Chapter 30 short story night interview

"Everyone is mortal, and when you die, you have nothing." My father said to me before he was alive, "As for what kind of plans you had when you were alive, who can figure it out?" He raised his head in the air, with an almost despicable expression on his face. I remember that when I heard this, I rolled my eyes and stared at him a few times, and sneered twice in my heart.And he walked around the room a few times wearing old-fashioned cowhide shoes, and the leather shoes smelled of sweaty nylon stockings.The smell permeated the room all summer—he never opened the windows.

My father lives in a room at the end of the house, and he passes all of us on his way out, but we don't have to pass his.I visit him about once a month.Usually he always closes the door and gets busy like a mouse in his pile of old books.When I knocked on his door, he came out in a panic, hiding traces of the work he was doing, leading me around a mess of books, and set me down on a chair under the window. .The chair was an old product, with a yellowed reed flower cushion on it. The inside of the cushion was uneven, and it was a bit awkward to sit on.When he was talking to me, he blocked my sight with his broad body, maybe he was afraid that I would look at the work he was doing.

I had always seen my father as an old man with nothing to do, a being lingering in a dark room, as did my family and neighbors.Because he has been retired for many years, it can be said that he has withdrawn from life a long time ago, and people usually don't think of him very much.Yes, he is a bit eccentric, he likes to stay in the room and never come out, this is not a disease, as old people always have to go to extremes. It was the day when I went to see my father again.I was a little worried, because he ate very little these days, and his energy was not very good. He was always angry and scolded people at the dinner table for no reason, which made the whole family baffled.There was no expression on his thin face when he opened the door.I glanced into the room and saw that the books were all covered with an old cloth, and the old chair in front of the window was also removed.My father asked me to stand in the room and talk to him, and he himself stood up, because apart from the old chair, the only thing he could sit on in the room was a small bench, on which he usually sat to clean up his pile of old papers, But at this moment, for some unknown reason, he even stuffed the small bench under the bed.

I stood there, talking casually about homework, and the more I talked about it, the more flustered I became, and I just wanted to escape quickly, so as to avoid this embarrassing errand from now on.Father kept a straight face, pacing with his hands behind his back.Suddenly he stopped, walked over and knocked open a side door of the room facing the outside yard, and the room suddenly lit up.Only then did I notice that the cabinet had been removed by him, and he began to use the side door behind the cabinet that had not been used for many years.The door has been deformed, and it takes a lot of effort to open it, and it is even more difficult to close it after opening.My father beckoned me over to help, and we pushed hard, several times before it barely closed.I patted the dust off my body and saw a thin blush on his haggard face.

"Rushu, you didn't expect me to open this door, did you?" My father turned his back to prevent me from seeing the expression on his face. "This door leads directly to the courtyard. Something will happen without anyone noticing it. Of course you won't notice. Your mind is on other things. You sisters lack high concentration and like to look around." "Dad—" I said. "It doesn't matter what a person wants to do!" He turned his head violently and looked at me almost ferociously. "Silently, without anyone noticing, ha!" "If Dad feels bored staying here, he can take a walk in the park with me every day." I said uncertainly.

"Me? Bored? How could you have such a thought in your head. Tell you, I have my hands full." He looked very arrogant.After saying this, he seemed to be thinking about something nervously. "Rushu, help Dad get the scissors from the bottom drawer." He ordered. I feel that my father is full of vitality at this moment, as if he is about to show his talents in something. There were all kinds of messy things in that drawer. I rummaged through it for a while, found the small scissors and handed them to him. He took the scissors and rushed to the place where he usually sat, uncovered the old cloth, grabbed an old book, and began to carefully cut the book into pieces with the scissors.In this dim room, the sound of scissors "creaking, creaking" was extremely harsh, and I could hardly control my emotions.

