Chapter 13 burn

The burnt man sat by the window, recalling bitterly how he was burned by the fire a few days ago, but he couldn't remember how the fire started or how the fire left those terrible marks on his face. Burnt.He only remembered that a poet friend came to visit that day, and they drank a bottle of white wine together.The poet friend is very good at drinking. Before leaving, he held the empty wine bottle to his lips, blew a beautiful and sad tune, and then recited one of his poems aloud. The poet just shook the empty wine bottle out the door.At that time, he was already too drunk, and he vaguely heard that the poem praised fire. He didn't know why the poet was passionate about things like fire, flames, and fire, what kind of shit poetry?He lay under the table and yelled to the poet's leaving back. He heard his own voice shrill and angry. He was already drunk at that time, and he didn't know how the burn happened.In the hospital, the doctor once asked him why he was burned, but he was speechless.

I don't know, he stroked the thick gauze on his face and said, I'm drunk and can't remember anything.how could be?The doctor looked at him and said that even if you are drunk, you will regain consciousness immediately when you are burned by fire, and you should remember how you were burned.Can't remember, I really don't remember.He shook his head in pain, the burns on his face were still sore and itchy after several days, which made him fidgety, hissed air from his mouth to relieve the pain, his eyes flickered dazedly under the gauze Fragile light, they look at the cauterization doctor begging for help, could it be poetry?Finally he asked the doctor a difficult question, perhaps a mysterious invisible fire?Is there such an invisible fire?Could it be that the fire of poetry burned my face?

What did you say?The doctor didn't seem to understand his question.I said it was poetry, and that day a poet friend recited a poem to me about fire.Burned by poetry?The doctor pondered for a while, and suddenly laughed loudly. He said, maybe it will, but I have never encountered such a case.Burned people are dissatisfied with such tacky answers from doctors. They are generally unimaginative and normative people. Why don't they believe in things that they haven't encountered before?Burned people therefore somewhat despise those doctors in the cautery department.For this reason, he left the hospital early and went home.The burnt man was sitting in front of the window, overlooking an open space surrounded by three apartment buildings downstairs. It was the clean and humid weather in early autumn. People living in the apartment buildings pushed their bicycles to go to work in the morning. It was gone, leaving an empty carport built with green glass tiles, no one, only a few old bicycles leaning against the iron railing or the corner of the wall.He saw that his old car had been covered with a layer of light gray dust, standing quietly in a rectangular shadow. The burned person suddenly felt that the world was extremely lonely, his bicycle was extremely lonely, and his heart was even more lonely.The alcoholic poet friend once told him why poetry has been around for thousands of years.

He said that if you are afraid of loneliness, the best way is to try to be a poet. Poetry has an extraordinary magic power, it makes you sleepwalk, it makes you float above the vulgar and dull life.The burnt man closed his eyes tightly and imagined sleepwalking and floating. He felt that his body still had a feeling of weakness and fatigue that he had lived in for a long time.Unable to float in the sky like a bird on a tall building, but the pain of the burn on his face was relieved a lot by imagination. Poetry burned me and relieved my pain?Do you feel the magic of poetry now?The burned man now regrets the bad words he said to his poet friend that day. I should not have portrayed poetry as bullshit. His heart is full of guilt and remorse for poetry and his poet friend.

On those autumn mornings, the burnt person stood in front of the mirror for a long time, observing his bare browbones and the two purple-brown scars on his face. He knew that the burned eyebrows would grow back slowly. Like the green grass sprouting again after the burning of the mountains, but two purple-brown scars will always remain on his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, as evidence of a mysterious burn accident.The scar reflected in the mirror took on an irregular shape that looked like a pool of gore spilled at will, or a map of some country, which made a terrible change in his pale and melancholy face, Now he finds himself in the mirror a little ugly and funny, and he thinks that when he walks on the street in the future, there will be no more peeping and affectionate eyes from girls.For him, after all, such losses are insignificant, and what is puzzling is the mysterious and unexplainable burning process.How would he explain the two scars on his face to others?Maybe just stick to the delirium and romance of being in the hospital, I'm burned by poetry, you know?I was burned by a poem about fire.It’s been a long time since he went out. He sat in front of the window, watching the sycamore trees in front of the apartment gradually soaked in autumn, the leaves began to fall with the wind, and the wires across the windows of each apartment were trembling slightly from morning to night. The beloved baby's breath spreads and grows crazily before the frost, and some branches have already opened the last sprouts in the air far away from the window sill. The days of living alone are extremely lonely, and he is looking forward to someone's visit every day; but occasionally when someone knocks on the door, He didn't want them in, he didn't want to talk to anyone about his adventure until he found out what had caused the burn, and he didn't want anyone to see those funny ugly purple scars again.A figure appeared in the empty space in front of the building. It was a boy holding a football. Boom, boom, boom, he started to kick the ball against the concrete wall, first with his left foot, then with his right foot, repeating over and over again .The sound of the ball bouncing against the concrete wall sounded mechanical and disturbing. The burnt man soon got tired of the sound. Looking down at the boy's agile and young back by the window, he finally shouted angrily, don't kick it. Yes, it's noisy.The boy hugged the football on the ground in surprise, looked up at him.He suddenly found that one of the boy's eyes was covered with a piece of gauze, and there were still traces of red medicine around it. It turned out that he was also an injured person. The burned person couldn't help smiling knowingly when he realized this.He suddenly regretted the roughness just now, so he hurriedly waved his hands down again, kick it, he rolled his hands into a trumpet shape and said to the boy, kick it, if you feel bored, keep kicking.

