the most beautiful time

Chapter 23 Passing by a warm city
Passed through many cities.Just passing by.

I remember in City A, I got lost after getting off the car, carrying a big box alone, but I didn’t know where to go in the traffic.That was the first time I traveled to a distant city. I booked a room in a youth hostel on the Internet, but when I got out of the station, I couldn't find the north.

At that time, I was only 18 years old. I was shy and cautious when meeting people. I often blushed before opening my mouth and forgot the answers I was looking for.Holding a crumpled map, I stood under the bus stop sign, mustered up my courage, and walked towards a woman who looked kind.When I said the name of the hotel where I was going to live, I lowered my head and waited for the woman to reply indifferently, "Sorry".However, I waited for a full minute, but did not get any reply.I raised my head in a panic, and saw the woman standing in the line, still as if no one else was there, waiting for the bus to come.

I thought the woman didn't hear my question, so I raised my voice and humbly repeated my question.This time, the woman finally turned around and looked at me.The temperature in my eyes, at that moment, could almost melt me ​​away.However, she just looked at it without showing any expression, and then pretended that nothing happened, continuing to wait for her schedule.

I was finally completely disappointed after the woman mercilessly crossed many obstacles and squeezed onto the emergency braking bus.I stood in the cool breeze of early spring in City A, and felt the coldness, like a certain kind of fungus, multiplying and expanding rapidly, until finally, it swallowed me up.

At this moment, someone behind me patted me on the shoulder and said, Hey, little girl, I happened to be passing by the youth hostel you just asked about, or let’s carpool.I turned around and saw a burly man looking at me with a slight smile.Thinking of the cases reported in the newspaper, I nervously took two steps forward with my suitcase.In my panic, the man suddenly smiled, showing his neat teeth: Silly girl, are you afraid that I will eat you?It's just a drop-in, and I want to find someone to share the travel expenses and save some money.

I finally relaxed my vigilance, softened my expression, and agreed to walk with him.I remember that he was laughing all the way, and occasionally asked me a few questions, but most of the time, he was talking alone; all kinds of things in this city, in his narration flowing like a stream, are like the blue sky. The branches clearly reflected on the tree are engraved into my life.

When getting out of the car, he stubbornly refused half of the fare that I should share, and because of my insistence, he almost impatiently urged me to get out of the car and leave because he had to go to work in a hurry.When I picked up the suitcase and got out of the car, he was still chatting with the driver about the tabloid news of the day, his eyes were in the rearview mirror, and he didn't even look at me.

When I crossed the overpass, I stopped on the side of the road, bought a newspaper of the day, turned around, and saw a taxi passing by.In that taxi, there was actually the man who had been with me all the way.I saw him put his hand on the window in a lovely gesture of salutation.At that moment, I looked at the taxi going against the road we came from, and the gradually blurred figure of the man, and suddenly I was full of infinite gratitude for this strange city.

Later, I never went to City A again, but I kept seeing the name of City A, news related to it, and even entertainment gossip in newspapers, TV, and the Internet.I can always keenly capture the breath of City A in the overwhelming news, that fresh, warm, and moist feeling, which attracts me, stops for it, lingers, and will rub shoulders with City A in the past , like an old cow caught in memories, constantly ruminating, ruminating.

Even one day, when I was in front of the big screen on the roadside square and accidentally saw the long-distance station in City A, I was actually standing in the increasingly heavy rain, melancholy recounting the somewhat dry and boring news. Finished carefully.

At that moment, I knew that City A had been engraved into my life, becoming one of many clear lines, indicating my future itinerary.

Since then, I have been to many cities, passed by, or stayed briefly, and then left to go to new places.I often forget the well-known tourist attractions in the city, forget the over-hyped famous food or celebrities, and forget the symbol of glory it once represented, but I always walk alone, thinking of those who will The passers-by I surrounded thought of the touching smile, the softness of a word, or the warmth of a palm.

And this kind of miss is the most real place for a city, for a passer-by.

I have been afraid of his hands, from beginning to end.

Behind my back, I called his hand Iron Sand Palm.These hands, when I was a child, fell on me mercilessly because of my countless falls, injuries, fights, and truancy.Because I was bullied, I stubbornly pulled me up and went to find the perpetrator; I was held tightly by him, and I was not so proud of it, but when I carefully saw the anger in his eyes, my heart An inexplicable fear suddenly rose.Hands are the most generous part of his body.He used it to weave baskets, and folded the thick branches very easily; he used it to pull weeds faster than any sharp sickle; Pancakes; he used them to pick roses covered with thorns, and got up early in the morning to carry the burden to sell in the county town.He has never applied any skin care products to these big hands that have made great contributions. Even later, when I sent home the expensive hand cream from thousands of miles away, he usually didn’t even look at it. Throw them into the corner.