He finished cutting one book after another, and there were not only books in the pile, but also all kinds of old notes and letters. He cut up whatever he caught, and a pile of paper scraps piled up on the ground after a while.I saw his old hand with bare veins squeeze the scissors vigorously, the nails were purple.While he wasn't paying attention to me, I quietly retreated to the door. "Rushu, let's go, it's none of your business here." He said behind me. After about a week or so, I heard rumors from my colleagues about the abuse of my father by my family and me, which mentioned me in particular, saying that "I cut a hole in my father's palm with scissors", and my father "wowed cry".The rumors are well-founded and vivid, and I can't help but shudder.I didn't dare to look at other people's faces, and I didn't dare to defend myself, I just kept trembling.

Finally got off work, walked home, fumbled for the keys from the bag in the dark aisle, at this time the second brother jumped out of sight and slapped me on the shoulder, I was so scared that I almost collapsed on the ground . "Haha!" He patted my shoulder again and said with a smile, "You leave work so early today." "Is it early? I don't think it's too early." I looked at the ground with a bitter face, and wanted to go to my room. "It's really early." He grabbed one of my arms and continued, "It's rare for us sisters to get together. We are usually busy with our own business, and we only sit at the same table when we eat. Let's get together, and don't exchange ideas. I think it's because there is a father here, and seeing his appearance, who dares to joke casually. In my opinion, when people are old, they should retreat out of the circle of life wisely Go, dominance is often counterproductive. Sometimes I can’t help thinking, is this home still like a home? Dull, loose, and unreasonable. Look at other homes, who still respect authority like us now..."

"Didn't you take your father seriously a long time ago? Why are you making alarmist remarks?" I interrupted him in disgust. "It's like that on the surface, but you're also like that. We said behind his back that he was an old waste, as if no one paid attention to him. But did we really not pay attention to him? At the dinner table, I noticed your The knees are shaking." I shook off his hand and stepped into my room. During dinner, Ni Shu talked about the epidemic of encephalitis outside at the dinner table, and knocked on the table with chopsticks in a stern voice.I sneaked a look at my father, and saw him bowing his head wretchedly, thinking about something.He took a few mouthfuls of rice, put down the bowl, and stood up to leave.

"Dad didn't eat anything!" I said loudly. "Look, he hasn't eaten anything for days!" Everyone put down their chopsticks and looked at their father in astonishment. Nishu seemed annoyed, and said reproachfully: "What's the matter with Dad?" Father seemed to have just woken up, glared at everyone, raised his head in contempt and went back to the room. Something inside of me is collapsing.I thought of the door in my father's room that he quietly opened, and I couldn't help being very worried. I felt that the rumors among my colleagues were related to that door.why?Because my father hated outsiders entering his room the most, he sealed the door that opened to the yard twenty years ago.In the past, when he was concentrating on the pile of old papers, I was very relieved.What kind of old man's crazy idea made him take such a step?How hard it is for someone like my father to withdraw from his life completely.It has been many years, he has been quietly out of the way, and now, when everyone is almost used to it, suddenly such an embarrassing situation appears.Maybe we don't know Dad at all; maybe he's been preparing all these years; maybe it's the fantasies inflated in his head that's blinding him to ordinary judgment.

