The Tiger in the Market
Are we humans able to precisely express what we exactly think or feel? He is lying on the grass when that question springs to mind all of a sudden. It is a late spring afternoon. As the spring chases the winter, the temperature is rising and the sun adds more brightness and warmth in the air. If you walk a little bit faster for only several minutes, the fine sweat will come out of your pores, and your thin clothes sticking to your skin will be like a membrane covering your body. Actually, at this time of year, he always feels that the whole world is covered with an invisible membrane. Being covered with it, he can smell the freshness of first buds, hear the instinct call of summer and feel the warmth of sunshine as it touches the skin. He turns his head to the left so his cheek can touch soft grass blades. While they gently rub across his face, he feels a kind of intimacy. The intimacy between the Mother Earth and me? This thought embarrasses him slightly. However, innumerable green grasses, which are swaying in the breeze, are indeed like the fine hair of Mother Earth that grows under and around his body. Sometimes, he will imagine if he died. The grass would gradually grow over his body. The seeds of flowering plants, which could be barely seen with naked eyes, would fall into his flesh through small cracks, blossom and yield fruits. His dead body would supply nutrient-rich fertilizer for the Nature to grow new lives till there has nothing to decompose. Finally, he would disappear and return to dust.
He seems to hear a buzzing sound of insects, but he is not sure the sound is made by insects while they rub their wings together. Maybe he hears the sound just because of the sunlight. He knows the sunlight can make its way through the gloomy passage in the ear, cast on the eardrum and make it slightly vibrate. A scene of a movie crosses his mind: on a sunny afternoon like today, in a quiet town, a tramp discovered an ear covered with ants among the flowers. Precisely, it was a human ear. Then the story unfolded. Pulling his earlobe with one hand, he feels that it is intact and full of elasticity. His earlobe connects to the outer ear, and the outer ear connects to his head. In the same way, his limbs connect to his main body. That kind of close connection integrates his body parts into a whole. He suddenly has an intense affection for the word "whole".
He has not been laid on the grass for a long time. Now he feels so close to Mother Earth. Although under the earth surface, there might be hollowed and stuffed with pipelines, he can at least feel the real grass and the soil he tightly holds in his hands. That makes him contented. He also can smell the fresh and bitter scent from late spring to early summer.
It was as if time had been put on hold and the sunshine on him along with it. It brings back the memories of his childhood. He remembers that there was a small park behind the building he lived when he was a child. There were high trees and lush green grasses attracting kids to play hide and seek. He came to the park alone one afternoon, but he has forgotten why he went there. It was getting dark. All the little pals were either eating at home or going home after school, and the parents were busy cooking dinner or heading home after work. He was alone in the park. Therefore, he did not need to hide or seek. He wandered aimlessly around the park as the sky got darker. The tree stood in silence and the grass stayed still exactly the way they were supposed to. Nothing moved. He walked through the park alone sometimes fast and sometimes slowly while he felt something totally strange. He felt that he was suddenly pushed by someone to feel it, but he didn't understand what it was. So he was a little scared. He stopped walking, gasped, and raised his head. What he saw was an arc-shaped sky and the crowns of the tree which were swaying in the wind. There was no one else except him. He slowly lay down in the rustling grass.
He remembers that it happened when he just entered primary school. Since then, he always sneaked into the empty park, found a remote corner and lay in the grass for a while. He didn't know why he did so. However, he knew that he was coming into contact with something unknown though he could not tell what exactly it was.
He kept doing that until one day he fell asleep in the grass without his noticing it. His parents had searched all the places nearby with anxiety before they found him in the park. Grass grows fast in summer, so it was hard to find him as long as he lay in the grass. His mother sharply rebuked him and forbade him from doing that again.
"Why?" he asked his mother.
Being surprised at his asking, his mother paused, but then quickly recovered herself and kept teaching him a lesson with a serious look.
"It's too dirty," she said. "Look down at your clothes."
He wanted to tell her mother that he preferred lying in the grass alone rather than wearing clean clothes. But just then, he found that he could not exactly express what he thought and felt. When he explained, he stammered, which made his parents lose their patience and become more angrier. His mother told him what he should do and what he should not do. He just needs to nod. In childhood, his mother was the one who made rules for him, and he was an obedient kid who would never disobey his mother.
He met the tiger in the market when he just went into high school.
During that period, he first generated the thought of fleeing away. He wanted to run away from his family; he wanted to get away for his mother, who signed all day and got angry for everything; he wanted to get away from his father, who always kept silent and did nothing to fight the lows. He had had enough of hearing his mother sigh and murmur. In her eyes, everything seemed to be laid in the wrong place. It seemed that her mission was to put the wrong things right, but her efforts were in vain.
