Old House·Looking for Childhood

Li Jinglin

Already, these thoughts have sunk in.

But why, the brick-red color in the dream is always crooked.

The memory is far away, but what cannot be far away is the complex of never giving up. It is the past, the years bound to it, which still shines there even though it is near but far away.

My younger brother who is studying in Harbin wrote a letter. One sentence made me choke.

"Sister, I want to go back to my old house and have a look."

Everything has not changed. It is still the same brick red color, the narrow corridor between the storage rooms, and the iron door with red rust. But the people from back then are no longer there, and the key from back then can no longer open the space today. These brick red colors are also as blurry as dusty memories, but they are so blurry and friendly. The kindness makes us step lightly and cannot bear to break the tranquility here.

This is the tranquility without the hustle and bustle of children in the past.

Once the owner, now the guest.

Revisiting old places always makes me sad. Is it the sad memory of the buildings filling up with other people’s figures, or is it the sad feeling of aging when I find that the courtyard where we used to have fun and games has become narrower now. Without that joy, that joy of forgetting time, forgetting to eat, and forgetting how the sunset on the horizon is occupied by darkness; without that surprise, that one pile of dirt in the yard will be happy to play for several days; without that call in memory, when night falls, a window in the building next to it opens, and a mother calls her children home to eat in the twilight...

Now, how much I want to go downstairs to my friend's house and ring the intercom on the unit door, or simply call my friend's name in the yard like I did when I was a child, shouting hopefully: "Come down and play for a while." But now, do we only have the feeling of pressing on the road?

Please, please, please go to our old house, go through the side-by-side sheds, and see if the childish handwriting we carved on the iron door still vaguely remains; please, please, please go and see if the small shed on the far left side of the road still smells of homemade cakes; please, please knock open the door of the innermost building That door, see if the decoration in the house is already very modern, it was my former home; please, please go to the small shop downstairs, greet the host and hostess, and their slightly demented son who could only sit in a wheelchair when he was young, and see if there are still English books with blue covers and nougat that costs one cent or two...

I will tell you, that was my childhood.