Well water is like a mother's milk, year after year, slowly decreasing, and even facing the danger of being cut off.
I have been following the ancient well near my home for a long time, and my heart has been in a panic since it was unable to supply water to the farmland downstream ten years ago.
I am worried about what kind of life my family and my villagers will face when the ancient well that we used to be proud of stops flowing in the future. Will they dig a big hole in the yard to accumulate Rain Water, or will they drive horses and walk a few kilometers of mountain road with buckets on their backs to Longtan to fetch water?
The answer is absolutely.
In order to survive, in order to heartburn thirst, the villagers have to do everything possible, make every effort to find water as the source of life.
Ten years ago, or more than ten years ago, the well in my memory, whether it was sunny or rainy, would continue to trickle out every day, soaking the fields downstream into a round and plump one, making the rice harvest of the Li family every year and the fish happy year after year. Not only that, but also provide domestic water for more than a dozen families. We use water to wash dishes, wash clothes and cook, and we also feed the cattle to rinse the ring with water, all the time. Even in 1994, the driest year, it did not rain once for half a year in a row, which led to the drying of wells in Shiba, Silong and other places. It still had its elegant demeanor and still had a long stream, rescuing villagers who were short of water one after another.
At that time, we had so much respect for the well. In the early morning of the first day of the first lunar month every year, under the leadership of my father, carrying a bucket, he always came to the well early, lit incense and burned paper, then kowtowed, and then scooped up two buckets full of water from the well and happily picked it home. One is to express his gratitude for the water given by the well, and the other is to wish for good luck. Over the years, we shoved water pipes down the throat of the well and sucked the well water crazily, forgetting to worship the well on the first day of the first lunar month. Over the years, our pious heart for Jing has been occupied by mahjong and poker, and it is difficult to find time to think about it again.
Of course, disrespect for the well is not an excuse that it is about to stop, but it is ourselves who are really responsible for the final consequences. Excessive waste of water and continuous underground mining are the reasons why the ancient well will be cut off.
The well is very old. I am so old that I can only get word of mouth from the previous generation. Mother said that she grew up eating the water from that well; Grandpa said that he also grew up eating the water from that well. So I speculated that the well has existed for hundreds of years. It is said that there is no evidence for empty talk, but the facts can best prove it. The well is made of stone, and the stone chisels that have been buckled into square wells have become blurred by the grinding of the years, and even the old tree on the head of the old well can only be surrounded by two or three of us.
The well has selflessly nurtured generations of people in the Flame Forest with sweet milk, which has not been verified for several generations until today. But now, more and more people are moving out, and there may be less and less water flowing out of the well. In theory, fewer people use water, and the accumulated water should be increased, but on the contrary, it is decreasing day by day, and even does not flow now.
The two ends of the path are connected to the old well and the old house at the same time.
I have seen my grandfather walk back and forth on this path countless times, carrying a pole on his shoulders, trembling to pour buckets of water from the well into the tank, feeding my whole childhood. This scene has been filled with memories of my childhood.
Our old house is small, short, narrow and dark, the kind of adobe house built in the 1940s and 1950s, covered with thatch, like a thick layer of clothes for the house, blocking Rain Water, the cold current and the sun. My grandfather, grandmother and mother lived in such a house for many years. Later, my father became a member of this humble family, and then I was born here.
I have probably lived in this dark and narrow old house for about ten years, and although I am miserable, I enjoy it. Because at that time, the family could stay together at any time, and no one ever left forever and never came back; because at that time, there were playmates playing marbles and hide-and-seek with me, and no one said they didn't want to; because at that time, there would be a lot of neighbors and relatives coming to visit. Affectionate everywhere. Even magpies like to build nests on the big trees at the door, and swallows like to build nests on the doorway. Now, relatives are scattered everywhere, playmates are nowhere to be seen, neighbors don't visit, and relatives don't visit. The magpie is gone, the swallow is gone.
Later, I changed to a bigger house, but it was still an adobe house, still covered with thick thatch. The later house accompanied me for ten years, but this decade was the most extraordinary time in my life. In 1998, my father died of meningitis in the fourth year after presiding over the construction of the adobe house. In order to pay tribute to our father, we buried our father who died young in the field of our cousin's house opposite us, so that our father could see the home he had spent countless efforts and painstaking efforts to build day and night.
In 2013, my grandfather passed away peacefully, and we placed him in the place where he once lived, the site of the old house, so that Grandpa could always protect the land and hometown that he had never left in his life.
Father and grandfather have left the home with us, and we have built a new home for our father and grandfather. May they rest in peace in their own home.
There must be many sources of missing in people's life, whether people or things, as long as they can touch the softest strings in the depths of the heart, they can play a beautiful or tragic heart song.
Ancient wells, old houses and graves remind me of my hometown and my loved ones all the time.
Author: Yang Changlei
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