The moon in Clear Water Bay
Liu Guoxin.
In winter, they began to collect firewood and burn the stove. Several girls went across the ditch and went up the hill to pick up enough for two weeks at a time. I think of Clearwater Bay, it's winter, and that's what comes to mind. But I clearly want to talk about the moon, the moon in Clear Water Bay.
Attention to the mountain across the street from the school building was caused by the moon. Just as the attention to the stars here in Stone Town begins with the moon, at night.
At nine or ten o'clock, I came out of the library, step down step by step, the moon was vast and vast, whether it was curved or round, always on the top of the inclined plane, and there were always stars, and the sacred began here, and the awe, the inexplicable touch, the melancholy like love, and the anxiety of crying, all began from this distant hazy light overhead. In fact, the evening sunlight in the library is also very good, and when I jumped, I fell under the viaduct above the parallel line opposite the cafeteria, I have seen it a few times, but it is difficult to describe the mood. I'm talking about the moon, the moon in Clear Water Bay.
Collecting firewood and burning fire, the light in the foreign stove is also the light of the sun, the light of the moon, oil green, purple yellow, and flame white, lavender purple, there are various colors in the fire, and there are countless numbers, and the understanding of color starts from the moon in the furnace. In winter, it snows well at night, the snow accumulates for a long time, and the night is Xi, stepping on the moonlight back to the room, and a group of people roasting and eating the sweet potatoes brought by the family, which is really happy.
The moon was on the hill opposite the school building, and it was always like this, and we would jump into the corridor after two evening Xi sessions, and one session would go down. There is always a moon, and because it is a country, there are so many stars that it looks like they are all about to fall from the sky. The classmates were chattering, and the girl Kasumi was wearing purple clothes, which was the kind of quiet grape purple. Her two eyes had the light of a baby, especially bright, and she walked through the crowd under the gallery lamp. She is a girl from the town, not like us, from a small village, so she is more active than us, more confident than us. She was like a walking purple light, and the moon attached to her.
It will take some time for us to know, and everyone will know, that our love and warmth are fostered in the willow branches of spring, in the sound of birdsong, and in a ray of moonlight.
Xiazi likes to do some rebellious things, such as taking me to Xi on the night of the festival, going to eat cold skin or bowl trays, going to sit in a few rooms of her house, watching her new **, watching the popular celebrity New Year's cards and beautiful photo albums given to her, looking at the posters and decals she collected and sticking to books, and watching her ......
One night, Kasumi didn't seem to go to Xi for a night. After our math class in the afternoon, she pushed me to climb the hill across the street from the school building. When I was collecting firewood, I walked around the hill and there was a shortcut from the back door of the school. Usually when the door is locked at night Xi, we get out of the doorway, when we are all small and skinny, not yet developed. Kasumiko said do you dare to go up the mountain?You don't dare to go by myself. I like Kasumi to wear that purple dress, she reminds me of the little fairy in the book, I like Kasumi's eyes that are constantly dwinking, she invites me to go, and I immediately agree. The next morning I took the politics exam, I remember it clearly, but we went anyway.
It's easy to get dark in winter, and before four or five o'clock, it's dark there, and the clear water bay where I studied is thrown into the embrace of darkness.
Kasumiko can find her way. There is a temple on the mountain, and during the festival, the people of the town will climb up with tribute and make a wish. Our math teacher can't give birth to a son, so he is in a hurry, and he will go to every festival, because the three or four periods in the morning are always his class, which is behind the Chinese, so he always stops us for this reason. Of course, this is something we can't wait, and every day doesn't come, and we're there to start figuring it out.
The wind blows, the air is not condensed, the moon is white and serene, and it is all yellowish like the light of a furnace about to sleep. We sat outside the bare temple, and Kasumiko said she really didn't want to go back, and I said so did I. We sat without holding hands, and didn't say a word for a long time. I had in my hand the political book that I was going to take the next day. When we looked down the hill, the school building was two floors, so small, like a person holding a glimmer of light in the palm of his hand. The mountain breeze blows the dust, and the wild uncut corn stalks and dried sunflowers stand like people. I can't see the students inside the school building. The school building has not been built for a few years, and it is cement white during the day, but there are only lights at night. But the classmates we know are disgusted and liked, and the teachers are all in that garden. Kasumi said, "Look, this is our day, I really don't know how long we live. She scratched the ground with the branch she grabbed casually, and sighed. There are many people who love her, at least many people envy her, she is beautiful and always fragrant. I didn't understand what she was saying.
Such a night, with the moon overhead, above the temple. Temples are all around us. I have forgotten whether we have ever been in the temple or not, but I remember the clay Bodhisattva, and I thought that I should have been there, but I can't say what kind of reverence we had. What Kasumi said next to the temple made me worried, for fear that the Bodhisattvas in the temple would hear it. I said Kasumiko, let's go back and pull her, but she still won't get up. The moon was really full that day, floating above our heads, everything was like the sea, and the world was a flat surface, as if we could walk along the mountain, sit beside the moon, and hold it in our arms. Soon, I became scared and I said Kasumiko, let's go back. Kasumiko got up and walked, ignored me, and went down the mountain one by one. Kasumiko is not like this on weekdays.
In the Japanese story, there is a ten-year-old girl who meets to jump on Mount Fuji. Kasumiko and I were fifteen and a half years old at the time, and I remember it vividly. On the other side of the temple is a cliff, and we went down the hill cautiously towards the cliff side, not taking the same path.
We never climbed the mountain again. I stayed in that school building for another year and a half, and when I graduated, Kasumi was transferred to the county in less than half a year, and she would write long letters about life in the new school, and I lived like a year, just thinking about graduating quickly, going to learn to be a tailor, or doing something else, and being a little nanny was not bad, in the city, not far from Kasumiko.
I often think of Qingshuiwan in this city now, think of that day and that month, it is so pure and bright in my memory, and what I also remember is our teaching building, a small white building with only two floors, lying in the heart of the moon, it is a lake with water, so pure and beautiful.
I didn't think much of the sea that swept over the temple overhead on that winter night, and I didn't have the ability to describe how the moon flowed through my world in a huge and wide way, I just remembered the moon, the school building called Shimizu Middle School.
Now, fourteen years have passed since that night. Miss Kasumi got married and had children. We haven't seen each other in years. One year on Chinese New Year's Eve, my mother asked why I hadn't contacted Kasumiko this year, and I said I forgot. The mother later said that Kasumi was raised, and she couldn't see anything, and before this sentence, the mother said that her relatives were going to raise a child.
Kasumiko is the secret of adoption, which I didn't know before. Kasumiko never told me.
When she left that night, Kasumi said, "It must be beautiful for us to jump down the mountain from this temple." She likes to watch the plot of jumping off the cliff in martial arts movies, and her clothes are fluttering, so she thinks so. I said don't talk like that.
I never told her. Actually, Kasumi wants to jump, and I will definitely accompany me.
About the Author:
Liu Guoxin is currently a teacher at the School of Liberal Arts, Shaanxi Normal University. He has published the first collection of "Confession", "City Guest" and "Night Boundless", and the prose essay collection "Second Life", "Black and White: The Eternal Desert Thirst" and so on.