The rumors among colleagues did not subside, and I felt pressure from all directions, which made me more fearful and disgusted day by day.After thinking and thinking, I decided to fight my father face to face.I wanted to catch him face to face and see how he explained his behavior. I was so angry and annoyed that I couldn't understand why he was so unwilling to be alone. Just after dark, I hid in the oleander bushes at the far end of the yard.Father stood in front of the window, his shadow reflected on the curtains, his back bent.I thought of his increasingly thin face, and felt an indescribable feeling in my heart.After a while he lowered his head, as if he was cutting his nails, or fiddling with his watch.After about half an hour, he dimmed the electric lights with a newspaper, and looked over, as if the people in the room had turned off the lights and went to bed.I knew he wasn't asleep, I even seemed to hear his soft sigh.I sat on the little bench I had brought, determined to get to the bottom of the matter. The moon also disappeared into the clouds, and except for the bright light in the second brother's room, there was darkness everywhere.Just when I was about to doze off, my father's door suddenly slammed a few times. He walked towards the door, as if he had noticed something, poked his head out a few times and then retracted. Still ajar.I got excited, sure enough he was waiting for someone, it seems my guess was right.Why did my father tell outsiders?Doesn't he know that once the rumors are exaggerated, what he said will become unsavory?Or maybe he didn't speak ill of me to outsiders, and everything was just the imagination of that third party?Normally, his family (especially me) treats him very well, and it can be said that he has nothing to complain about compared with ordinary old people.So who is this slanderous guy?In my impression, my father never went out, and all my relatives and friends had cut off contact with him many years ago. Now I try my best, but I can’t think of anyone who might still be in touch with him.But there can be no doubt that my father must have met with someone who was spreading rumors and slander among my colleagues. I sat in the bushes for a long time, maybe I fell asleep later, maybe I always woke up from time to time, in short, I didn't see anyone go to my father's room.The door was still ajar, revealing a dim light.After midnight, I saw my father coming to the door.He was standing at the door with his broad back blocked, talking to someone in the room.It turned out that the man had already slipped in, and I was dozing off!I tiptoed under the window and pressed myself against the wall.His father's voice was a little hoarse, and it could be heard that he was quite excited. "...they all want me to die. I say them, including Rushu, she is still a main character. Every time they eat, they are acting. Rushu visits me regularly. For what? Me and her It was all very clear, so I cut up and destroyed all those things, so that no traces were left. After doing this, who can figure it out for me? What happened recently made them all panic, Especially Rushu, she never expected that the zombie in the corner would come back to life one day, and she also didn't expect that some things that would never be known to the outside world would be revealed in this way. In the past two days, she has been visibly emaciated. " The voice of the person talking to him was quite low and vague, as if he had a cold and his nose was blocked, and he was "buzzing" and didn't know what to say, and the voice didn't stop, sometimes it was like a child crying.And the father, when the man spoke, was always smirking, and the old man's cough was mixed with the laughter. It turned out that I had planned to fight that man face to face in the bushes, but this situation caught me off guard, because the malice did not come from that outsider, but from my father, and besides the attitude of that man, I couldn't do anything. I can't figure it out at all. If I rush in like this, I will only make myself in a dilemma. You must know that my father is not an easy person to deal with. Now I have completely learned the lesson.It turned out that I was so negligent. At this time, my father came from the door to the window, and was talking above my head, his voice was urgent and clear, and it seemed to be accompanied by some gestures, and he stomped his feet when he spoke of excitement. "In my lifetime, I will do something I want to do, and no one can stop me! I sit in this forgotten corner, thinking about it, I sit for a year and a year, a Year after year, great changes have taken place in the outside world! They are busy, thinking about their own ideas all day long, thinking that I am already finished, of course they can't think of it! In fact, it has been gradually It happened, and they were all terrified in their hearts, just look at Rushu's face. The night is so quiet, this is the best time..." I slipped back to my room, and I didn't have the guts to eavesdrop.At dawn, I was still thinking, is that person gone?have they gone?When and how did this emissary in the middle of the night get involved with his father?It's really unpredictable. Day by day, the rumors gradually died down.Although my colleagues still looked at me that way at work, I gradually got used to it, so I didn't feel so panicked. On this day, I returned home exhausted. As soon as I entered the door, my second brother talked to me about the issue of authority. He said that his father's position in the family