Homes

            A bus is coming, and jolting on the rugged on the mountain path…

            It finally stops. You take your backpack and attempt to get off from the bus. Throughout hours of driving, you do not have any strength to make any extra motion, even a facial expression.

            Here is just an ordinary village, in dusk, totally the same as what you predict. Why should you come to there? There is no way to tell, even for the person who assigns you to work here. Yes, you come here for work, you just remember. Graduating from college, but cannot find a jot – this sounds silly. You appears a bit regretful for the reason why you wrote “no prefer” in the “working condition” column while you are filling out the application.

            “Whatever…” You are walking toward the village.

            There are just several houses on both sides, without any “extra” shopping stores or other buildings that you can find in cities. Lives in this kind of place should be very easy and simple.

You are not celebrity, or someone who can “earn” those photoflashes. Therefore, you are not escaping from real life, because you do not need to; instead, you are just experiencing - looking for somewhere you could just stay for tonight, taking photos in

places made you interested so that you can save this moment… That is all.

You halt in front of a small department store, gazing at items in the shop  window. You seem to step back into your childhood. You still remember – cling on the shop window and pointing the ones you want your parents to buy for you. Hum, that is twenty years ago, too far; because memory is only memory, it is not able to make time go back.

Next to a little bridge in the village, you finally found a guesthouse. Well, although it is not sumptuous, it can still count as “clean enough.” Under the glimmer from the light bulb that is hung aside, you knock the wooden door –

An old lady comes out from a room with pajamas on…

“How can I help you, sir?” She is bothered by your coming. This is reasonable - it is already midnight.

“May I reserve for one night please?” you attempt to communicate with her.

“Oh… Yes…” she let you in, and then closed the door heavily. The sound is reverberated in the night, over and over.

She take you to a room, not large, but enough for a single person. You just look at the clock on the wall: the minute hand just covers the hour hand, pointing “12.” You take off your backpack and just throw it away, and then lie on the bed. You place your hands under the pillow and start to fall in a trance.

You have lived for more than twenty years. One third…or one fourth of your entire life? You wondered how life would be different in a village like this. You can

not tell, because you do not know what is going to happen in future, even next moment. Probably it will just follow what you are experiencing everyday- crossing streets in a city, keeping flipping pages in the book that you got in the library, taking notes in the lecture at school… Is it?

********

You remember on the bus you come here, everyone is talking about this…

There has an ancient legend throughout the past: In the past, there is a female student is assigned to work in this village. Somehow, she is raped and got pregnant afterwards but no one knew who the father is. Several days after that, she commits suicide within the baby, and her corpse is found in a grove near her house. Subsequently, people said their souls became a couple of birds, because people could always hear two kinds of miserable birdcalls from that grove. They all said that if passers didn’t hold a lantern in hands while You are walking in night, they would be attracted to the grove by those birdcalls and then lose their ways there until the next morning. At last, they noticed that they were just in the same place.

            Obviously, you know that is very superstitious. However, you still refuse to walk next to that grove alone; otherwise, you expect to have that lantern in hands – that

seem impossible, because there is no way to find a lantern in twenty-one century. For a long time, you always turn on your flashlight and walk as fast as possible when you passed that grove alone in night…

            However, living in this kind of village, birdcall is utterly inevitable as they can be frequently heard. Under the white hills in distance, leaves that are blew by wind, water that is flowed in the brook… Beyond the legend, everything you receive is just a kind of simpleness from lives in that village.

********

Every year, there would be a grand celebration in this village – after the harvest in the autumn. This is a local tradition, which appears to be handed down throughout a long period of time. You, an exterior person with different background, naturally refuse to participate. You just sit down aside, watching every villager chatting and drinking beer around the camp fire.

“I have not seen you before. How long have you stay here? Wait… aren’t you an exterior?” you turn around, noticing that a girl of the same age is sitting next to you.

“Uh!” you nod your head and gaze at her, “You appeared to have some worries?”

“How do you know?” she is wondering.

“Well, it is clear. We are the only people who sit aside rather than enjoying the celebration. Normal people will not do this.”

“So you have some worries either?” she asked me in reply immediately.

“I should count as an exception. I have only been here for several months. By the way, do you mind if you tell me what you are worried about? ”

“It won’t work. You don’t understand women,” she called herself a woman although you two look like the same age.

“I just want to give you some help if I can,” you promptly explain your purpose.

“I don’t need it now. Just leave me alone, give me some time, I will calm down,” she detects that she is too agitate when she talks to you, just taking a deep breath and says.

“You know… I had lived here for fourteen years with my parents. Five years ago, at the same day, when my parents drove me home in drunk, we got into a traffic accident because of high speed drive. My mother passé d away in that accident. Before long, my father decided to move to the city to marry with another woman, who is my step mother now. She has been divorced and had her own child. Since the time she came to my family, she has never taken any responsibilities that a mother ought to carry. She thinks that I am a burden for her, so keeps getting rid of me. I will not tell them that I come here, because it does not take any effects even I tell them- they do not care where I am…”

She stops talking, just gazing at the camp fire far away from her. Among the darkness, the firelight is flashing and flashing. Throughout her eyes, everything you can find is a kind of sorrow, helplessness, and yearning beyond expression.

********

    She grabs your hands, taking you aside. She asks you whether you still love her, because she notices you seem are hiding from her. She says she doesn't like that kind of feeling.

    You tell her your parents are here to visit you - she clearly knows that, because she has seen your parents many times. They love her so much. Gradually, they start telling you that you are not young any more, which to imply it is the time for a marriage.

     Well, she is correct. You are hiding from her, because you think you are not ready to create a family yet. However, you absolutely love her. Therefore, you don't want to miss her; because you know sometimes, if something fades away, it might not come back any more.

     After approximately half year, there is a wedding in the local church...

     As expected, your marriage is as perfect as what you predict. In the fourth year after your marriage, she produces a baby for you - a girl, a cute girl. In other villagers' eyes, you are too fortunate to make them envy. You think you are, until...

     Once in the traditional celebration in the village, you and your families get in a traffic accident on the way back home. She died after you send her to hospital. According to what happen after that, you leave away from the village within your daughter. You take her to the city you originally live in. Which is the real home?

     Afterwards, you decided to marry with another woman, who has divorced and had a child already. She appears indifferent about your daughter.

     Until one day, you notice that your daughter leave away from the city, and nobody knows where she is.

     A pasted story is coming back on you...

********

Maybe when people are born, we all belong to a place. As for time goes by, we sometimes attempt to move outside. However, farther we go to, we think more about where we belong. A country? A city? Or a long and specific address? The answer seems to be meaningless. The only thing we know is that you are learning to experience a difference. Indeed, you think you know everything because you have experienced too much, at least pretend to be. However, when it is the time to face a realization, you always become unintelligent. That is all.

********

            You sit up from your bed. Breathing… it is just a dream.