His childhood was filled with his mother's sighs. She moved in the room day and night, picked up the clothes on the sofa and cleaned the balcony. She always stared into the void and sighed. Sometimes, a breath crossed the tip of her tongue and she heaved a light sigh. Sometimes, a deep breath went up from her chest and she heaved a heavy sigh which was full of sadness. Every time he heard his mother heaving a sigh, he knew she must be anxious about something wrong again. What caused her to be like that was hiding in this small room.
Time was slowly passing by this family of three. Sometimes he felt he could see the shape of time. When he stretched out his long, slender and well-defined fingers, he saw time passing through the gaps and rush toward a direction. Time cannot be stopped and it will show you who other people really are. He heard a sound, but it was not made by his silent father folding newspapers. The sound he heard was made by bones which were growing in his body.
His mother's sigh came into his ears from the balcony. He put down his fingers which just were moving up and down in time and covered his ears.
He had learned how to smoke during high school years. He deliberately stayed with those who were called "bad kids" by his mother. A sound was made the moment he lit a cigarette. "You shouldn't do it." He reflexively heard his mother's voice. He looked around nervously. Other kids were leaning against the rusted handrail puffing away. The bell for class rang and its sound echoed nearby, but no one moved. It was a hard-won period of time that he had nothing weighing on his mind. On the contrary, once he got home, he would be stuck in his mother's sigh and his father's silence and he had to get through the tough time.
He needed to get away from home to be alone.
He has ever gone through the market alone where he could not only smell vegetables, but also breathe in a stinking or mixed scent. A long time ago, he often went there together with his parents. He still remembers that he walked in the middle with his left hand holding his mother and his right hand holding his father. The market had given him the impression that it is rumbustious. Noises would come into the ear forcefully. He also remembers there were stalls stacked with bundles of vegetable side by side. Dirty water flew over the ground. Plastic bags were thrown away randomly. People stood in front of stalls bargaining over the price of fruits and vegetables, and then took out crumpled paper money or coins which would hardly be found if they fell and rolled away.
After many years, this time, he goes to the market again. However, he arrives at closing time and sees a different scene. Only a few people are still there. Vendors are gathering up or packing the unsold vegetables which are no longer fresh. (The vegetable leaves have turned dark green or black as if they are just stepped on by people.) When they discuss prices with customs, vendors are quick-witted and cut deals fast. However, now they do things listlessly and slowly. It is like the scene at the end of a play—they are acting like listless injured soldiers or beaten generals. The market will be closed in a few minutes.
He notices a girl who lost her left leg.
In summer, she wore a shorts and the left thigh root can be clearly seen. Her left thigh is hanging in the air like a superfluous part. He remembers her who is on crutches, helping an old lady with white hair to pack up something. He has occasionally seen her on the way he goes to school and home. She walked with crutches at a steady and fast pace, which has left him a deep impression. However, every time he met her, he didn't dare to look at her incomplete leg because he thought it would be an offense to do that. He brushed past her again and again. Sometimes he thought that he just missed another life. However, he didn't know what her life was like, and he has never thought to be a part of her life.
The market is about to be closed. He turns around and walks towards the gate. After a few steps, he suddenly feels something, stops and turns his head. Then he just has eye contact with that girl. He seems to see a smile on her face, but he cannot be sure of that because just then, the overhead lights go off one by one and the whole market falls into darkness.
He likes to imagine his own dreams. Because he thinks that his dreams are too boring, he directly imagines some scenes which might happen in his dreams. He lies in the grass at nightfall, looks at the sky which is getting dark, and starts to imagine his dream: he would have a dream of a lush jungle where the roots of the plants are higher than human and the roadsides are covered by the juicy and unknown flowers. The jungle may be located in the south or on the equator. Anyway, he is in the jungle, keeps running forward and breaks the root under his feet which are excluding white sap. It is really hot here, so he imagines that he takes off his clothes and runs in the boundless jungle naked regardless of falling sap and rain drops. His young skin gives off a pleasant scent. Here a woman appears in his imagination and he slows down his pace. She turns her back to him and bathes in beams of dim light with shadows swaying around her. She is also naked.
Her back, which is exposing in the air, displays a mysterious shape. How should he develop his dream? He is in a quandary. The scene he saw in his dream is beyond his expectation. Now, he can erase the jungle with falling water drops from his imagination as quickly as the wind blows away a pile of sand. Then, he can start to imagine again like what he always did before. However, he finds himself unable to get out and cannot force himself to stop fantasizing about the naked woman.
So he walks toward her timidly, praying that she would not turn around. Sunlight shines on her skin quietly. He goes closer to her and she is almost close enough to touch. He faces her perfect back, which is white and bright against the dim jungle, and feels that there is a warm current flowing inside him and making him feel comfortable. Suddenly he gets bold and reaches out his hand. Just now, the woman suddenly turns to him. He clearly recognizes her.
Unexpectedly, she is the girl who lost her left leg.
