Birthdays, those passing years

? Written by Peng Hui

When I was a child, I always looked forward to birthdays. No matter who among the three of us had a birthday, My mother would make a plate of scrambled eggs with leeks and serve it to the table. Forty years ago, I was moved from the city to a remote mountain village in northwest Hunan with my mother. At that time, the family raised several hens that laid eggs. The eggs had to be exchanged for daily household items such as salt and soap. The family was reluctant to eat eggs. Being able to eat scrambled eggs made by our mother for us on our birthday is also a luxurious meal. One year on my birthday, I caught a cold and had a high fever all day long. Before dinner, my mother specially cooked two poached eggs for me and put them in front of me for me to eat alone. My brother and sister were so greedy that they stared at my bowl in a daze. Later, when we grew up, our brothers and sisters each had their own families, and we rarely celebrated birthdays together. As we grew older, we gradually began to pay less attention to birthdays. Over the years, I have been running and walking outside. I rarely spend time with my family to celebrate my birthday. Due to my busy work, I have forgotten many birthdays. Twenty years ago, with a longing for the blue ocean, I broke into the coastal city of Xiamen alone. That day, I was walking back to my dormitory after working the evening shift in the newspaper editorial department, and passed by a restaurant selling braised vegetables. In the store, I was salivating when I saw the rows of fragrant braised pork head meat. I suddenly remembered that today was my birthday, so I walked forward to buy some pork head meat as a midnight snack to celebrate myself. The owner of the shop is a Hokkien man over 40 years old. He told me that there are two prices for pork head meat. The pork face is cheaper, and the piece near the pig’s ear is more expensive. He was afraid that I wouldn’t understand his Hokkien words. In Mandarin, I picked up the snow-white knife used to cut meat and kept gesticulating on my face. I couldn't help laughing and said to him: "Master, I understand. You don't have to gesticulate on your face to cut off your ears." On the side, take half a catty. "? I also followed his example and made gestures on my face with my hands. Then I bought another bottle of beer and went back to the dormitory to eat meat and drink wine alone. After eating the meat and drinking the wine, I stood in front of the window. It was quiet in the night and the sea breeze blew. I looked in the direction of my hometown and recalled my childhood. Birthdays seem to have returned to that distant mountain village...

?

Parents are always thinking about the birthdays of their children every year, The year before last, I had just started working in Changsha. On my birthday, my mother called me early in the morning and wished me a happy birthday. When I heard my mother's voice, I realized that today was my birthday. I felt sad. My mother's gray-haired figure was floating in front of my eyes. It was my son's birthday and my mother's hard day. If I think about it carefully, over the years, I have been busy running around and working hard. , I rarely ask about my mother’s life. When I was a child, I only knew how to ask for it from my mother, but I didn’t know that the wrinkles on my mother’s forehead were filled with stories of too many years. At that moment, I suddenly felt that I was so far away from my mother.

? Today I remembered that it was my birthday. I got up before dawn and turned on my mobile phone. I always wanted to look forward to a call from my mother, but my hope became a distant fantasy because my mother’s phone was no longer in the service area. On the other end of the phone, I can't wait for my kind mother's ardent birthday wishes...

The May Day Avenue shrouded in morning fog is already full of traffic, and hurried passers-by are passing by me. As we passed by, I was thinking that there are strangers like me in the crowd. Today, maybe one of them has forgotten his birthday and is running for life, because the world itself is full of things. Conflict is full of competition.

The annual rings have gone around again unknowingly, and the infinite nostalgia for the years is engraved in the passage of time. I am still running. Today, while wishing my birthday, I hold in my heart With tears in my eyes, I took out my cell phone as a habit and tried to call my parents’ cell phone numbers that were still stored in the cell phone. I wanted to have a dialogue between heaven and earth and send my blessings to my father and mother in heaven one by one

? "Dad, Mom, are you okay over there? ”

(September 4, 2018, July 25 on the lunar calendar? Changsha)

The author’s recent articles:

"A Copper Whistle" was published in "Hunan Water Transport" magazine, Issue 4, 2017

"The dusty past of Er Blind Man and Blind Man Zhu" was published in "Changhang Literature and Art", Issue 1, 2018

"Things in the Team Room" was published in the 2018 Issue 1 of the "Hunan Port and Shipping" Magazine

"Childhood in the Ice and Snow" was published in the 2018 Issue 1 of the "Chu Shan Chun" Magazine

"Zhongheng Highway, Looking for the Most Beautiful Scenery" was published in "Hunan Port and Shipping" magazine, Issue 2, 2018

"Embracing Tianchi" was published in "Hunan Port and Shipping" magazine, Issue 3, 2018

About the author: Peng Hui, whose pen name is Pengfei, is a writer and media person. He was active in the literary circle from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. He once published articles in "China Consumer News", "China Nearly 100 literary works have been published in newspapers and magazines such as "City Appearance", "Chengdu Commercial Daily", "Straits Herald", and "Hunan Automobile Transport News", among which the novel "First Departure" was selected into "100 Chinese Micro Novels" (Guizhou People's Publishing House Publishing House). He is currently the Secretary-General of Hunan Provincial Ports and Shipping Association and the Chief Editor of "Hunan Ports and Shipping" magazine.