Meng Weizai
In the spring morning, the air is humid. In the humid air, even the songs of birds sound a little slow. However, the sunshine is warm after all. On such a morning, Ping Ping, director of forestry, and Dong Yi, director of personnel, came to the back of their residence to plant melons. A few days ago, the two of them opened a small piece of wasteland here, saying that planting some vegetables would not only improve their lives, but also exercise. At the moment, one of them is holding a small hoe and the other is holding a paper bag to grow melons. That paper bag contains seeds of pumpkin, wax gourd and cucumber.
Old Dong carefully planed the pit, and Old Four carefully planted the seeds. All of a sudden, director dong cried:
"Hey, man! What the heck is wrong with you? No, no! "
The director of the department didn't understand its meaning, blinked and asked, "What's the matter? What's wrong? "
"Melon seeds," Director Dong squatted down and pointed to the melon seeds in the pit. "Why did you put the seed mouth down?"
Ping was surprised, glared at him and asked, "If you don't put it like this, how can you put it?"
"Dude!" Dong Yi yo loudly, "mouth open! The seedlings grow upward. You don't even know this? Thank you for your forestry. Do you plant trees with your heads down? "
"Ha ha ....." Ping smiled. "You are ridiculous, Lao Dong! This melon seed should be rooted and then arched, so the mouth should be facing down. Fortunately, you are still the head of personnel. What should I do if I let you choose a melon expert? "
Old Dong refused to accept, insisting that the seeds were upward, and all the seeds buried by Old Four should be dug out before being released. Old four is in a hurry, don't move The two men fought so hard that the sparrows flew away loudly.
Just as they were arguing, an old farmer led a little boy of seven or eight years old by. So they all asked the old farmer to be the referee: Who is right and who is wrong? After listening to their respective excuses, the old farmer smiled, coughed a few times and said, "We don't know this."
When two directors were arguing about a complaint, the little boy around the old farmer smiled and wanted to say something. The old farmer's big hand was pinched on his little skull, and he finally said nothing.
The old farmer took the little boy away.
The two directors blushed and continued to argue.
Selected from contemporary 1982 issue 4.
Appreciate the novel "Planting Melons", and write out the argument whether the planting mouth should be up or down when planting melons, which is very meaningful and has few words.
A very common sense, a problem that does not need to be debated, has actually been debated between two directors in power, each holding his own opinion and having to do things according to his own point of view. This reminds us of many absurd things in life: farmers can't arrange what they plant in the fields, but they have to decide according to the will of some officials; Workers can't decide how to work, but a leader has the final say. If these "leaders" are like these two secretaries, what will our future look like if our career has been in this state?
More significantly, when the two directors complained to the passing old farmer and asked him to be the referee, the old farmer himself said "I don't know about this" and didn't let the little boy around him say anything. Is the old farmer afraid to say it, or is he unwilling to say it at all? This is thought-provoking.
This novel, less than 1000 words, outlines a small scene, which is both realistic and symbolic, and is almost a modern fable. In the plain narrative, there is a bitter irony about a phenomenon in life.