One spring, I was seriously ill, and when I was finally able to eat something, I yelled at my mother for fish soup.Because of medical treatment, the family no longer had such extravagant money, and his mother was so anxious that he wanted to cry, but he left the sentence: clean up the pot and stove, wait to do it, and then turned and left the house.In just an hour, the neighbor brought a few fresh and tender fish.While I was eating all the fish happily and drinking the fish soup leisurely, he walked in frowning.I thought he was tired of me and got angry, so I tried to lower the sound of drinking soup; after a while, I heard my mother in the next room crying softly.At that time, I was heartless and didn't care about the affairs of adults. As usual, accompanied by my mother's low sobs, I drank until the bottom of the bowl was turned upside down, and I didn't even forget to lick the coriander leaves stuck to the bottom of the bowl.After a long time, I caught a glimpse of his hand by accident, and saw a scar that was so large that it was almost terrifying. Then I was surprised to learn from my mother that in order to catch fish for me, he used soil explosives to go to the river. When the fish was fried, his hands were bloody and bloody.But he still endured the severe pain and asked a passing neighbor to bring the fish home, and then went to the health center to bandage the wound...

This scar remained in his palm forever, but he never mentioned a word to me; it was like, it was just an accidental scratch while harvesting wheat, and it was not worth looking at, so I Keep busy.But it has taken root in my heart. Every time I think about it, I seem to see him ecstatically picking up fish in the river, completely forgetting that there is still an unfired dynamite.Such a plot is like the film in a movie. When it is played back, it is always in slow motion, frame by frame, so clear, but so cruel.

Later, I went to university, and my younger brother and sister also went to high school, and the expenses increased. Farming alone was no longer enough for the three of us to study.So he started to use his hands to generate extra income.He worked as a miner, as a mason, as a gardener, and as a three-wheeler.Later, his body did not allow him to run around like this, so he stayed in the small town, relying on an 8 yuan dredging machine, to start the work of repairing the sewer.When I went home at that time, all I heard was that he smiled and mentioned to his mother that he had saved enough for our tuition fees for the next semester, or that he could buy us extra clothes.No one in the family knows how dirty and tiring this job is, and they all think that it is really like what he described, easily turning on the machine, and with a click, the blocked sewer can be unblocked.

It was once during a vacation that I went to a classmate’s house who lived in the county seat. Just in time for the toilet in his bathroom to be clogged, I asked someone to repair it.I was a little curious, so I went in to have a look. Unexpectedly, I saw my father kneeling next to the urinal, holding a flashlight in one hand, and an iron hook in the other. cylindrical ironware.The family members of the classmate stood far away covering their noses because of the stench; no one helped him, and at that moment, he was just a dirty job hired by someone.His hands were full of filth and filth, but he didn't care about it at all, he only stuck his visually impaired eyes to the entrance of the passage at close range.When the iron tool was about to reach the entrance of the passage, he was worried that it would fall again, so he grabbed it with his hands all at once.And the top is already so dirty that people can't bear to take a second look.

In the end, without waiting for him to turn around, I hurriedly said goodbye to my friends and ran home.I don't want to see his embarrassment, I don't want to watch him wash his hands, he is too embarrassed to use other people's soap, but after returning home, he washes his cracked and dry hands again and again.I can't bear to see such embarrassment, and he certainly doesn't want everyone in the family to know; otherwise, he won't fall in love with cleaning all of a sudden, and when my siblings and I laugh at him, he doesn't make a sound, but quietly Turning her back, she wiped her hands clean with a separate towel, very carefully.

He used this method to exchange tuition fees for us, but he himself was so inferior that he hated these big hands that didn't know how to get tired.And it was at this moment that I slowly understood him starting from these hands.

A few years later, the three of us, my brother and my sister, each found a job, and he was finally able to enjoy the blessings; but he did not enjoy such blessings for a few days, and he was admitted to the hospital again and again because of various diseases.I still remember when I was admitted to the hospital for the third time, I went to see him and cooked him his favorite porridge with preserved egg and lean pork.His hands were so weak that he couldn't even hold a spoon, but he was still drinking happily, his face was full of child-like happiness, just like the silly girl who drank fish soup until she forgot everything many years ago .A serious illness just replaced my position with him.