The boy downstairs looked at him suspiciously, muttering something, and soon his attention turned to the football.Bang, bang, bang, the boy started kicking the ball towards the concrete wall again, and the burnt man lay on the window sill and watched every gesture of the boy, raising his knees and kicking with the back of his feet instead of his toes.He couldn't help commanding, but the boy downstairs didn't seem willing to obey his coach. The boy was about eleven or twelve years old, and his skills were undoubtedly immature and rudimentary. The burned man screamed in vain, and he knew that his actions were just doing nothing. results, but it's a lot easier than sitting around thinking about poetry and burning.All morning, the bouncing sound of the boy kicking the ball echoed in the burned man's ears. It was the only sound of life he heard. At first he hated this noise, but now he somehow appreciates it.The burned man picked up a mask from the table and slowly put it on his face. He decided to go out of the house and play football with the little boy in the open space downstairs.

The sunlight outside hurt his eyes slightly, and he had to cover his forehead with his hand to approach the little boy.The little boy suddenly hugged the ball.He looked a bit panicked, with guard and hostility in his uninjured left eye.Put down the ball, I'll play with you.The burned man said he wanted to reach for the ball in the boy's hand, but the boy avoided it. No, the little boy shook his head, he quickly moved the ball behind his back, don't touch my ball.why not?I'm a good kicker, I can teach you how to kick, said the burned man.No.The little boy was still full of vigilance. He stared at the big mask on the burnt face, and suddenly laughed, why do you wear a mask?I was burned, and my face was burned so badly.The burned man patted the little boy on the head, and he said, what about you?Why is your right eye also wearing a mask?Let the students poke with a pencil.who?Which classmate poked you with a pencil?

Zhang Feng.Do you know Zhang Feng? do not know.The burnt person sighed softly at this time, he put his index finger into the mask and touched the scar inside, you know who poked your eyes, how good it is, he said to the little boy, you know Anyone can ask him to settle accounts.how about you?Did you go to fight the fire and get burned? Firefighting?I don't remember, I was drunk that day.I was told I was burned by poetry.you're lying.The little boy suddenly cried happily, you lied, how could poetry catch fire, how could it burn people? Maybe, maybe not, I haven't figured it out yet, I'll tell you when I figure it out.I was burned by something.The burnt man paid the price of a little pain for his smile, and his smile was completely hidden by the mask, and his one hand was always asking the boy for the children's football, give me the ball, let me play with you.He didn't expect that the little boy still rejected his request in the end.The little boy retreated to the corner hesitantly, his curious gaze now added new confusion and suspicion, you are a liar, I will not play with you.The little boy screamed suddenly and ran towards another doorway. He stopped at the stairs, turned his head and glanced at the strange man.You are a liar, I won't play with you, the little boy shook the football in his hand, and then spat at the strange man.The burnt man stood numbly on the open space in front of the building, his heart was full of inarticulate sadness and anger, he knew he shouldn't get angry with an immature and ignorant child, but when the boy's back disappeared from his sight, he Really feel a deep despair.Is this the despair his poet friend portrayed in his poetry?Despair at the end of the century?That's how he remembered the poems portraying despair.The burnt man left the open space with his head hanging down. He was depressed now, but many sad and moving lines appeared in his consciousness. He once despised and laughed at every line of his poet friend.But now he was moved by them, and suddenly countless lines were buzzing like bees in his mind, and for the first time in his life he experienced the impulse of poetry.The world is lonely, and I am lonelier than the world.The burnt man walked toward his house, reciting his first little poem.The poet friend left the city on a rainy night and has not been heard from since.The burned man once tried to find his whereabouts. He wore a mask and went to the poet's friend's house to knock on the door. The poet's mother questioned him for a long time through the security door, and finally replied in a vicious voice, I don't know his whereabouts, I hate You idle youths.The burnt person pushed hard against the door that was about to close. He wanted to explain something, but he couldn't find the exact expression language for a while, he just kept muttering, I was burned, I want to ask him how he responded thing.The poet's mother sternly said from inside, here comes another lunatic, don't you know how you got burned?Why do you still have to ask others?The burned person said that I was drunk that day.At this time, the door of the poet's house finally slammed, almost pinching his hand, and he heard the poet's mother shouting through the two doors, then go ahead and drink.Go drink and leave me alone.It was a weekend night.The lights on the streets of the city flickered, and the night sky was filled with a jumble of indistinguishable sounds of joy. The burnt man stood at the crossroads, listening to the sound of joy, trying to judge whether it was beautiful music or an abominable noise. .Some people pass the intersection with noise or silence, and pass him by. No one pays attention to the big unsuitable mask on his face, but he still has a sense of loneliness and isolation. He has not walked alone on the street for a long time. He felt it, and he wondered if those passers-by would look at him in astonishment and disgust once the mask on his face was removed.Everything in the city is still the same, people are like fish swarming through life in an orderly manner, only his fate will irreversibly go to an unfathomable space.No one would believe that a mysterious fire burned his face and his whole life, but here he stands, at the crossroads of the city, his mask and the scar behind it, and the growing The clearer the crackling of the flames passing through the skin, everything foretells that he will become a person who is out of tune with the world.

