A seed of the mother earth

I am a seed, I am a son of the earth.

The rain always follows a few not-so-small snowfalls. Those thousands of raindrops, which are cast into the rough soil, begin to moisten the lumpy earth. And then, spring plowing. The awakened seeds sprouted and they were scattered into the paddy fields by my father and the others who remained in the village. The mud in the paddy fields was pounded and mixed to look like thin mud. The seeds clung to the mud, and an upward and downward force was exerted at both ends of the seeds at the same time. As a large green seedling emerges from the water, a strand of white roots sticks down. A year's worth of hope grows in this soft mud, and then enters the golden dreamland of the father.

Such a scene is repeated year after year in the hometown. The four seasons of the year come up in turn, like a silent recitation of such a text, from simple to complex, from green to yellow, from spring to winter.

Although our village is less than six or seven miles from east to west and two or three miles from north to south, it is a relatively prominent territory on the map. It is wrapped on the east and west by two tributaries of the Lotus Root River, the western one flowing into the South Dongting Lake and the eastern one into the East Dongting Lake, the dike separating the two areas on the south, and an aqueduct running through the village on the north.

The dike is more than twenty meters above the Wanzi, the highest point of the horizon. The two rivers are also different, like the two daughters bred by the Lotus Root River, the eastern one is fast and the western one is gentle. The people on the east and west sides of the village do not move around much, and some people have never been to the other side of the village even after a lifetime of living. They were like seeds scattered in the paddy fields, scattered where they stayed, and eventually grew into a green field that, with a call of the season, became a golden stalk of rice below the dike.

That year, under the watchful eyes of my father and mother, I walked through the village with a simple bag on my back. Like a seed that had been scattered, I arrived at the shores of the South China Sea, two thousand miles away from my hometown. From then on, I traveled like the wind by bus and train between my hometown and a foreign country. During most of my time in the foreign country, I moved around like a floating weed, not knowing where to take root. They were like seeds that I had thrown out, taking root under the dike in my hometown, on the pale land cut by the low horizon, and gradually growing into the shape of heavy ears of rice in the remote air like the end of the world. This is a gesture to keep asking questions to the earth, and every time I think of it, it makes me feel ashamed of myself.

Many years have passed, I have changed countless bags and thrown away countless pairs of leather shoes. However, the hometown represented by paulownia trees, old houses, bales of grain, plum trees, rice, cotton, neem trees, is still just a few pictures in a frame on the desk. My father and mother, they are still waiting for the departing car to arrive and leave me with a lonely pair of figures under the car. I still live in a concrete forest in the city, the sky above my head is rubbed by steel and concrete, the soles of my feet are covered by steel and concrete earth.

One after another familiar and unfamiliar place names, filled with the shadow of the hometown, with the flavor of the hometown. These shadows are filled with sun and moon, rice and straw, river and frogs, pesticides and fertilizers ......

If you use a more specific place name to describe your hometown, it's Fanzi corner.

The river that flows through has turned a few bends, and when it comes to this place it also turns a bit, and then there is the origin of this place name. There is no way to find out the exact reason, but look at the empty ridge, the old dog, the field without smoke, a solemn.

The hometown, because there are too many people who have left for too long and never come back, has gradually become silent. The only thing that remains is an empty door under the embankment, with a big mouth as dumb as the clouds, the sun, and the stars inquiring.

Many years later, the village people's problems, I also encountered in a different way.

That night, I walked from my bedroom to the living room and saw a huge mouse wander past behind the sofa. I finally figured it out: the noise coming from the quiet space all day was coming from this long-tailed visitor. I grabbed a stick, but it was nowhere to be seen. In the long days and nights that followed, it gradually became my companion. It punched several holes in the sofa and tore up the sponge cushions inside. While I was leaning against the sofa watching TV, its mouth intentionally or unintentionally arched against my back. I sometimes worry that the sewer pipe that cuts it in and out freely will one day get stuck in its gradually fattening figure.

I feel like I'm turning into a rat, wandering around in all kinds of cramped spaces, unable to resist the law of middle-aged blossoming and getting fatter and fatter. One day, when I can no longer walk, will I be unable to walk through the concrete forest rusted by sea salt, or will I only be able to imagine what I looked like when I was a seed?

I am a seed.

I am a seed of the earth.

I am a seed that rushes to the forefront ......