One day when I was free, I suddenly became interested and told my mother to take her back to her hometown. My mother promised again and again, and her eyes were full of joy and relief.
The garage is on the road, which is a straight asphalt road or a hardened cement road. Most gravel or dirt roads have disappeared. On both sides are neatly arranged Chinese toons or locust trees, and local poplars and willows are rare, which is the result of cattle ravaging a few years ago. Houses with a fairly glamorous appearance are exposed or hidden in the shade. Occasionally, you can see several long-standing national policy propaganda slogans posted on the wall facing the road, vaguely marking an era. The broken stone bridge has also been replaced by a delicate cement bridge, which is brand-new. The development of rural areas in these years is undoubtedly solid, and those images in the depths of memory have long been eroded beyond recognition by time.
In the courtyard of my hometown, several Toona sinensis trees are neatly arranged in front of the hospital. It was planted by my father before, and nobody cared about it, but it also grew luxuriantly. The weeds under the trees and the mud floating on the bricks in the yard indicate that this place has been abandoned for a long time. A few wasps buzzed and flew around the window sill without restraint, which was harsh and abrupt in this quiet environment, announcing that they were the owners here. Mother sighed when she opened the door. With a sound like tearing an old cloth, it entered a familiar dusty world and attached to all objects in solemn silence. The light beam is projected on the ground through the window, and the dust floats aimlessly in the light and shadow, just like the mother's eyes at this time, confused and confused. Being in such a world, my heart is involuntarily full of loneliness and desolation.
Mother wanted to visit some people who were homesick, so she went. Go west along the road in front of the door. Once, it was a dirt road, almost muddy when it rained, but now it has been changed into a straight cement road, dazzling white in the sun and clean like a girl's face. The courtyard wall on the roadside has also been replaced with adobe of masonry structure. There was no figure on the road, and the whole village was shrouded in a frightening silence. There is no water in the ditch by the road. In addition to the high and low weeds, the ditch is full of garbage and debris. I can't see the frog running in the water for a long time, and there are no words about the past. Some frogs, such as chickens and dogs, which were usually seen before, have disappeared. It seems that they can't stand this quiet loneliness, and they all chase them to the city to find excitement.
Several adobe houses on the roadside disappeared and were replaced by a less wide Little Square. A stage was set up in the east of the square, and some fitness equipment lay or stood quietly around the square. There was no one over the square, and my mood suddenly felt inexplicably complicated. These things that originally settled in the city, these leisure facilities that once were beyond the reach of the villagers, just stayed here quietly, leaving their original functions and values idle. Many villagers who originally lived here finally looked forward to them, but at this time they chose to ignore them or have no time to take care of them. Should we be happy for their arrival? Or should we feel sorry for their lateness? I can't say clearly.
Behind the old house, it used to be an educated youth point of the production team, and several adobe houses like other houses in the village. In front of the house is a table tennis table made of adobe and plastered with cement, which is a place for the educated youth and the young people in the village to entertain in their leisure time. We were young and inexperienced at that time. One night, I don't know who started it. I followed a group of children and shouted in this yard: "The educated youth came to the countryside and gave birth to a child without milk." My father, who had never beaten me, grabbed me by the collar and pulled me home. It was a slap in the face when he entered the house. I was defeated. I don't know what I did wrong. At that time, I envied my big brothers and sisters who wore red armbands to engage in activities in this yard, and I was looking forward to wearing this awe-inspiring red armband one day. A few years later, when I also wore the red armband at work, I realized that wearing the red armband meant taking responsibility. Only now, the educated youth point has been dismantled without a trace, like a grain of dust blowing in the wind, without a trace.
There have been countless trips back and forth to the dam ditch behind. At that time, the dam was always high and low, soft and uneven. If you were not careful, your shoes were filled with sand. At that time, in summer and autumn, the ditch was always full of water, and frogs and fish enjoyed it. There is a row of poplars or willows on the river bank, and the sparrows on the trees are intertwined and intertwined. You will hear chirping in the distance. As you approach, you will start shouting and move from tree to tree. Frogs sing birds, so lively. Even, it will inadvertently start a rabbit hiding in the grass and suddenly disappear. During the break, I picked up a piece of dirt, pointed it at a frog crouching in the grass, threw it in the past, and watched it plop into the water, pop out from nearby places, stare at round eyes and bulge my stomach. He seems angry that you disturbed his dream. Cute and funny looks will always make you laugh and relax a lot. Or pick a reed leaf, fold it in half, sit on the boat and gently put it into the water. Watching it go with the waves swaying, my thoughts seem to go with it. Or find a smooth place on the poplar and carve an unknown name with a knife. Then, when you pass by again one day, you see that it becomes rough and fuzzy with time and the growth of the tree, and slowly becomes unclear. In the field, people are striving for their own hopes, and from time to time they can be heard talking loudly across the ridge or ditch. At this time, the original willows on the dyke had already disappeared. Only the later planted Toona sinensis stands quietly, and occasionally the wind blows, making a lonely and monotonous rustling sound.
