Appreciation of the shocking prose of Grandma's Years

In my memory, the back window of grandma's house is black and white, just like an old photo I accidentally took out from the bottom of the box. The subtle cracks in it have been blurred in the past, and I only remember the long smoke and the rings like the sunset.

When I was a child, I lived in my grandmother's house. The most inconspicuous two-story old building on the old balcony door is long and lazy, and I refuse to enter the house. The morning light occasionally spilled in and fell on the uneven concrete floor, and it was instantly fragmented, like a broken full moon. In the cramped and gloomy old building, what I miss most is the long and narrow staircase, on which my grandmother hobbled, soaked with the moss of the years and printed with the aperture of the annual rings. Maybe it's because the light is too dim, I still can't tell the color of the stairs, maybe it's light ink as far away as mountains, maybe it's deep mud as green and brown as the Great Wall, or it's blood scab as purple as years, but it's definitely not mahogany. Grandma's stairs are like the back window of her house, faded, old and gloomy, covered with deep time and overshadowed her original color. Looking down, it is full of the smell of dust in time.

Walking through the stairs, you can see the back window when you look up, which is as bright as a silver plate and stings people's eyes. Grandma's back window is naturally a wooden window, no, it's not a "side window". Grandma's back window is pasted with newspaper. She can't reflect the vicissitudes of life, and even can't stop the wind and rain. Every time the sun sets, even the light and shadow printed on the board through the back window is chaotic. There are many block letters in the newspaper, like white shirts.

The back window has begun to wither, the paint on the window has fallen clean, and the wood inside has begun to rot because of too much sun and rain. When I first met her, she was dying, as if she might collapse at any moment. I could only glimpse a little of her past elegance and appearance from her edges and corners.

At that time, I always liked to lie on the back window at sunset, which almost became my only pleasure when I was a child. Through the back window of this dead tree, I saw smoke from chimneys far and near, and the smell of food floated on the white walls and tiles; I saw the old man waiting for the child who came home late on crutches. Although he is haggard, his face is full of joy. What I will never forget is that in the sunset in Hui Jin, my grandmother's long figure, like a towering tree, will never grow old.

She is wearing an old apron, carrying a plastic bottle with old wine in one hand, and must have hidden a pack of shrimp sticks or some milk candy in the other hand, and she is coming slowly from a distance. At this time, I always lean out, wave my little hand and shout "grandma, grandma."

The white-haired grandmother looked up and found me hiding in the back window at a glance. She gave me a squint and then shouted, "Don't lie there, or you'll fall down." Her voice was soft and clear, with the afterglow before sunset, all gathered on the dusty broken rear window.

Li Shangyin wrote "to see the sun, for all his glory, buried by the coming night". However, in Guang Chen's back window, it was only in the evening sunset that she began to be really smoky, just like a woman rushing to an evening performance, before she started to sit down in front of the mirror and make up.

And I, young and ignorant, became the only one who witnessed her charming, glamorous and moving.

As night falls, the moonlight crawls slowly through the back window like a vine, which is my favorite moment of the day. After a day's work, grandma finally stopped and held me in the old bed. The bed is near the back window. When the moon is full, there is still water pouring down from the moonlight, and there is a thin layer of frost on the bed. Occasionally, the cool breeze blows the curtain of the bed, and the fluttering moon shadow is cast around the rear window, which is mixed with the vicissitudes of wood chips and the smell of fireworks on grandma, becoming an enduring painting and the last frame I saw before going to bed.

Many years later, I visited this time again, only to find that the old staircase was not as dark and long as I remembered it in my childhood, and the back window had already lost its former brightness and clarity, even as shabby and dirty as an abandoned picture frame.

I stood in the back window and looked around again. There are no farm fireworks and gentle words in my grandmother's back window. Only the bloody sunset lingered on the path my grandmother walked, and it never dispersed for a long time.

skirt

Of all grandma's things, what impressed me the most was her apron.

When I was a child, I was not tall. I can only reach her legs when I stand. Every time I fight with my cousin, I run to hug her waist with tears in my eyes and bury my head in her apron. The more I cry, the harder I try, so I put tears and snot on it together with my childhood.

