the village cadres.

I especially remember how anxious he was, his face was flushed, the veins on his forehead were protruding, he was furious when he saw everyone, and he yelled at us viciously, expressing his suspicion that we were suspected of committing the crime.But this kind of anger did not prevent him from picking firewood or other things for us later.As long as we saw his shoulders were empty, smiled, and gestured, he still grunted and walked towards the weight. I did not find him.The villagers said that someone in Longjiatan called him to help.As for his home, there is no need to go, and it is absolutely impossible to go.His mother-in-law was so awake that she didn't even know how to cook. She was gathering crops in the field, and then she sat in the mud with her big buttocks. That's the kind of person she was.

I went anyway, and walked towards the dark door under the giggling and sniggering of the people.I saw several gourds containing seeds hanging on the wall, and many hideous dried snake skins, like colorful tapestry.I saw that the housewife was really unkempt, with a big head, and the food she ate seemed to have grown this head, and there was a conspicuous scar on her forehead, which I don't know how it stayed.She doesn't laugh when she should laugh, and suddenly laughs when she shouldn't. The affection like an old acquaintance makes me a little weird.She brought a bowl of tea, not to mention drinking it, just looking at it, the greasy black stain on the edge of the bowl made me sick for a long time.With such a housewife, the land at home is definitely not level, and it is more rugged than the land outside. If you are not careful when walking, you may sprain your ankle.Clothes of various colors have actually become one color, a kind of muddled gray, piled up in a mess on the bed.The housewife suddenly dragged something out of it, which startled me.That thing actually has a nose and eyes, it's a baby.Unexpectedly, he didn't snort all the time, and he didn't wake up from the laughter just now, even though three or two flies crawled on his face with his eyes closed.

I almost suspected that he was a dead baby - the housewife just used it for show? I hastily handed her twenty dollars. This is of course a bit stingy and a bit hypocritical.I could have come up with thirty, forty, fifty or more, but I didn't.It is enough to send twenty yuan, which is a trade-off and calculation that I did not express clearly.What do you do with twenty dollars?Rather than sympathizing with Yanzao, it is better to pay for some of my longing, to redeem some of my guilt, to buy peace and satisfaction in my heart, and to buy back my sense of nobility.I thought that twenty bucks could make me hum a song quickly, make myself snap a camera quickly, and get out of this disgusting crappy house right away and escape into the sunshine and birdsong, which is really cheap.I think twenty yuan can make my future memories full of poetry and rosy brilliance, which is really cheap.

I put down the teacup as it was, and left. At night, I stayed in the guest room of the township government.Someone knocked on my door and opened it. There was no one outside the dark hole, only a log stabbed straight into the room.I finally saw it clearly, and then came in Yanzao, thinner than before, every joint in my body was sharp, and my whole body was a strange combination of many sharp angles.In particular, one round of throat sticks out sharply, as if it is about to cut the neck.When he laughed, his mouth was more red than white, and all his thick gums were exposed when he opened his mouth.

Before his shoulders were idle, he actually carried a log for more than ten miles. He had obviously come after me to see me.Judging from his gestures, he wants to give me this log to repay my sympathy and concern for him.He probably couldn't find anything more valuable in his house. He was still unaccustomed to speaking, and occasionally uttered a few short syllables, which were a bit slurred.More often than not, he just nodded or shook his head in response to my questions and kept the conversation going.I later learned that this was not an obstacle to our conversation, even if he wasn't dumb, we couldn't find anything to talk about.I don't know what to say except to excuse the weather and this year's harvest, and to say no to this barrel of wood that I can't take away. Many expressions.He was silent, which made me feel more and more redundant.I had nothing to say, so I said you went to Longjiatan today, that I had been to your house today, that I saw Fucha and Zhongqi today, and so on.I use these meaningless nonsense to connect the silence into conversation.

Fortunately, there is a black and white TV in the guest room, playing an old martial arts movie.I looked excited, and looked at the warriors, ladies, and old monks' fists and embroidered legs time and time again, to show that my silence was justifiable. Fortunately, a strange baby with a snotty nose came in a few times, so I had something to do, ask his name, move a stool for him, talk to a woman behind him about the age of the child, There is family planning in the countryside. It's almost half an hour.In other words, at least the time target for a reunion and reminiscence has been reached, and we can break up.Half an hour is not ten minutes, not five minutes.Half an hour is not too hasty, not too perfunctory, with it, we will have friends in our memories, and will not appear too empty and indifferent.I finally resisted the inexplicable grassy smell on Yanzao's body—the smell that comes out when a new bamboo is broken. After this difficult and long time, I am about to succeed.

He got up to leave, and under my strong request, he carried the heavy wood again, and kept making a "hehe" sound at me, as if he was about to vomit.I'm sure he had a lot to say, but all of it had this vomit taste. He went out, a tear suddenly flashed from the corner of his eye. The sound of footsteps in the night gradually faded away. I saw that teardrop.No matter how dark it was, that teardrop was so deeply embedded in my memory that I couldn't erase it with a single shut-eye.It was a golden highlight.When I secretly breathed a sigh of relief, when I removed the stiff smile on my face, I couldn't forget it.I have no sense of relief.I can't forget it while watching martial arts movies on TV.I can't forget it when I call a basin of hot water to wash my feet.I couldn't forget it while squeezing into the coach and yelling at a big fat guy in front of me.I can't forget it when I buy a newspaper.I can't forget it when I go to the wet market with an umbrella to breathe the fish.I couldn't forget it when two elites in the intellectual circles pressured me to participate in the compilation of traffic law textbooks and bribed the director of the Public Security Bureau to obtain compulsory distribution rights.I can't forget when I wake up.

There were no footsteps in the night. I know this teardrop belongs only to the distance.People from far away, separated by time and space, often become kind, moving and beautiful under the filter of memory, and become colorful phantoms haunted by our dreams and souls.Once they approach, once they become the "canal" in front of them, the situation is very different.They are likely to become a dull and dull stranger, surrounded by completely different experiences, completely different interests and discourses, impenetrable and impenetrable, and I have nothing to say-just as I may be with them. The eyes are beyond recognition, insulated from their memories. I wanted to find him, but I could only find him.I can't run away from him, and I can't forget him. The language of Maqiao wisely distinguishes between "he" and "qu", indicating the huge difference between the far and the near, the huge difference between the fact and the description, and the huge difference between the outside fact and the on-site fact.I saw clearly that night, between these two words, when the strange combination of multiple acute angles carried the wood step by step from "canal" to "he", there was a wordless star teardrop.