Chapter 10 10. Short notes under the wall

Some things that seemed unimportant at the time took root in memory for a long time.They have always slept there peacefully, waking up occasionally, opening their eyes to see you are busy (promoting or retiring from the world) and falling asleep again.For many years they were as light as if they were not there.I missed thousands of chances, and finally I saw them again one day. I saw that time has worn away many so-called life events, and they stuck there unswervingly, with an incomparable weight.For example, an old photo was taken carelessly, and it was placed where it was, and I didn’t even remember it for many years, but suddenly I came across it when tidying up old things one day, brushed off the dust, and felt that it was your origin and yours Going to defection, and taking photos of many serious things, but I have forgotten where and why.

In recent years, I often remember a wall built of broken bricks, and the wind can blow off the fine soil between the bricks.The wall was very long, at least to a young boy, it turned a corner and turned into a narrower alley.There is a street lamp at the corner of the alley, and next to it is a courtyard gate, where a classmate and friend of mine lived in my youth.Let's call him L. Whether L and I can be friends forever is not important, what is important is that we were inseparable once, and a part of my life was paved by this friendship.In the dense alleys, we walked together on the way to and from school, winter or summer, the sound of the wind or the singing of cicadas, the sun to the starry sky, ten or nine-year-old L once told me that he would marry a girl in his class in the future (M ) to be a wife. L turned around and asked me: "What about you? Who do you want to be with?" I was unprepared, and after thinking about it, I felt that M was indeed pretty. L said he still had to earn a lot of money. "What are you doing?" "Nonsense, you still spent your father's money back then?" The friendship between teenagers, I think, is nothing more than our guesswork and defenselessness back then.

I once gave L a treasured item.What it was, I can't remember.But one day we had a fight, and I can’t remember why we fought, but what I never forgot was: After the fight, I went to L and asked for that thing back. The teacher said that I would not dare to ask for it alone, or I would not think of asking for it.It was a few partners who were also dissatisfied with L at the time pointing out and encouraging me, and they said that they were willing to go with me to get it back, so they went.Walking past that long and familiar wall, the setting sun was shining brightly on it, but in my impression, when I walked to the courtyard gate of L’s house, the street lights at the corner of the alley were already dimly lit.It can't be such a long wall, it can only be the fault of memory.

Standing in front of that door, I was a little scared, and the partners beside me tried their best to mobilize and encourage me, reminding me: If you turn around and retreat, it is even more despicable than surrender.I can't pass the blame on to others: After fighting with L, why should I tell others about giving L something?Both pointing and prodding occur accordingly.I went into the courtyard and called L. L came out, listened to my explanation, stared at me blankly for a while, then went back to the room, handed the thing out to me, walked back to the room without saying anything.The ending is always very simple, and it's all over with a click.

A few of my companions and I parted ways under the street lamp at the corner of the alley, and went home separately.They looked at the thing in my hand, and at any rate said, "What are you doing for him?" Their tone and expression were lost, and their disappointment or even frustration was not due to that thing. I went home alone and walked close to the wall.The wall is very long, very long and desolate, and the memory has gone wrong here again, as if it was the time when the street lights were not on and the pedestrians facing me couldn't see clearly.The evening wind was so gentle that no one could complain, but the soul seemed to be blown away by it, away from the body, floated up in the dusk, and then disappeared into the wall.Picking up a tree branch, scratching lightly on the wall while walking, the fine soil between the brick joints is flowing down one by one... What is sent away with a click is rooted in memory to brew future problems.

That was probably my first impression of the wall. Then, other walls woke up from their sleep. One evening "walking", I walked into an alley where I used to play in my childhood in a wheelchair.In fact, I have always been not far from them, and I have walked around them many times, so I was in such a hurry that I had no time to go in and have a look. I remember that there used to be a short red brick wall. We, a group of eight or nine-year-old children, always went to disturb the peace of the family inside the wall, climbed up a small tree, and begged them to throw our football out by grabbing the edge of the wall.That wall should be said to be very hidden, in a dead-end alley, but unfortunately the width of the alley is suitable for our goal, and the open space outside the alley is our court, and the ball will inevitably be kicked towards the goal. If Linmen kicked it flying, nine out of ten it would land in that wall.We begged for all kinds of guarantees, worrying that the sun will dim from time to time, and the "ball addiction" will suffer another night.Finally one day, the soccer ball was thrown into the noodle pot on the wall exactly like a basketball, and when a group of children climbed up the small tree to watch it, the snow-white noodles were steaming hot and rolled into the coal ash.It was the so-called "three-year difficult period", when football matters were minor, we took advantage of the twilight to flee.A few days later, led by our parents, we got the football back at the cost of closing the "court".