Burned people were often seen later on the lawns of Riverside Park.That is the place where the poets of this city meet. In the golden age of popular poetry, it used to be as lively and lively as a market, but now for some reason, the riverside park has become deserted and depressed. A group of white-haired old people gather every morning Practicing a kind of fitness technique called Xianggong on the lawn, around dusk other young people came, they were few in number, carrying a newly published collection of poems and their own recent works with them, these were the last few remaining in the city poet.One day they were pleasantly surprised to find a strange young man wearing a mask sitting on the lawn, holding a few pages of poems in his hands, his clear and melancholy eyes full of longing and dependence, waiting for the poets to walk over, when they approached When he was sitting together, the young man wearing a mask recited his poems in an urgent and loud voice.

The fire that burns my cheeks it comes from invisible spaces I can't see the fire that burns my cheeks I only hear the sound of fire I can't see the fire but I see my burned face lonelier than this world That poem was "Burn" which was later widely recited by poets.And the burnt man has since stepped into the ranks of the last batch of poets in this city.He gave himself a pseudonym Fire Bird with rich meanings.People who love poetry think that Firebird's poems are full of despair at the end of the century, mysterious, introspective and sad. People have heard the story of the poet Firebird being mysteriously burned, and there are always people who question it. People who knew the poet Huo Niao said that it was true, Huo Niao is still wearing a mask.

Two years later, a bright autumn day.A visitor came to the house of the poet Firebird.That was the poet friend he met first and then suddenly disappeared. The poet friend brought him many gifts, including an envelope full of money.Firebird felt puzzled by the envelope. This is your compensation.The poet friend stared at the two purple scars on Firebird's face with an ambiguous expression.He said, have you forgotten that time when I was drunk and put you on the gas stove?The poet Huo Niao woke up from a dream, subconsciously covered his cheeks with both hands, and almost panicked, he asked the guest with a suspicious and hostile look, gas stove?You're talking nonsense, why can't I remember anything?You're drunk, and I'm a little drunk, too.You called my poem bullshit, and I dragged you to the gas stove, took the kettle and let the fire burn your face, and you were so drunk that you didn't resist at all.It's that simple?Is it the fire on the gas stove? It's a gas stove.I woke up sober that day and was startled. I was afraid of killing people, so I slipped on the train and left the next day.Later I heard that you put on a big mask and that you became a poet, ha, a poet!The poet friend suddenly laughed happily when he said this. It's funny to think about it. I'm a businessman now, but you're a poet.The poet Firebird also wants to laugh, but he has almost forgotten how to laugh in the past two years. On the one hand, because the burned skin on his cheeks is taboo for any violent expressions, on the other hand, he is restricted by his role as a poet. , so when a mysterious mystery was solved in a few words, what came out of his throat was only a deep sound like a sigh.Two long-lost friends are sitting in front of the apartment window drinking.Outside the window is the late autumn with yellow leaves falling. The cold twilight is spreading over the city and people’s heads layer by layer, gradually condensing into a large piece of darkness. Lights rise from nearby or distant windows, just like poetry from human beings. Rising from the mediocrity of life, it is beautiful and dazzling.The two friends looked at the lights of thousands of houses after dusk from different angles, and their discussion on poetry finally came to an abrupt end.But do you think there is any connection between burns and poetry?The poet Firebird finally confided a deep question to his friend.Obviously the friend was caught off guard by this, he used the cover of night to avoid the melancholy and anxious eyes of the fire bird, he said, I have earned a lot of money in the past two years.