When I got the call, I was debating whether to eat dinner at the malatang joint downstairs, the one likely using gutter oil, or go home and boil myself a bland bowl of instant noodles. On the other end, my mother's voice sounded like it had been sanded down – rough, dry, carrying an unnatural calm. She said, "Your brother... he's gone."
Old Zhou felt he was living like a potted plant. Not the meticulously pruned, zen-like kind, but one simply stuck in soil, placed on a windowsill, given a bit of water regularly, and nothing more. The "soil" was the Sunshine Nursing Home, the "water" was the three daily meals of mush, pills, and the occasional smile from a caregiver. Outside the windowsill was, theoretically, the world. But separated by a layer of smudged glass and a gleaming stainless steel railing, that world became like a landscape painting on TV – distant and unreal.
The railings were installed uniformly last year, supposedly for safety. The director spent an hour spitting saliva at the all-residents meeting, the main theme being: this thing will prevent you from falling. Old Zhou, dozing off below, thought, falling? From this third-floor height, not too high, not too low, falling would most likely just mean breaking a few bones, then lying in bed, becoming an even more standard potted plant. What really irked him was that the gleaming railing, like prison bars, constantly reminded him: you are penned in.
That sidewalk, it's kind of interesting. Right on that old street near my place, next to an old wall covered in greasy ivy. At first, nobody paid it any mind. People just hugged the wall or walked on the curb, tiptoeing around bikes. Later, some busybody measured it and announced, "Hey, this thing's only ten centimeters wide." Ten centimeters, comrades, what does that even mean? It means my size 42 worn-out leather shoes, the ones I've worn for years until the soles are almost gone, couldn't even fit sideways. Placed vertically, you'd have to twist your ankle at a bizarre angle.
I felt the earthquake at 3:17 PM.
At that time, I was sitting at my computer, trying to finish the ending of my novel. Outside the window was the uniquely gloomy sky of Chengdu, like a gray towel soaked with water, pressing down heavily. The air was filled with the mixed smell of hot pot base and damp earth, the familiar scent of Chengdu.