had endangered his normal life.Whenever he got up to do something, his father's face always floated in front of his eyes, so he was downcast and didn't want to do anything anymore.He really couldn't bear it if it went on like this for a long time, and sometimes he even wanted to break the can, "just run away". I said to him without hesitation: "Your strange talk really surprised me! There is such a thing. Father stays in his room, and none of you usually go in. Doesn't it mean that he doesn't exist? At least it can be ignored. Yes, he eats with us every day, but he eats very fast, and never stays at the table too much, especially recently, he almost doesn’t eat, just sits there and pretends to leave. How can he treat you Is there such a big impact? I think you are depressed, unable to do anything, and want to free yourself, so you attribute the cause to others. But who do you attribute the cause to? An old man who is dying, a The least important person in the family, a loner who never minds his own business..." "Wait!" The second brother interrupted me, staring at my face and said: "Do you really think, do you really think that our father is the kind of person you said? Don't be a hero. I'll I don't know how you get along, but at the dinner table, I saw your knees shaking." "Did you hear anything?" I asked nervously. "What can I hear? Besides, I don't care about anything. The reason why I speak to you is because of our common interests. How can you not even understand that. Of course, I am definitely not planning any action, can I What action? To be precise, I'm just complaining about the status quo." He leaned over and whispered into my ear: "There were some suspicious noises in that room just now." I shrugged and gave him a contemptuous look.Suddenly his face became red, his eyes widened, and he pointed straight ahead and shouted loudly: "Look! Behold!" At the end of the dark corridor, my father was wearing gray underwear, standing unsteadily on a square stool, and was hammering a nail into the wall. His thin, bone-and-skinned arm had never His buttoned sleeves stuck out naked, and he clutched a rusty hammer tightly. Father tremblingly got off the square stool, frowned and said to me seriously: "I want to hang a notepad here, or an account book, so that everyone can know what they are doing. Rushu, you are very good at accounting. Of course you know that I have given all the money to you all these years after I retired. , but how much do I actually spend? You also saw that I never go out, and I don’t spend anything except meals, and I eat less recently, and you told me that my family can’t make ends meet, where did my money go? ? This suit—"Here he tugged at the front of his underwear, "this suit is the best of all my clothes. You think I don't need to make a coat for me if I don't go out. You have never even thought about the problem, my two coats were made for me by your grandmother fifteen years ago!" He almost shouted the last sentence. I was completely overwhelmed, looking around with a frenzied light in my eyes, I was looking for my second brother, but the slicker had long since disappeared without a trace.One of the father's hands held the hammer high, as if preparing to fight. "Dad! Dad! What are you talking about!" I cried with a tear in my voice. "Rushu, help me hang that ledger on that nail." His voice was calm and powerful. "I don't." I took a few steps back and stared at him in despair, "Father, don't force others to be difficult." "Okay, I'll do it myself." So he turned back to the room, took out the black leather book from the cabinet, and tied a thin hemp rope to it.When he entered the room, I noticed that all those old letters in his room were gone.The floor was swept clean, even under the bed was empty.He came out and climbed up the upper stool unsteadily again, because the thin hemp ropes on the book got tangled up, and it took him a long time to straighten the ropes and hang them on the nails.The stool was rattling all the while, and I don't understand why he didn't level it beforehand.His whole action gave me a feeling of extreme tension, like an arrow on a string. We don't know what was recorded in the black leather book.We sisters tacitly thought that since Dad was humiliating us all in such a despicable way, the best thing to do was to ignore it altogether.Is it safe to ignore it at all?I observed the four of them and found that this was not the case at all.They are restless.Whenever my father stepped on the rickety square stool in front of us at noon, took down the black book, and took it into his room, one of us couldn't help but say, "Look, he's here again." That's it." The speaker seemed to be speaking contemptuously, but his hands were shaking.After a while, we all lowered our eyes and slipped away one by one. That day I had already fallen asleep and had a very lengthy dream, but my elder sister Nishu knocked on the door.I looked at the clock, it was two o'clock in the morning.With a dark face, Nishu was irritatedly digging her ears with her little finger. She hesitated for a long time before saying: "It was raining just now. I suddenly remembered that the clothes had not been confiscated in the yard, so I ran to the yard. At this time, I saw the light in my father's room was on, and there was a person standing in front of the window. It was obviously not my father, because he was taller than my father." It's much taller. Who is he? Isn't it creepy that someone came to visit my father in the middle of the night? The more I