There is no sea in Madrid. But parents say to buy a boat for their children, then buy it; Said to buy diving supplies, then buy it. How did it all start? Because "I" said, "Light is like water. As soon as you turn on the tap, the water will come out. " The children are sailing between water and light, full of interest. But the ending was so terrible: all the students in the two classes drowned in the apartment-drowned in the beautiful streamer.
Attached is the full text of Time Like Water.
Flowing like water
Author: [Colombia] Garcia? Translation: Marquez/Song Biyun
The children asked for another rowing boat at Christmas.
Their father said, "No problem. We'll buy it when we go back to Cartagena. "
Nine-year-old Toto and seven-year-old Joel are far more determined than their parents thought.
They all said in unison, "No, we want it now."
Their mother said, "First of all, there is only rowing water in the shower room."
She and her husband have no problems. Their home in Cartagena, West India, has a yard with a bay pier and a cabin that can accommodate two large yachts. Instead, they were crammed into a fifth-floor apartment at 47 Castellana Street in Madrid. However, they promised their children that if they won the first place in their class in primary school, they would get a rowing boat with a sextant and a compass, and they did, so in the end both parents could not refuse. So my father bought all these without telling his wife, who was even more reluctant to pay off gambling debts than he was. This is a beautiful aluminum boat with golden stripes on the waterline.
At lunch, dad announced, "The boat is in the garage. The problem is that there is no way to move it up by elevator or stairs, and there is no extra space in the garage. "
But the next Saturday afternoon, the children invited their classmates to help them carry the boat up the stairs and finally moved to the maid's room.
Dad said, "Congratulations. What about now? "
The boy said, "Nothing now. We just want to put the boat in the room, and now it comes in. "
On Wednesday, mom and dad went to the movies as usual. The children became the kings and masters of the family. They closed the doors and windows and broke a light bulb in the living room. A golden light, as cool as water, began to flow out of the broken light bulb. They let it flow nearly three feet deep: then they turned on the lights, took out their rowboats and sailed freely among the islands in the house.
This wonderful trip was the result of several jokes I made at a family poetry seminar. Toto asked me why the switch light came on when I touched it. I don't have the courage to think much.
"Light is like water. When you turn on the tap, it comes out. " I said.
So they continued to sail every Wednesday night and learned to use sextant and compass. When their parents come home from the movies, they always find them sleeping like angels on the land. A few months later, eager to go further, they asked for a full set of diving suits: including masks, fins, oxygen bottles and compressed air guns.
Their father said, "it's bad enough that you put an unusable rowing boat in the maid's room." Isn't it even worse to have diving equipment now? "
"What if we won the Golden Gardenia Award in the first semester?" Joel said.
Their mother said gloomily, "No, that's enough."
Their father scolded her for being too strict.
She said, "when these two children should do their duty, they can't even win a nail." But in order to get what they want, they can get any reward, even the position of teacher. "
In the end, my parents neither agreed nor refused. However, in July, Toto and Joel each won a "Golden Gardenia Award" and were publicly praised by the principal. That afternoon, they didn't talk again, but found two sets of unopened diving equipment in the bedroom. So on the following Wednesday, when their parents watched The Last Tango in Paris in the cinema, they filled the apartment with two fathoms (about 12 feet) of golden light, just like a docile shark diving under the bed and other furniture, salvaging many things lost in the dark from the bottom of the optical flow.
At the year-end award ceremony, the two brothers were praised as the model of the whole school and awarded excellent certificates. This time, they don't have to ask, but their parents ask them what they want. They are very reasonable and only ask for a banquet at home to entertain their classmates.
Their father and wife always smile when they are alone.
"This proves that they are mature," he said.
Next Wednesday, while their parents were watching the Battle of Algiers, pedestrians in Castellana Street saw a waterfall of light leaking from an old building covered by trees: it overflowed the balcony, poured down from the front of the house, and rushed down the avenue with a golden torrent, illuminating the urban area until it reached GuaDaraba.
In response to this emergency, the fire brigade knocked on the door of the fifth floor and found that the apartment was full of golden light, reaching the ceiling. Leopard-skin sofa and easy chair fluctuate between the wine bottle flowing out of the bar and grand piano, and Manila hemp cover on the piano fluctuates like a golden cartilaginous fish. Household items are full of poetry and have wings to fly in the kitchen sky. The military band instruments used by the children to dance floated among the colorful fish swimming out of their mother's aquarium. Those fish are the only living and happy animals in the vast golden swamp. Everyone's toothbrush, father's condom, mother's cream and spare dentures all float in the bathroom; The TV in the master bedroom is drifting sideways, and the last episode of the midnight movie is still playing on the screen.
At the other end of the hall, Toto wore a diving mask, with only enough oxygen to reach the port, sitting at the stern, swaying with the tide, clutching the paddle and looking for the lighthouse; Joel is floating in the bow, still looking for Polaris with sextant; Their 37 classmates are walking around the room. Some are peeping at geranium potted plants, some are singing lyrics mocking the headmaster's school song, and some are stealing a glass of brandy from dad's bottle, thus turning it into eternity. They turned on too many lights at the same time and the apartment was flooded. Two classes of students from St. Julian Memorial Primary School, a hospital missionary, drowned on the fifth floor of No.47 Castela Street-in Madrid, a distant city, where summer is like fire, winter is as cold as ice, and there are no oceans and rivers. Inland residents will never learn to sail on the sea.