However, I know that there are some things that time can never replace.Like, he is my father, and I will always be his beloved girl.It's like, no matter how fast I run to love him, I can't keep up with the pace of time urging him to grow old, and I can't match the one-tenth of the care he once gave me.

I remember that many years ago, after graduating from high school, everyone gave photos to each other. On the back of the photos, there were affectionate parting words written. At that time, I bought the most high-end guest book. Each page could be embedded with a photo. It flows through everyone like a brook, and when it comes back to hand, it is almost like an art book.The girls are almost all looking back at the art photos of Bai Meisheng with a smile, while the boys, with their faces pretending to be deep, and their postures, without exception, copied Rodin's famous sculpture "The Thinker".The short message on the back of the photo is flamboyant or elegant, but every time I see it, I can clearly recall the smooth and full forehead or the bright and soft eyes of the owner of these words when they signed for me.

This guest book, together with the diary when I was young, was treasured by me into the letter era of the last century.After graduation, everyone went to study in different cities. Most of the addresses left at the beginning were home phone numbers, but this is the number that helps us contact each other. Today, if we change jobs, lose our mobile phones, and move You can still get mutual information from your parents by calling the phone number on the blog.

In the first two years of college, my friends and I continued to maintain the pure and beautiful friendship in middle school by relying on letters delivered through the post office.I remember that myself at that time, almost every other day, would urge the sender and sender to go to the department to get the letter.Seeing him coming from a distance holding a pile of letters, I always go up to him quickly, applauding him for his hard work, and quickly "sharing" the tasks for him, and I will write the names of all the recipients like arrows. Swish through at the same speed, but pass through once, if not, then stubbornly follow behind the sender's ass, watching pitifully as he reads the names one by one, delivering the letter to the ecstatic hands, Until the last one, I will never give up.If it is really not, I will often be tortured by jealousy and loss in the joy of others reading letters, but the next day, when the sun shines over the branches and leaves of Fatong, when I get up and rush to the classroom happily, my heart is full of joy. Hope, like a small boat, flutters, with its sails inflated.

Then we started living online.Classmates, Q, MSN, e-mail, blogs, podcasts, text messages, can almost find out the classmates who are hiding in the ends of the world, and call them brothers and sisters.When the graduate students graduated, the sentimentality between everyone was relieved because of the Internet where they could meet by video the next day.The roommates who still hugged and cried when they graduated from undergraduate, but now there are fewer sensational partings. Most of them ask about where they are going to work, and they agree to change their mobile phone numbers and send a group message to the world. In the QQ group, you talk to each other, and there is a lot of noise. If you tell a piece of news, everyone in the school knows it.As for the situation after work, the initial discomfort, how to deal with the harshness of the boss, whether the salary has been raised, all can communicate with each other and comfort each other.

So when I was in a university in Beijing, I saw the uniform and custom-made cultural shirts of the graduates, which said, we are still together, and I couldn't help but smile.The convenient network has indeed made today's graduation less sentimental tears and shy photo confessions. We don't even have time to look through the mountains of images on digital cameras; of course, we are even more lazy to leave a few words. The guestbook will not be bought.As for letter writing, that is already a matter of the last century.

I remember the fall of the year when I graduated from graduate school, when I first entered the workplace, I offended the seniors in the office because of one sentence, but I couldn't lower my self-esteem, so I apologized cautiously; under depression, I vented in the QQ group, Said: Before graduation, I held my head high, looked straight ahead, arrogant and unstoppable; after graduation, I bent my waist slightly, listened to the six ways, and looked in all directions, but found that I was still swollen when I was touched. legs and feet.It was working hours, but this sentence attracted "frog noises".The people hiding under the gray heads surfaced one by one, revealing all the sad and inhuman treatment they experienced after graduation.

The QQ group at that moment was like a lively pond where a criticism meeting was held. Amidst the noise, everyone's inner displeasure was relieved by the "ruthless" derogation of the boss.Although it is only a short moment, it is enough to comfort our flustered hearts at the beginning of our experience.

In the age of letters, we will write down the anxiety and discomfort of growing up on paper stroke by stroke, paste them into stamps, and then put them into the post box; while in the age of the Internet, we will put all kinds of worries, loss, and confusion with one click. Then enter the group that can reach the ends of the earth, and then exchange for various guidelines and secrets.As for such a soothing and swift method, it cannot be said which one is closer to our hearts.It is also hard to say whether it is a letter or a net that conveys our thoughts faster.

However, what is clear is that if the hearts of each other are closely connected, no matter what medium is used, they can be connected flexibly in this noisy world.

(End of this chapter)