thought about it, the more worried I became, so I ran to my father's room. It opened, and the strange thing is that there is only my father in the room! Really, I looked at every corner, maybe he ran into the aisle from that door, I dare not chase into the aisle, for fear that my father will be angry The face of my father was a bit scary under the incandescent light. He kept laughing. I wasn’t sure whether he was angry or happy, so I stepped back step by step until I reached the yard. By then, the rain had stopped, and my clothes It's already wet, so there's no need to put it away. When I got back to the room, the more I thought about it, the more I was wrong, so I came to you. What do you think about this?" After Nishu finished speaking in one breath, she seemed exhausted and couldn't open her eyes.She fell onto my bed in a daze, and pulled my quilt over her body.I fell asleep after a while.The news about Nishu is nothing new, but after she told me, I lost my drowsiness.Turning on the light in the middle of the night is not very good, so I turned off the light and sat in the dark to make time.In the dimness, I seemed to hear some noises in the corridor, but when I woke up, I found that there were actually no noises, just hallucinations.I also opened the door twice, looked into my father's room at the end of the passage, and saw that the light in his room had been turned off.Nishu didn't get up until dawn, rubbed her eyes and said: "Father, old shark, thank you for thinking it out. I've been arguing with him in my dream about the lost letter. Did you hear me? My throat was hoarse, and now I'm screaming Fire." Nishu always called her father "shark" behind her back. "You don't want to go out at night to wander around anymore. You will become nervous when it rains a little. What's the matter with your clothes? Just let it go." "You're talking big again." She laughed, bending down to tie her shoelaces. "I also often try to stay out of my own business, but the result is not satisfactory. I lie on the bed and think about it. I think of my father as an old spider in this room. His webs are everywhere. When I raise my head and stretch out my hand Just hit it." She put on her shoes, jumped a few times and went out. I try to recall the day when my father came to form this dominant position in the family.It seems to have started not so long ago, and it seems to have started very early, maybe when I was still in the cradle.The more I recall, the more blurred the boundaries become, and finally I am completely unsure.On the surface, he had withdrawn from life unconsciously and voluntarily, and now it seems that he is advancing by retreat.I still remember that when I was just an adult, I went to his room one day and saw him using a magnifying glass to look at the water stains on the wall. He bent his back and looked very seriously. "Rushu," he said to me, "such an old wall has experienced everything. I always want to find some clues. Isn't this kind of thinking too much?" "Of course—" I said hesitantly, "it's nothing." "Well, good daughter. You'll complain later, you pay too much attention to detail. Nothing can be hidden from you." At that time, I was a little puzzled when I heard his words, but now I recall his intentions.But do I really know his true intentions?It's entirely possible that he's setting off a smoke screen to distract me.So it is more appropriate to understand his words as a permanent refusal, thus putting an end to useless fantasies.He said "I can't hide anything from you", which may mean that I have to hide everything from me.Also, when he said "Nothing can be hidden from you", is it his way of teasing?I'm so patient. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I'm so patient.Now that the fish has taken the bait, he should have a kind of joy in his heart, but I saw him lose weight day by day amidst the excitement.It turned out that the joy he created for himself was poison to his nerves, which made it impossible for him to fall asleep at night. This happened earlier.I was about seven or eight years old at the time, and when I came back from playing outside, I heard him chatting with his grandmother in the house. They were talking about a neighbor who had just died, and the two looked very serious. "Rushu, what should I do if grandma catches an infectious disease that cannot be cured for a while and then infects you?" Grandma asked. I remember she put her fat arms around me and said these words kindly. "Then let's carry you to the yard." I rolled my eyes and answered smartly. They both laughed together. "Rushu is so smart, so clever." Father stood up excitedly and started pacing in the room. With a warm smile on her face, grandma patted my little head and let me go.I popped it like a marble and quickly forgot about it. Now recalling the events of my childhood, I also recall that my father and grandma were often chattering together. Could it be that from that time on, amidst the chattering, they have already planned my future?My grandmother told me stories about ghost visits at night when I was a child. Of course I don't believe this kind of nonsense anymore, so who is that person that Nishu saw? I decided to ask my father face to face. He was resting with closed eyes when I entered, his sunken cheeks making his face look terrible in the shadows. "Who? Who else?!" he said impatiently. "Of course it's me." "Ni Shu, Shu said, you are not that tall." I stammered out this sentence. "Damn it! Can't I stand on the little square stool? Huh?" He glared at me