A light night breeze is blowing. As he opens his eyes, the sky is studded with stars, and he feels cold in the crotch. He has a wet dream which is so real. He had fallen asleep without his knowing it.
Why did I dream of that girl? The problem begins to bother him after he calmed down. In daily life, he has nothing to do with the lame girl. It is said that the girl's disability is caused by a car accident when she was little. But some people said that she was born disabled and that her parents abandoned her. She and an old unidentified lady depend on each other and live by selling vegetables in the market. No one bullies her, but unavoidably everyone, including his schoolmates, regards her as a freak. They never talk to her, and they will walk away when they see her on the road. To be honest, her incomplete leg, which is like a sarcoma hanging in the air, also scares him a little.
It is too late, so he has to go home. He stands up with the support of his hands and pats down the dust on his clothes. Suddenly, the grass not far away sways. Seeing a shadowy figure, he is taken aback and associates it with a piece of news that someone was robbed here recently. Feeling a little scared, he quickly takes a few steps back and tries to ask with a calm tone:
"Who is there?"
As soon as he finishes asking, he regrets it. It is clear that it is a kind of dry and immature voice that has not experienced voice change. It is difficult to make sure whether it is a man's voice or a woman's voice. The boys who hang around with him turned into men's rough voices, but he still keeps the clear tone of a little girl, which was often laughed at by others. "Do not talk in the toilet," his companion once said to him. "Otherwise, I would think which little girl had broken in. It even makes me unable to urinate."
What should I do? He thought to himself. He, thin and feeble, shivered slightly in the darkness.
However, it is not a robber. The shadowy figure gradually becomes clear and it turns to be the lame girl. She stands in the distance with crutches quietly. They can see each other clearly.
He heaves a sigh of relief but he is a little annoyed because he sees her smiling at him. Is she laughing at me? He becomes angry and embarrassed. She must have seen him lying in the grass and she must have thought that he was a freak! Otherwise, how would a normal person lie in the grass at night? He had never thought that one day he would be a freak in freaks' eyes. He dares not think anymore and quickly ran away from the park.
His eyes seem like a camera running at high speed and watch every move of the girl. Of course. he does not stare at her all the time. Instead, he peeps at her or hides behind high objects peering at her. He is afraid of having eye contact with the girl. To be precise, he is afraid of having eye contact with anyone, even his parents. When he listens to his mother's lectures or hears his father's occasional responses at home, he always lowers his head slightly and avoids eye contact with them. He cannot tell what he is really afraid of. Perhaps it is because people's eyes can convey too much information, which is frightening.
In addition, people's eyes will reveal what they want to hide. Fortunately, his parents have not noticed the point. For example, his mother told him that he shouldn't go back home late and that he shouldn't skip classes, but she has never asked him to look straight at her eyes. Sometimes, he even feels that they are also shy.
Why do people can feel it when someone stares at them? This question confuses him, so he has to be more careful. He glances at the girl every two or three minutes, then quickly looks away and pretends to look elsewhere. But he knows that his eyes have not really look away from the girl.
Since they met that night, he has had a strange feeling for her. It haunts and guides him. After school, he immediately went to the market to see that girl.
The market was still crowded and noisy, and he, a thin and small figure, struggled through the crowed and noisy market. For several days, as long as the classes are over, he will go there to see that girl. Only after seeing her, he is willing to go home. He sees that the girl is sitting behind the stall. Because the weather is too hot, she wears a short navy blue vast, calmly dealing with all kinds of customers. The beads of sweat on the end of her collarbone are shining. The old lady always stood beside her with a smile on her face. The girl is about the same age as him, but she looks more mature and steady. Therefore, to some extent, he cannot help admiring her.
He has never thought about talking to her and he does not even want her to know him. He just wants to peep at her in the corner. Hence, nobody will disturb him, and he will not disturb anyone. It is the same as he peers at his parents through the crack of the door at night. They sit at the ends of the sofa with a distance in the middle and stared at the flickering TV screen indifferently.
A tall man comes into his sight.
The man in a black short-sleeved short rolls up sleeves, exposing his strong arms. He notices that the man circles around the girl's stall and greets the old lady. The old lady looks at him with a smile. Then the man goes to the side door of the market and lights a cigarette to smoke. The camera is running at high speed. The person hiding behind the camera clearly sees that the man's eyes has been fixed on the girl. After smoking, the man passes by the girl's stall again. This time, instead of greeting, he pats the girl on the shoulder gently as if he is giving a little encouragement to her. However, the girl is emotionless, just focusing on a bundle of celery in front of her.
One late night, when his parents are asleep, he sneaks out of home and strolls down the street. The air is fresh and the moon is bright. He slowly walks on the street in small hours. While passing by the market, he has a whim, climbs over the railing in front and sneaks inside the market. The market was closed early and there is nothing but darkness.