The alley is still the same, or even older.Not much has changed.Only that piece of "court" has long been crushed under a restaurant.The people inside the short red brick wall are much safer. I was walking through the streets and alleys in a wheelchair, and suddenly another blue-gray wall made my heart skip a beat. I knew that my kindergarten would be there any further.The blue-gray walls are tall, and there are taller trees inside.There used to be a bird's nest on the top of the tree, but it's gone now.To get to the kindergarten, you have to pass under this wall. Once you see this wall, your hope of going back home will be wiped out.

This "conditioned reflex" was established on a midsummer afternoon, so I remember it clearly because the cicadas were the loudest at that time.That afternoon, my mother was going on a business trip to a faraway place.My highest hope is that she might change her mind, and my lowest hope is that I can skip kindergarten and stay home with my grandma.However, both proposals were rejected, and it is said that crying and striving did not work.Now that I think about it, my mother wanted to set strict discipline for me before the trip.The crying continued, and my mother said helplessly that she would take me out for a walk. "Not going to kindergarten!" I reiterated my position when I went out.My mother led me on the street, and bought me some delicious things along the way. Although the form was suspicious, but after walking for so long, it didn’t look like the way to kindergarten. She let go of the hands that tightly held her long skirt, My heart is also slightly relaxed.But!As soon as the delicious food tasted in my mouth, the blue-gray high wall came head-on, and I realized that all the paths are connected.Although crying immediately, it is expected to be of no avail.But as soon as he stepped into the threshold of the kindergarten, the crying stopped on his own, and he knew in his heart that he had no support, and the only way to be saved was to behave like a good child.Inside the walls of the kindergarten, there is a kind of "disaster" that must be avoided, or it is just because this child is naturally timid and sad.

I moved house three years ago, and across the window is a kindergarten, and I often hear the howling of children before entering the kindergarten when I am lazy in the morning.I went to see the gate of the garden on purpose. The children who resisted entering the garden were as brave as they would rather die than surrender, but they swallowed their cries as soon as they fell into the garden wall, fear turned into grievances, looked at the sky with tearful eyes, and held on to the expectation of the sunset .Not necessarily anyone sympathizes with them more than me, but it is not a bad thing to have a little feeling for the wall early.

I remember the scene of my mother disappearing into the blue-gray high wall most.Of course she walked the long distance around the wall, but in my impression, she went into the wall.There is no door, but my mother walked in. Inside, the cicadas were singing loudly on the tall trees, and the figure of my mother was very small under the tall trees. In my fear, there was a distant place. Now I spend a lot of time sitting in front of the window, watching the tall buildings and low walls lined with cliffs far and near.Where there are people, there must be walls.We are all inside the wall.There isn't much that you can safely do in broad daylight.

