Never Lost Childhood

CharlietheAprilfool

I have long wished to return to hometown---Hami, an old city with the an air of the countryside and pay a visit to my childhood friends who still stay there and satisfy the desire of knowing all the details of their new life, their parents’ health condition, their wives and husbands, their children probably (though they are too young to have many), their professions and their present dreams. If possible, I would also like to revisit all those remembered fun places I have ever been to since I was able to walk around without Mom’s hand: the poplar woods, the abandoned well, the city park, the frog pond, the earthen hills in the neighbourhood and even the school classrooms.

With all those longings for past, pure and naïve memories which are starting to blur in my mind, my power of recollection seems to be losing me to the infant summer’s breeze which then leaves me alone in the deepest moment of varied sentiment.

As far I can remember, almost all of my childhood pals admired the one with most precision when trying to shoot a swallow down from the sky with a hand-held sling made of rubber and a Y-shaped twig. I never shot any down and took it back home as my pride and prize until one day in a dispute between two older boys about who should claim an unlucky bird taken prisoner by the hit of a sling ball.

I could tell it was dying, lying there with dark wings and back, white chest stained by the red blood, its tail being tightened together by pains, unlike what the primary school textbook told us “a pair of black scissors”. But strangely enough, they decided at last to give their “prisoner” to one of us---the younger ones---by our winning a competition of throwing the other down until the last one barehanded among ourselves.

Though I was not the youngest one but by nature I possessed the most genuine quality of gentleness and shyness. I hesitated and said: “ Count me in!” The outcome was as surprising as the decision I made to join in. I won. I defeated all the other 12 boys who tried their luck on a sandy hill.

No doubt, that was the biggest physical competition I had ever won in boy’s sports by throwing close friends around and down hard to ground, ruthlessly. I got my prize---the red and black swallow, supposed to be with scissors-like tail, breathing weakly.

I soon rushed back home in extreme rapture, holding tight this little thing as if some treasure. It was already dead when I proudly showed it to my Dad, who gave me only a very stern look in return, saying it was cruel to kill such a lovely bird. I shed my tears not for the misunderstanding from my Father but rather for the very first time of my life for the death of a creature, which later extended into the compassion for all humankind.

I buried it in the poplar woods, in a small tomb in front of which lay a flat stone painted on it with the words: My Dearest Little Swallow, in Peace You Shall Rest. Weeks later, on a rainy night the tomb was washed out, which took me a whole week to recover the lost bones of its remains and put them back to a safe place where it was reburied. This time my friends all came to help as if they had totally forgotten the red and blue bruises I had given them earlier.

That was too far back into my childhood to remember how old that year I was and did such a silly-holy thing. Not until quite recently, when one day I got a phone call by a very strange voice: “Do---you ---know---who---I---am? You, silly, bird!”

“Sorry, Sir, I really can’t recognize your weird voice with such a wacky tone!” “Oh, can’t you!”

“Well, I think I, I don’t know who you are….”

“Of course you do! I was that poor little boy whom you threw so hard miles away just for another silly bird like you! When we were 7!”

Oh! Yes! My dear friend! I do know who you are and I do remember how hard I threw you down nearly into the sand, which has kept me feeling guilty but warm for years. You never complained or took revenge on me. You said it was fair play.

At 7! How could I have been such a tough guy at 7? And so sentimental….

(To be continued)

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-5-24 13:45:36编辑过]

Dear Charlie,

How lovely the story is, what about the rest of it?  lease complete it, please, please …

I like your writings very much and that is the reason I joined this forum.  However, you seem to have been quite engaged in recent time and seldom write anything new, why?  

It is very sweet to have a memory of childhood; it was long time ago though …

Best regards from Jeannie

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-9-2 16:51:33编辑过]