of the other, pencil drawings of little people and little crooked houses as well as Chinese characters carved with a penknife. Some of the character strokes have been inked in, and some inkedcharacters where the ink couldn’t be scrubbed clean had been penciled in and again carved with a penknife. It is a jumbled picture but it conjures up fantasies.
The sound of water dripping, dripping in the cellar filled with seawater, dripping on the floating mattress, dripping and soaking the sheet. And the ink black seawater keeps rising, soundlessly. The floating mattress hits a soggy wall, bounces, and changes direction.
The principal, who has a dark, ruddy complexion, a big Adam’s apple, and a husky voice, tells them the history of the school. His low drone reverberates around the ridgepole and rafters of the big temple-like ceiling above the auditorium, filled with long wooden benches. Bells start ringing, and the sparrows fly off in fright.
Below the ceiling are several Taoists clad in long gray cotton gowns, their hair in topknots. Heads bowed and hands clasped in front, the one in the lead swinging a horsetail whisk, they are chanting scriptures around a coffin.
The lid of the coffin is open and he almost guesses that the corpse in the coffin, with its head wrapped in the shroud, is himself. Apparently confused, he turns and looks around, although he doesn’t know what it is he is looking for. However, he sees behind him two big heavy doors that are half-open, and outside in the sun, on the stone steps, a little wooden bucket with peeling paint. A lizard is crawling on the stone step in front of the wooden bucket.
He walks out of the auditorium, or maybe it was originally a temple that had been converted into a school auditorium, or maybe it was in fact a temple hall. In the shadows of the covered walkway stands an old stone tablet with parts missing. It looks like the wild-grass calligraphy of Mi Di, but the inscription in very standard regular script reads: “Written by Meng Chun in the ding-mao year of the reign of Yuanyou of the Great Song Dynasty.” Long ago, ink rubbings were made of it, but later the main piece of calligraphy was engraved over and now can barely be made out and is completely undecipherable.
He walks out into the sun. A boy in a vest and shorts, riding on a brand-new Dinglan junior bicycle, passes by. He asks the boy something. The boy stops and, with a foot on the grass, points ahead, then speeds off.
He walks on ahead and passes a piece of neatly trimmed lawn. Past the lawn, in a mass of weeds, are the shiny handlebars of a bicycle. He goes over to have a look, and covered with weeds in the ditch is the frame of a Dinglan bicycle.
He strides quickly up the hill, begins to run, and then runs faster and faster, panting hard, but in his mind he seems more and more to understand that he is surely pursuing the self of his childhood. On the top of the hill is a sour-date tree, though not a very tall one, with its small leaves trembling in the wind.
The child is running in his direction from behind the hill but stops in front of the sour-date tree and looks aboutwith a worried look. Then, probably discovering something, he dashes off somewhere else. Not far from the top of the hill is a small, sparse forest where between two trees a white bed sheet is drying; something seems to be moving behind the sheet, and the child charges headlong into the sheet but gets wrapped in it and can’t get free.
The mountain wind is toying with the sheet. Out of breath and with great difficulty the child manages to lift the sheet and get out, only to find yet another sheet hanging between two trees and flying about.
The child stares for a while, then quietly walks over to it. There seems to be the shape of a person behind the sheet. This time the child carefully and gently lifts a corner of the sheet. Nothing is there, but nearby, another sheet is hanging between two trees. Instinctively, the child looks behind
The sound of water dripping, dripping in the cellar filled with seawater, dripping on the floating mattress, dripping and soaking the sheet. And the ink black seawater keeps rising, soundlessly. The floating mattress hits a soggy wall, bounces, and changes direction.
The principal, who has a dark, ruddy complexion, a big Adam’s apple, and a husky voice, tells them the history of the school. His low drone reverberates around the ridgepole and rafters of the big temple-like ceiling above the auditorium, filled with long wooden benches. Bells start ringing, and the sparrows fly off in fright.
Below the ceiling are several Taoists clad in long gray cotton gowns, their hair in topknots. Heads bowed and hands clasped in front, the one in the lead swinging a horsetail whisk, they are chanting scriptures around a coffin.
The lid of the coffin is open and he almost guesses that the corpse in the coffin, with its head wrapped in the shroud, is himself. Apparently confused, he turns and looks around, although he doesn’t know what it is he is looking for. However, he sees behind him two big heavy doors that are half-open, and outside in the sun, on the stone steps, a little wooden bucket with peeling paint. A lizard is crawling on the stone step in front of the wooden bucket.
He walks out of the auditorium, or maybe it was originally a temple that had been converted into a school auditorium, or maybe it was in fact a temple hall. In the shadows of the covered walkway stands an old stone tablet with parts missing. It looks like the wild-grass calligraphy of Mi Di, but the inscription in very standard regular script reads: “Written by Meng Chun in the ding-mao year of the reign of Yuanyou of the Great Song Dynasty.” Long ago, ink rubbings were made of it, but later the main piece of calligraphy was engraved over and now can barely be made out and is completely undecipherable.
He walks out into the sun. A boy in a vest and shorts, riding on a brand-new Dinglan junior bicycle, passes by. He asks the boy something. The boy stops and, with a foot on the grass, points ahead, then speeds off.
He walks on ahead and passes a piece of neatly trimmed lawn. Past the lawn, in a mass of weeds, are the shiny handlebars of a bicycle. He goes over to have a look, and covered with weeds in the ditch is the frame of a Dinglan bicycle.
He strides quickly up the hill, begins to run, and then runs faster and faster, panting hard, but in his mind he seems more and more to understand that he is surely pursuing the self of his childhood. On the top of the hill is a sour-date tree, though not a very tall one, with its small leaves trembling in the wind.
The child is running in his direction from behind the hill but stops in front of the sour-date tree and looks aboutwith a worried look. Then, probably discovering something, he dashes off somewhere else. Not far from the top of the hill is a small, sparse forest where between two trees a white bed sheet is drying; something seems to be moving behind the sheet, and the child charges headlong into the sheet but gets wrapped in it and can’t get free.
The mountain wind is toying with the sheet. Out of breath and with great difficulty the child manages to lift the sheet and get out, only to find yet another sheet hanging between two trees and flying about.
The child stares for a while, then quietly walks over to it. There seems to be the shape of a person behind the sheet. This time the child carefully and gently lifts a corner of the sheet. Nothing is there, but nearby, another sheet is hanging between two trees. Instinctively, the child looks behind
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