Summer harvest is the hottest and most difficult day for people living in this land. Because with the arrival of the wheat harvest season, the rainy season will follow. At this time, grabbing a bumper harvest is the theme of every household. At that time, there was no harvester, and every household cut the wheat bit by bit with a sickle according to the method handed down from generation to generation, tied it with grass soaked in water, and then moved it to the threshing floor in the yard with mules, horses and tractors for threshing. From cutting to binding, from transshipment to threshing to lifting, it is not an easy task. Often a family, men, women and children go into battle together, from dawn to sunset, sometimes even all day, often sweating, backache and leg cramps. In the words of my family, I was so tired that grass grew on my head. I often lie down and don't want to stand up again. But looking at God's uncertain face, I had to stand up and continue to work in order not to let the harvest of a year flow in the rain. From the field to the village, people come and go, and no one wants to fall behind. The whole village head was shrouded in a vibrant atmosphere. At that time, the family planted 15 and 16 mu of wheat every year, and it often took about ten days to collect all the wheat from the sickle. After a process, the body is like falling apart, and it often takes several days to return to normal. Think about it, the initial motivation to study hard probably comes from this. After all, not everyone wants to work so hard in the hot sun.
The most pleasant day of the year is probably in the evening after the summer harvest. I ordered a pile of mosquito-smoked wheat straw, piled bags of recycled wheat in the yard and leaned on it. During the day, the afterheat left by the sun on the bag warms my back, drinking the cold orange water brewed by my mother, listening to the frogs outside the courtyard and talking with my parents and sisters, and my heart is calm and comfortable after harvest.
At this time, it has not yet reached the summer harvest season, and there are very few people in the village and fields. These grasses, trees and crops all stood quietly, losing a little life quietly.
A small stone bridge quietly crosses the ditch, vicissitudes and decadence, like an old man in his twilight years, will spend the rest of his life in peace. How many times have I come and gone on this stone bridge, but I have never stopped here to take a closer look. Gone are the days when the bridge was flowing, leaving it alone, dry and speechless. Standing on the bridge and looking down, some weeds between green and yellow occupied the bottom of the canal in chaos, without a trace of water. Suddenly I remembered a poem by Lu You, "Spring waves are green under the bridge of sorrow, which was once a stunning photo." It's just that under the bridge at this time, the spring wave is gone, and we can't see the shadow, but we used to be "dusty and frosty".
The telephone rang. It was my mother's voice calling home. Although it is attached to my ear, it seems a little weak and far away. I used to play crazy in the village. When my mother came, she screamed over and over again. At that time, my mother was younger than I am now, full of anger, strong-willed, slow-moving, and it was normal to be slapped. But now I still have words in my ears, and it hurts, but it's different.
The Toona sinensis planted by my father in the yard has grown to the size of a bowl. I shook it with the trunk a few times and couldn't move a penny. "I am flustered to find a shovel to shovel the grass in the yard." Mom said. "Forget it, the shovel is still long," I said. Looking at all this, my heart and eyes are wet. The place where I longed to leave when I was young and to come back when I was old has long since disappeared. And I, like a cloud in the sky, just stayed for a long or short time. Maybe there are my footprints and breath in a corner, but they don't belong to me anymore. Only these trees and weeds are deeply rooted here and thrive day after day. Perhaps only they are the real masters here, silently, never leaving.
On the way back, the garage looked back in the rearview mirror. The village that once gave birth to me and raised me is drifting away from me and gradually blurred in the dust. The past days, those bitter and sweet, those once vibrant and fiery, are all left in memory and will never reappear. My village is telling the vicissitudes of life in a wordless way. In the future, I will come back, but will my village be like this?
About the author: Ning Hongwei, now working for Guodian Ningxia Shizuishan Power Generation Co., Ltd., likes to read and write some mood words in his spare time.