The Timeless paint

In my old house in the west of the city, there is an old wooden lap chair. The so-called circle chair is our dialect there, in fact, that is a small family's tai shi chair.

It is estimated that the carpenter who played the chair is not skilled, or perhaps because of the lack of wood or because of the poor people with, do not have to be so fine. So the back of the chair and armrests are connected together, was simplified into a semi-circle. The backrest is no screen, save the carving and hollowing process, and even the lacquer is not on. According to my grandmother, not on the lacquer has not on the lacquer, because the wood of that chair is the good huanghuali wood.

I noticed that the chair when it was already very old. Has lost the original color of the wood, into a dark brown. It is full of oil, stable and solid, the whole body is flooded with a soft luster, as if from the oil mill off the bone, oil, bright shining.

My father said that it was bright because it was plated with several layers of time. It was touched by my old lady's big hands for decades, polished by my grandfather's long cloth shirt for decades, and my grandmother, who also loved to sit on this chair during her lifetime.

Whenever someone mentions my great grandfather, they always turn their heads around to look for me. My great aunt once nodded at my head, gritted her teeth and laughed, saying: "You are the best, look at this bunch of old and young, who did the old grandfather hug back then? Only you, all day long, you pocketed in a long cloth shirt, sitting on the old chair, treating you as a rare treasure."

Why don't I remember that? Of course I don't remember that. But my cousin insisted that I should remember. At that time, the Old Master used to hold me and doze off in the lap chair, and I snored as I slept in his arms. Even when the old man was already old and unconscious, he still held me, wrapped me with the hem of his tunic, and sat in the lap chair all day, not looking at anyone who came in, and only when I cried did he lift his eyelids.

But I was barely two years old, so how could I remember?

After such arguments, I began to look away from my grandmother who was napping in the lap chair. I crouched in the corner and watched how her blue lapel dress, and her withered hands, which were exposed in the sleeves, held the armrest. I used this to imagine the old man holding me as I dozed off, thinking how that old body was sleeping peacefully with a delicate little person in its arms.

The old man has a yellowed black and white photo, goatee, thin features, wearing a long shirt, sitting. The old man in the photo is so strange, but the chair he is sitting on is so familiar. It was the old lap chair.

I sat in that wide chair, my feet off the ground, my back against the back of the chair, my hands caressing the armrests. I closed my eyes and tried to find the old man's breath in my imagination, to feel the lapels of the long shirt that had been my cradle; sometimes I also tried to recall the stories and the old children's songs that my grandmother had told me while sitting in this lap chair. I repeatedly fell short, frightened by the sudden shock. The old lady, the old man, and the grandmother had all sat peacefully in this chair, but now they were all gone. When did they leave? Where did they go?

I jumped down from the chair and searched carefully, the seams of the seat, the wooden wedges of the chair legs, the faint texture of the armrests, I looked so carefully. The chair gave off an odor that was a complex mix. I took a deep breath and identified the wet leaves of the rainy autumn season, the faint ink from a musty old book, the lint from the closet, the dust, the wind, and too many indefinable scents. My sense of smell seemed to be out of whack, and I couldn't breathe.

Just then, Dad asked me, "What are you looking for?"

"I'm looking for old Grandma and Grandpa and Grandpa." I said, "How could they have sat in this chair for so long without leaving any trace?"

Dad looked at me blankly, then suddenly turned around and went to find a pocket knife. He squatted beside me and used the sharp blade to scrape the arm of the old chair. There was a layer of black dirt on the blade, and the scraped area revealed a fresh yellow color, so tender wood color, bright and blinding.

"Look at that, those old timers left it behind." Dad laughed, pointing to the black mass on the blade, jokingly saying, "The scabs of dirt they left behind."

I was angered by the smile on his face, my nose sore and tears about to fall down. That heartless man, to talk about our departed relatives like that. I shook off his arm, indignant. But he was still smiling, "This is the paint they take time to put on this chair."

Dad sat alone in his lap chair after I angrily walked away, his hands covering his eyes for a long time. Mom said he almost burst into tears after I left.

It was many years later that I understood why. Why he was smiling at me, but crying behind my back. Because at that time, I was still a child and could not understand what life and death were, what hopeless longing was, and he could not describe to a child the cruelty of death and the relentlessness of time. He laughed lamely, and the joke was out of place, but after that, I never sat in that circle chair again, horrified by the thought of the old woman, the grandfather and the grandmother. I stopped looking for traces of them, I soon forgot about it, and there was no trace of death in my mind.

I curled up peacefully in my lap chair with an iced candy in my mouth, lazily reading a book. The clock ticked, the light shone in through the window pane, it was quiet and peaceful, I felt everything was so good, so good ......