Shahe, is that how you fell in love with our village? No one knows where the Shahe River comes from and where it flows. The oldest people in the village can only vaguely tell the village where Shahe flows-besides our Mengzhuang, there are neighboring Zhangzhuang, Lizhuang or Wangzhuang. The names of these villages are so simple and clear. If I can fly into the sky and look down at this land crossed by the Shahe River, I will definitely see those villages, large and small, which are almost identical. They are quietly wrapped in a uniform farmland, like oxen squatting on the ground and grazing leisurely. In the house close to each other, there is smoke curling up. It is these smog with thick smoke and fire smell that make the villages on the earth become smart-not only with vitality, but also with temperature and a touch of attachment. This big river from an unknown distance may have different names in each village. People regard the road it flows through as part of their own village. It doesn't matter what story the river has in other villages or in the wilderness, or what twists and turns it has experienced. In the Wang Yang of time, they finally became legends in people's mouths.
Just like Shahe around our village, just because there is too much sand at the bottom of the river, when water is cut off in winter, the riverbed full of yellow sand will be exposed, and an old man passing by with a hoe will naturally be called Shahe. Birth, illness, death, joys and sorrows are staged on both sides of Shahe every day. However, the woman who married from the village across the Shahe River stood on her bungalow across a narrow Shahe River, and even saw two pigeons parked on the roof of her parents' house or a row of swaying thatch. At dusk, you can still hear women calling their children home for dinner along the street. That child may be his nephew, who once held a chicken for her when she got married. She still remembers that the rooster in his arms was very upset and scared, and hurriedly pulled down a steaming chicken shit. For women, Shahe is like the Milky Way, separating her from the happy time when she was a daughter. Because they are busy with trivial matters and livelihood on weekdays, unless they have a holiday, women in the village rarely cross the river to their parents' home empty-handed. Going back to my mother's house means that I need to seriously carry a bag of humble gifts and prepare a laundry list of beautiful words, otherwise it will bring endless troubles to future exchanges. Those troubles are like quilts that have been covered for many years. There are fur balls on the lining, and the rough skin is rubbed on winter nights, which makes people toss and turn and can't sleep.
In summer, the water in Shahe River collapses every day. If you close your eyes, you will think it is the sound of the wind blowing through the Woods. At noon, the river bank was quiet and there was no one there. Even the cicada temporarily stopped singing and dozed off among the leaves. There is an old dog on the other side, squatting on a high slope, quietly overlooking the slowly moving river. In the middle of the river, there are one or two leaves of plane trees gnawed by insects. They swirl, sometimes intimately intertwined, sometimes washed to the shore, and finally stopped by overgrown weeds, unable to float. Fish swim happily at the bottom of the clear river. They will never drift away like fallen leaves. They love this land as if it were their permanent home.
At dusk, the sunset falls into the river, and the river is as red as fire, like a burning sky. The whole river is in turmoil, and there seems to be some secret story about to happen. A falcon screamed across the sky covered with sunset glow. A team of wild geese formed a long line through the village. All the sounds disappeared in the dusk. The earth is about to be quietly covered by a boundless darkness.
In silence, the sound of Shahe floated into the air from the depths of the earth's surface. The noise grew louder and louder, and finally, the wind stopped. In the whole village, only one river spewed out from the distant world, and then flowed along the vast fields, covering up all the joys and sorrows in the world.
On both sides of the river, the voice of women calling their children home rang again.
(Author: Anning)