The neat high-rise buildings remind people of the catalog cabinets in the library. Only God can open every small drawer, consult the secret history of hundreds of millions of souls, and see the dreams that come out of the broken wall wandering in the wall's enclosure.And the god of death came as scheduled, reached in, and took a few away like a lottery. Sometimes we travel thousands of miles—cars, trains, planes, don’t fall down—just to find a place where there is no wall: wasteland, sea, forest or even desert.But it may not be possible to escape.The wall is permanently in your heart, building fear and affecting thoughts.For example, when you go all the way, Robinson Robinson is coming back all the way.A "boomerang" starts from the wall and returns to the wall. Philosophers first said that labor created man, and now they say that language creates man.Did the wall create man?Language and walls have a fundamental similarity: before endless doors are endless walls.Structure, deconstruction, post-doctrine... La la la, la la la... The enthusiasm for games is indispensable, but we are still surrounded by four walls.The desire to tear down all walls has existed since ancient times.Can't you?I sat by the window and spent a lot of time fantasizing about a kind of magic, such as "la la la, la la la..." I chanted a spell very effectively, and the wall disappeared with a swish.how?It is expected that everyone will be in a panic (like hot oil pouring on an ant's nest), those who are going don't know where they are going, and those who are doing it forget what they are doing, and go hunting and sleeping all over the mountains and plains?After all, it's not interesting enough.Then everyone buried their heads and pondered, and they still wanted to build walls.Building walls and building houses is not only for sheltering from the wind and rain, because everyone has some secrets, and of course there is also some money.Secret, if you don’t believe me, think about it slowly, it’s an interesting parent. In fact, the secret is already a wall.Belly and eyelids are walls, fake smiles and fake cries are all walls, only because such walls are too soft and tired, so we need to get some solid and durable ones.Suppose the wall of the soul can be easily removed, but mountains and water are walls, heaven and earth are walls, time and space are walls, fate is an infinite limit, God’s secret is an endless wall, and everything God has is infinite. It may be the wisdom of building walls.If all the walls are really demolished, although it seems that the long-standing ideal is close to being realized, just wait and see, the whole world is afraid that it will be reminded of sleepy snoring because of losing interest, and I don’t know where to start the sleepy talk. Taste is important and important.Secrets should be kept well. The desire to explore the mystery will finally penetrate the wall of meaning. No amount of doctrine can overthrow this cliché that life must be meaningful.Adding the word "after" is also useless.For example, love, she can be abducted by material desire for a while, but it is not believed that she can be extinct because of this. The days of "nothing is a big deal" are coming to an end, and the dance steps of "nevermind anything" may hit the wall "smartly".If you hit the wall without dying, the second step is to look up. At that time, you saw a writing on the wall, which read: Where are you going, buddy? What the hell are you going to do?So I couldn't hide, and the meaning came to the door, the demeanor of the creditor. The cause of meaning may well be meaning itself.Why should it make sense?Why have life?Why exist?Why should there be?The cause of the weight is the gravitational force, what about the gravitational force?Weight again.Those who study physics tell us: don't separate motion from energy and time and space to understand.Immediately, I was inspired: don't separate people from meaning to understand.It is not that people have desires, but that people are desires.This desire is energy, and if it is energy, it is movement, and if it is movement, it must go to the front or the future.What are the future and the future and why?The question of what must come gives birth to meaning, and God created man on the seventh day.God is more powerful than Mephistopheles and no magic and spells can remove the achievement of the seventh day.All the time after the seventh day, you can escape a certain meaning, but you cannot escape the meaning, just as you can escape a journey but you cannot escape the journey of life. You are not in this sense, in that sense.It means nothing, just falling into what Kundera called "the unbearable lightness of being".What are you?What is life?Too light to weigh and you're about to disappear.I asked L to get that thing back. The confusion on the way home was indescribable because I was young. Now that I think about it, it was clearly because of the word "light": the treasure was disposed of in a blink of an eye, and a life was so light that it was gone. , What I thought was nothing, turned out to be nothing, easy, simple, and wiped out.The lightness of a period of life threatens the overall weight of life, and the confusion seeps into the soul: Will all the sections of life end up like this?People's fundamental fear lies in the word "light", such as discrimination and indifference, such as ridicule, such as invalid stocks in the hands of the poor, such as broken love and death.Light and most terrifying. To ask for meaning is to ask for the weight of life.Various weights.Various weights are actually measured when hitting the wall.But the weight of many lives is still light on the scales of death, and the weights are balanced on the absurd crosshairs.So there has to be a weight for which you are willing to live and die, to be tired by it, to spend your life under its gravitational pull.It's not a strong