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Human world Own true feelings exist
墨書 Inktalez
Last Tuesday, I had a gathering with several colleagues from the company and unexpectedly discovered a dish of sour cabbage and tofu. In this restaurant with an average cost of 200 per person, it was not considered high-end. The tofu was tender, and the sour cabbage tasted like it had undergone strict fermentation. The taste indeed surprised everyone present, including inconspicuous me. However, after just one bite, I couldn't find the courage to pick up my chopsticks again...
At 10:30 pm, the lights of Shenzhen were dim, and neon lights were shining. Along the way, several colleagues were talking about the trivialities of working at the company. As for me, I walked alone. When passing by a railing, 23-year-old me unexpectedly leaned on the railing and burst into tears. Several colleagues were stunned and hurried over to me, thinking that I was upset because of something the leader had said. Chen, from the planning team, noticed that something was wrong and asked, "Did something happen?"
"I... I miss... I miss my mom."
At the age of five, I saw my mother cry for the first time. I never saw her cry again, but I knew that it wasn't the worst time that man had hurt her. I heard my mother say that when she got married, my grandmother gave her a jade bracelet and a new set of clothes, and cried all the way as she walked the three-mile mountain road to send her off to that man's house. After my mother got married, she was very afraid of that man. She said that when they were arranged to be married, he only said one cold and tough sentence, "Do you want to marry or not?" In that era, in the countryside filled with the old-fashioned shackles of "husband is superior" and "gossip is fiercer than a tiger," my mother did not have the right to choose the latter.
There was a time when that man restrained himself for a while because of my birth. Even though enduring the pain of the second trauma after childbirth, I knew that my mother was content and happy in the four or five years after my birth. I remember she would let me sit on the high ridge, covered with yellow wildflowers, and little beetles would tickle my small hand, making me giggle. My mother was fetching water, and when she heard my laughter, she would turn around and smile. It was the most beautiful smile I had ever seen! On hot summer noons, sweating profusely, my mother would quickly ask the neighbor for some large taro leaves to shade me. Her expression was full of concern. In the harsh winter, my teeth would chatter from the cold. The stinging pain on my cheeks would make me cry, and my mother would wrap me in the clothes my grandmother had given me, rubbing my ears anxiously with her hands, which were red and cracked from the cold, showing the worry in her eyes.
In my childhood, I never cried for toys because I had never seen them and didn't know they existed. My happiest moments were sitting in the empty wooden bucket my mother carried back and forth from the fields, swaying from side to side. When my mother accidentally stumbled, I would tremble along with her. I also liked to hum along the way, just to make the sound of the trembling resemble the sound of a broken string of pearls rolling across the wilderness. I was truly the happiest child! But now, every time I recall those memories, I regretfully beat my chest: I was an accomplice who made my already weak mother work even harder!
When I was seven, that man's business failed again, and for a month afterward, the dark house was filled with nothing but the smell of alcohol and the sound of smashing green wine bottles.
It was a very ordinary noon. When I returned from school, I saw a few adults gathered in front of my house, with various voices mixing together, making it suffocating. I managed to squeeze in, and saw several men and women holding onto the man's arms. Before long, he slumped into a chair, exhausted from the beating. Meanwhile, my mother was curled up at the doorstep, blood streaming down her forehead, staining the neighbor's old white shirt a deep red. I was stunned and terrified, my head pounding. I burst into tears, but no sound came out. That night, the man's cousin took him away from the house. Late into the night, the neighbors who had helped left, and my mother leaned against the head of the bed. I brought a chair and sat beside her. Holding her hand, I couldn't say a word, and I dared not even blink, fearing my mother might die. After a long while, my mother started crying, and I felt her hand grip mine tighter. Just like during the day, I opened my mouth but couldn't make a sound. I pressed my head against my mother's chest and cried. That year, at the age of seven, on that night, I understood the meaning of pain.
For three months, the man did not come back. As the New Year approached, he walked in with another woman. "You go!" he coldly said to my mother. Outside, firecrackers were booming, and my aunt hurried to put down our packed luggage. "Endure it for the sake of the child. It's not good to hear this outside." I tugged at my mother's sleeve, "Mom, let's go. Let's leave now."
On that winter night, we no longer had a home. Both my mother and I knew that, compared to the cold, it was more shameful. The room and the people inside were so disgusting that it was suffocating. About half a kilometer away from home was a shack where an old man used to live. After last year's Spring Festival, his daughters took him to live in the city. That night, the wind wasn't strong, because I remember it was very quiet, a kind of terrifying silence, as if there was no place for us in the vast sky and earth. But I remember, in my mother's arms, I still fell asleep. In a daze, I heard my mother say to me, "My dear, let's go, okay?"
I nodded, and so we really left. It was in the early morning of that winter when we left that place, that man.
At that time, the money we had was 200 yuan in my mother's pocket. Along the way, we met many kind people. During the day, my mother washed dishes in the kitchen of a restaurant, and I walked around within five meters of her. I wouldn't run around, my mother said she was afraid of disturbing the customers. I would often lie on my mother's back, but only for a short while each time, because I knew my mother would get tired. The restaurant's landlady gave us some of her old clothes a few times and would slip small toys into my hands. At night, I would huddle with my mother in the back corridor of the train station, that corner was warm. Every night at that time, my mother would make sour cabbage and tofu, and it was so delicious! Later, someone told us that we could apply for assistance at the women and children's rescue center, and we really got help. Since then, my mother and I have relied on each other for survival...
After the junior high school entrance exam, I received the admission letter from City's Key High School, which was a long-awaited happy moment for me and my mother. But - it was also at that time that my mother, forever, left me. Before that, watching my mother's deteriorating health, I prayed countless times at night, begging for this day to come later, just a little later. But apart from that, I couldn't do anything. That night, I sat paralyzed in the morgue all night, feeling nothing but waves of piercing cold, no other sensation.
Since then, in this world, I have been alone, wandering in the vast sea of longing, with no one to rely on...
Later, with the help of kind people, I finished high school and college, but I didn't feel the hardship of endless weekends and summer vacations of studying and making money, because the mental torment made me suffer immensely. Because I have no mother, I am alone. Every time I hear a classmate complain about her mother, how she nags at her or argues with her on the phone, I cry, hiding in the bathroom. Several times, to avoid making any sound, I even bit my hand until it bled... I miss my mom, but I have nothing.
Fortunately, knowledge is like the light that shines through the cracks in the wall, warming my wandering soul. Sometimes I wonder why someone like me hasn't become a social misfit or had suicidal thoughts. Later, I gradually understood that my mother had planted the seeds of strength in me when I was young. The power of knowledge has helped me mend my broken soul, and I am in the process of self-redemption.
Now I work as an editor in a magazine company and rent a small apartment, but I still feel lonely. After work, on the corner of the alley I pass through on my way home, there is a pancake stand that is open all year round. It often becomes my dinner, not because their pancakes are particularly delicious, but because the owner is really kind. I sit on a chair and talk to her for a long time, saying things that I wouldn't even say to my colleagues. One night at 11 o'clock, she had to close the stand. Using all the remaining ingredients, she made the last pancake and put it in my hand, saying, "Good child, go home quickly!"
"Go home? When have I had a home? Since my mother left during the summer vacation, the only thing that has accompanied me is endless longing." I didn't say this out loud. Over the years, I have learned to hide my feelings.
But, Mom, I really miss you so much, I miss you so much. Are you doing well in that distant place? You must be doing well! God, no matter what the cost, I have to.
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