Chapter 3 a river

a river The house is connected to a dark long alley.The alley is separated by two large wooden doors, forming a world of its own, protecting the secret life in the house.Outside the wooden gate is a road running from east to west, and there used to be a big river on the south side of the road.I don't know the history of this river, and I have never seen it. It was probably filled up before I was born, and no one talks about it, but I often imagine what it was like in the old days: the river criss-crosses, and the houses Live by the water, open the back door, go down the stone steps, wash rice, wash vegetables, and wash clothes in the water. The air is filled with the light fishy smell of floating water plants. Boats come and go, people are buzzing, and the life of the small town in the south on both sides of the strait is melodiously laid out like an ink painting scroll. ...just all the sounds and smells and shapes of the river, lost and gone.Only its name remains.The adjacent road is named after the river.

On top of the filled river, a vegetable market, a movie theater, and a stage dedicated to performing dramas were built, making it a crowded and noisy place.When people are free, they watch a movie or a play, and after the show, eat a bowl of steaming small wontons with fresh green onions floating in the wonton shop, and they feel happy.Southerners always have an extraordinarily thick sense of joy in secular life.They are prone to deliberately neglect all the shadowy aspects of life, and ignore the wandering of fate.It is a very tenacious attitude towards life. There are huge sycamores planted on both sides of the road. The trunks are thick and thick, and many children can only hug them when they stretch their arms. The shade of the trees is covered with dark green branches and leaves.Strong weeds grow in the cracks of the stone pavement, and flocks of sparrows rise and fall.Children’s childhood must be related to big trees, playing hide-and-seek on the side of the courtyard road, tying rubber bands to jump games, looking for earthworms and ants in the soil under the trees, catching crickets, and occasionally catching big praying mantises and scarabs. Little insects are exciting.The sycamore tree at night has another kind of coolness and silence under the moonlight. When talking to people under the tree, the voice will be different from that in the daytime.It is a kind of secret to write the words in your heart with your fingers on the rough bark.

In summer, people in the yard move the table to the sidewalk beside the road, first pour clean water to sweep away the dust, then set up a simple table under the tree, and put a plate of fried vegetables: snails, sea melon seeds, razor clams, mussels, dried prunes Vegetable river shrimp soup, salted duck eggs cut in half.While enjoying the cool, drinking and chatting loudly, I am determined to finish this open-air dinner leisurely.In the middle of the night, there are still people lying on rattan benches to rest, with cool dew hanging from the branches.After the typhoon passed through, the streets were lined with tree branches that were blown off by the wind, and the broken branches gave off a spicy fragrance.Every year someone comes to trim the branches, spray them with potions, and take good care of them.The space built together by people and trees is closely related and inseparable.