like he was going to eat me. "When I was at work, I heard a lot of rumors from my colleagues. I thought, you didn't go out, how did others know about this family?" "There are no impenetrable walls." He closed his eyes angrily, not going to talk to me anymore. I remember when we were young, our sisters always joked about my father behind his back, joking and saying strange things, as if no one took him seriously. One day my father took me for a walk in the street. He walked slowly, with his hands behind his back, as if he was in deep thought.There were very few vehicles on the streets in that era, only some rickshaws.There was a thick layer of dust on the asphalt road, and my father's old-fashioned leather shoes made footprints in the dust step by step. "Dad, why do you always wear the same pair of leather shoes and never take them off at home? Do you never wear other shoes?" Father's feet stopped in the ashes, and he looked at me with a sad expression.I was terrified by my joke, and I tugged at the hem of his clothes at a loss.He stopped for a while, until a person came across, and that person might also be the person he stopped there to wait.He was a man of middle height, dressed like an ordinary coachman, and his rough face was expressionless.The man came over to shake hands with his father, and mentioned their previous agreement. After hearing this, the father said repeatedly: "Ashamed! Ashamed!" The man waved his hand in disappointment and left. One glance made me shiver. "Who is this?" I asked. "He's here to collect my bills." After finishing his sentence, the father began to move his old-fashioned leather shoes again. I followed behind to observe his footprints.Because he walks carefully, his footprints are always well-proportioned, unlike mine, where one foot is deep and the other is shallow, and there is no certainty at all. When I went back that day, there were many guests at home, all of whom were old friends of my father, who were invited to come and see him.The father entered the house with a heavy heart, raised his hand to greet the guests, and said, "The day to pay off the debt has come." The guests seemed to be very worried about him, saying in unison: "Is there no room for delay?" "Unfortunately no more." Father lowered his head slumped, with a painful expression on his face.The guests quietly left the house, gesturing to each other. After the guests left, my father raised his head, looked at me frantically, and said: "Rushu, in fact, you don't have to repay the debt, just keep procrastinating, and you will pay it for me in the future, what do you think?" I backed away to the door in fear, not knowing whether I was afraid of really being in debt, or worried that I would not be able to figure out the meaning of his words.In fact, I didn't understand what he meant at all, because I was even more afraid if I didn't understand. I held on to the door and was about to run away. "I'm kidding you, don't you want to help Dad at all?" "No." I blurted out. "That's good, good, I'm relieved now." His expression suddenly brightened. My father died in the severe winter, his tall body bent into a bow, one hand tightly clenched into a fist on his chest.I stood in front of his bed, and my curiosity gradually increased: what is he holding in his hand?The funeral home has not yet arrived, and the family members are busy preparing for the memorial service outside.Taking advantage of the fact that there was no one in the room, I knelt down in front of the bed on a whim, grabbed my father's cold and stiff fist and broke it hard. I didn't break it for a long time, but I felt my father move.I sat down on the floor trembling, and heard someone behind me say coldly: "It's really vicious." Looking back, it was the second brother standing by the door. "Who are you talking about?" "Of course it was you! You killed him! Don't let him go now! Ah, I have seen your intentions, why didn't I stop you? It's all because of my own selfishness! I sometimes She has a weak personality, but she never hurts anyone. Ah, father! Father! She planned this all..." He broke down in sobs, and broke out in hysteria. Everyone in the family gathered, the eldest brother dragged away the second brother, and Nishu squatted quietly with me. "I shouldn't have come to your room that night to talk about my father." She said, "I have always been estranged from him, unlike you and him, there are so many grievances and grievances. I just because of Insomnia, the rain was so annoying, I wanted to talk to you, so I just made up a reason to come to you, but I didn't see anything, even if I saw it, I wouldn't talk nonsense..." "Get out!" I yelled at her. She stood up quickly and left. Did father really move just now?Of course not, that's just my imagination.His body seemed to curl up even tighter now. The sound of firecrackers sounded outside, as well as shouts and voices. Those friends from my father's long time ago came.They react quickly, like flies smelling rotten meat.I have never met them on the street for so many years. They are mysterious guys who usually disappear without a trace, but at critical moments, they come out together.I suddenly felt very scared. I looked out the window and saw my second brother leading them into the yard.I want to find a place to hide for a while, why should I bear the debt of my father alone?Those secret debts, he never confessed to me during his lifetime.Besides, I have two legs, so I can walk, for example, to the sparsely populated frontier... 1997.1.27, Another Village