A Visit to My Dilapidated Hometown

　　Since my parents also moved to live in the county, I haven’t been back to my hometown in the village for many years, and it’s not that I haven’t thought about going back. It’s just that the kind of “thinking” is not as strong as when my parents were in my hometown. Maybe I always feel that home is where my parents are. Now that my parents have moved away, it’s just an empty house.
　　An empty house will never disappear for no reason, it will be there whenever you go back, so why rush?
　　It’s been like this for many years.
　　But for some reason, I always have dreams about my hometown recently. In the dream, the hometown is not dilapidated, the parents in the dream are not old, and I am still so pure and brilliant in the dream.
　　Dreaming too much became a worry, and the day was sunny and sunny, and I suddenly felt the desire to go back to my hometown.
　　It’s not far from my hometown, only a dozen miles away.
　　Soon I rode an electric bike into the village. Someone called my name on the side of the road. I turned my head and looked familiar but couldn’t remember who it was, so I had to smile awkwardly. I thought it would be fine to just laugh it off, but I didn’t expect his words to make me dumbfounded.
　　He said: “I haven’t seen you for so many years, why are you so old?”
　　I was stunned, this guy is so capable, he can kill the world with one sentence!
　　After perfunctory, move on.
　　After walking for less than ten minutes, I met the second person who called me.
　　I know this one, he is a neighbor in my hometown, a childhood playmate, called Boud (I don’t know if it’s the word), he should be one or two years younger than me, he has been in poor health since he was a child, his legs are lame, and his body hurts , has been sick and crooked but never recovered. 　　When I was walking on an electric bike, he called me: “Are you Xiaoling
　　?”
Also laughing, very happy look.
　　Porphy is still very thin, and his hair is still up and messy like when he was a child. What shocked me is that half of his beard is white, which shows the vicissitudes of life. Last sentence, puff, I haven’t seen you for so many years, why are you so old?
　　Suddenly I feel sad, the porphyra in front of me is really porphyra, but it is completely different from the playmate in my memory.
　　And I am no longer the youthful appearance in other people’s memories.
　　Over the years, I am old, and I am also old. We who were once so innocent that we don’t know what old is really are all old.
　　Why not make people feel emotional.
　　Time is boundless, and people are really small.
　　Saying goodbye to Bodah, and walking a few meters to the alley of my hometown.
　　The alley is deep, and at the end is my hometown.
　　Standing in front of the courtyard of my hometown, I was so shocked in my heart. Although I knew that the old house that had been unoccupied for a long time could not withstand the ravages of time, I would never have imagined that it would look so dilapidated.
　　A big hole was collapsed in the red brick courtyard wall, and the door panel of the courtyard door was still there, but it was so decayed that it could no longer be fully opened. People could not get in, so they could only look in through the wide crack of the door. The South Room, East Room, and West Room at the top are all standing tenaciously, but they have decayed so much that they look different from what I remember.
　　The doors of the west room and the east room are all open, like the toothless mouth of an old hungry beast, empty and terrifying.
　　The ground is full of vitality and green grass, because it is spring, the sun is just right, the grass is so green that it looks like a fake, and the surrounding houses look more and more like old people in the twilight—it’s really hard for them, the yard is tiled The brick floor, how did they drill out tenaciously and live so recklessly?
　　Just looking in through the crack of the door, my heart was full of mixed feelings, and the past bits and pieces suddenly became clear as yesterday. Those poor but happy days are gone forever.
　　After a long time, my legs were sore, the sun was setting, and it was time to go back, but I suddenly couldn’t bear it. During my childhood and even half of my youth, my joys, sorrows, sorrows and joys were all enclosed in this small courtyard. I have cried, laughed, and fought with my brothers and sisters here. In summer, we sprinkle water and sweep the floor in the yard after school. At night, we spread mats on the ground. The ground is warm after a day in the sun. We are not comfortable lying on the mats. We quarrel until midnight and sleepy until dawn. In winter, I cracked open half of the thick ice in the tank and squatted in the north corner of the courtyard to wash clothes. There was a water pipe there, but it couldn’t be unscrewed in winter… Time flies, as if it’s just a blink of an eye
　　. My childhood playmates are getting old, I am getting old, and even the home I remember as prosperous as a prime of life is getting old too, aging so quickly, so resolutely, and so melancholy.
　　When I walked, I looked back at every step, and my heart was so sore that I could wring out vinegar.
　　In my dream at night, I was arguing loudly with my father when I was a teenager. I was full of dissatisfaction, and I took it for granted that my father was out of date.
　　At that time, my father was in the prime of life, and our yard was not old yet. Fifteen houses with red bricks and blue tiles surrounded the yard in a concave shape. The apricot tree, jujube tree, and neem tree in the yard are in the limelight. The green leaves cover half of the yard. The sun shines from the gaps in the leaves, and the ground is mottled and beautiful.
　　I know, that’s called time.