In my memory, grandma's apron can't be separated from grandma, and my relationship with grandma is closer than when I was a child. Because I am small, I always feel unattainable when I look up at her, but as long as I see her apron, no matter how far it is, no matter how high it is, even if it is beyond recognition and dusty, I can recognize her accurately.

Grandma's apron is tied around her waist. It should be navy blue, or it may be grayish black. I don't remember clearly, except that the color of apron and grandma's white hair make up a bright black and white photo. This apron is made of grandma's old skirt made of golden velvet. After a long time, it has lost its original color, but it still feels a little thick and rough, just like a path paved with stones, far less exquisite and beautiful than the current apron. There are many folds on the apron, like grandma's slightly stooped back, which carries too many daily necessities and fireworks. I especially like the smell on the apron. The rich smell of rice and scallion oil has been brewing in the apron for a long time, and the heavy greasy and dust smoke are intertwined in the texture of the apron. Shake the apron and the debris of the years will fall.

Grandma wiped her hands with an apron. Although she also has a handkerchief, every time she washes the meal, she habitually reaches out and wipes her apron twice. The skin on the back of her hand is wrinkled like bark, but I think it is beautiful, much like the wrinkles on her apron, and like a stream inadvertently exposed in the mountains, winding and clear. She sat on the stove and made a fire. In the dark corner, the faint light fell on the apron, flashing like a sparkling lake, reflecting grandma's aging face.

In the early morning of winter, at dawn in Chu Xiao, grandma gets up to work. When I was a child, I was always sleepy and opened my eyes in a daze. I only saw my grandmother bow her head and wear an apron in the dim light, and then turned around and fell asleep again. Until about eight o'clock, my grandmother would hobble upstairs with breakfast. Even in my dream, I will wake up when I hear her footsteps. Breakfast is actually very monotonous, sometimes porridge, sometimes pickled rice. My favorite food is wonton, but because my family is poor, I can't eat wonton for a long time. I am as eager for wonton as I am for the New Year. Perhaps because of my childhood desire, I still drool when I see wonton. Grandma always saves some money to buy wonton in the vegetable market, puts it in her rice bowl, carefully wraps it with an apron, and then carefully brings it to me when I sleep. She slowly opened the wonton bag, and the familiar apron flavor mixed with wonton flavor swept away my drowsiness. Her apron trembled under the wonton bowl, then stood by and smiled at me, occasionally saying a word or two to me. After I finished eating, she helped me tuck in the corner of the quilt, tied on an apron and said, I'm going down to eat. It's cold outside. Please get some sleep. It took me many years to know that my grandmother likes wonton as much as I do. Every time she comes downstairs with my wonton bowl, she always drinks the wonton soup with only a few chopped green onion floating on it secretly.

Grandma also wiped my nose and tears with an apron. The apron gently wiped my face, just like a good picture of human fireworks unfolding slowly in front of me. I seemed to see grandma's lush years. She used to be beautiful and charming, and she was the most beautiful kannika nimtragol on the old stage. At that time, she must have no apron. She put the best time of her life in this ancient stage door and stewed it in the long sunshine. The old world, slowly boiled into juice, finally forced a way of twilight to pour on her apron. That's why she suddenly fell ill and even died before taking medicine. I think she must have had enough of the poison of this fleeting time before she left willfully. And with her, there is the tired and humble gray apron.

After she left, I went to look for an apron and rummaged around the corner, but I didn't find any traces.

I was standing in the room where she lived, and it suddenly occurred to me that when I was a child, she took me to see the opera, which happened to be an excerpt from Ask the Essence in A Dream of Red Mansions. Baoyu kept asking about Daiyu in the mourning hall of Daiyu. When asked about Ying Ge, Zijuan replied: Ying Ge told the girl to learn from what she said before she died. When I was young, I once asked my grandmother where Ying Ge had gone.

Grandma didn't answer me. She sat in a small chair in the door, her eyes were far away, and her apron was properly tied quietly around her waist.

I looked down and saw only a bright moon rising slowly from my apron, illuminating my half life.