statement that you don't regret it, it's a sober obedience.Sacredness is God's measurement of the soul, the confirmed weight of the soul.There is a ceremony when death comes, ashes and soil are good, you can see that the past is slowly evaporating, but you can hear that something is still there.Unexpectedly, it is still in reality, but I hope it is still in a beautiful position.Can the friendship between me and L still have a heavy weight in the beautiful position? Don't extinguish the desire to break through the wall, or the snoring will start again. But accept the wall. In order to escape the wall, I once went under a wall.There is a deserted ancient garden near my house, the walls are broken but still strong, and I walked to it in a wheelchair in those years when I was lost.There is no one around, the silence is long, between the silent me and the silent wall, grievances swell and bloom.I beat the wall with my fist, hacked it with stones, wept and murmured curses at it, but it dropped a little dust and it didn't budge.The sky does not change and the way does not change.The old cypress tree stretches its branches and leaves for a thousand years, clouds walk in the sky, birds fly in the clouds, the wind tramples on the grass, and the weeds take root from generation to generation.I prayed to the wall instead, clasped my hands together, created a kind of prayer or prophecy, said it aloud, begged it to die for me, or give me back my legs to walk...but opened my eyes, the great wall is still great Standing tall, sitting under the wall is a person who is not bothered by the gods.When the empty sunset comes to the garden, if you fall into a drowsy sleep, you will often fall into a dry well in your dreams. The walls of the well are high and slippery. The shouts are just buzzing and colliding in the well. No one can hear it, and the wind on the well mouth is still there It is a silent grievance.Wake up from the shouting and see if he is still alive. The shouting didn’t disturb anyone, and it can’t disturb anything. There are green and dry mosses on the wall, and there are delicate webs of spiders. A snail that died halfway dragged a line of scales behind it. footprints, 3.1415926 written down by an unknown boy over and over again... Under this wall, one winter night, I saw an old man.There is always some trouble between memory and impression: memory tells me that it may not be under this wall, but impression always moves the old man in memory under this wall, saying that it is here. ...After the snow, the moonlight is hazy, and the wheels creaking and rolling the snowy road are the only sounds in the garden.Walking like this, I heard a long and deep flute sound coming from afar, which seemed to be absent in the snow and mist shaking the old cypress tree. Before I could recognize the tune, I felt that its long and deep sound just touched my mood .He held his breath and heard it was "Su Wu Shepherd".At the end of the song, just feeling a little sad in my heart, I suddenly felt a movement in the shadow of the wall, only to find an old man sitting cross-legged on a stone bench under the wall, with black clothes and white hair, a little mysterious.The snow and moonlight are so quiet that it seems extraordinary.The bamboo flute rang again, it was still the chant of exiling the Jedi, mourning but not dying.It turned out that the sound of the flute didn't come from far away, it was just near the old man's lips.Maybe it's because of lack of strength, or maybe it's been a rough journey for this ancient song, the sound of the flute is intermittent but not high-pitched, and the trembling sound of the old man's breathing can also be heard.After the song was finished, the old man put the flute lightly on his lap, and spread his hands on his knees, so he couldn't see if he closed his eyes.I was amazed and grateful, listening to the emptiness where the sound of the flute was interrupted over and over again, thinking that it was an oracle or a god leading me. The sound of the flute and the old man that night have been in my heart for many years, but I can't figure out where it leads.Just keeping me alive doesn't have to be so mysterious.It wasn't until one day that I talked to the wall again that I realized that the sound of the night flute was singing "acceptance", accepting restrictions.Accept disability.Accept suffering.Accept the existence of the wall.Crying and shouting are all ways to escape from it, anger and scolding are both ways to escape from it, compliments and kneeling are still ways to escape from it.During the years when I lost my soul, I often went to talk to that wall. Yes, I said it aloud. I thought it would be more pious or solemn. , The so-called soft and hard.But it didn't work, the negotiation was bound to break down, and it refused to agree to all my conditions.The wall wants you to accept it, just repeating this meaning, neither humble nor overbearing, until you listen.A conversation isn't a conversation until instead of you asking it more, it asks you more. I have been writing, but I have always felt that I can't write anything, whether it is a work, a writer or a doctrine.Using a pen and using a computer are both conversations against the wall, and they must be done like eating, drinking, and sleeping.I finally moved away from that ancient garden, so I can’t go there casually. Before that, I expected how much I would miss it, but what I miss the most is the walls standing on all sides; no one cares about it for a long time, I remember the ruined tiles on the wall A few small trees grew up between them.But no matter when and where, as soon as you close your eyes, you will be under the wall immediately.Between the silent wall and the silent me, wildflowers swell with buds, endless roads stretch between the endless walls, there are many things to talk to it slowly, and writing down is called writing. October 1994