• This is a fiction that was written as my assignment of the Comprehensive English during my freshman in CQUPT.
• The bold fonts here are used to mark the new words of this semester as my teacher requested.

Upon the Mere

It’s a long dream, I’ve had, for the whole night, at the cramped cabin, in a village, my old home, from dusk to dawn. It’s a quiet place, reeds growing around it and a river soaked the nearby earth. A lake branched out from the river was just behind the village. I had never been a regular there since my childhood, because I was still so young on those days, that even the reeds could cover upon my head and make me drowned. Sometimes I would stare at the surface of the lake absent-mindedly or wondered if there was a monster lurking in the bottom of the lake. Though honestly, this lake was not so big, probably no more than twenty meters wide. But I can still remembered the story that my grandma once told me with a serious expression: “Once upon a time, there was an old man who was living alone near the lake. But one day he vanished, and his body was never found after that. No one knew where he’d gone”

“So have you tried to search for him?” I asked.

“Perhaps, I am not sure,” she answered. “He’s an odd man, and seldom went out from his house. So we just didn’t notice any anomalies for his disappearance at the first days. "

“But when we realized,” she added, “at least in my opinion, it’s been too late.”

“——Umm, maybe you don’t like this story?” again it’s she that proposed. “Well, we can just leave it alone and go home for a rest now. What do you think?”

“Whew, you’re right, " so I seconded, “Why need we talk such boring and scary topics. "

And so I reached home, played all the left day, until the sun went down, and the stars came out beyond the clouds.

I still miss those days of my childhood. Children like us then were always curious about the the world which they had never seen before. But with the days in and out, continuous stimulations from various novelties had been gradually making us become numb to re-perceive the world. Sometimes I might fantasized and wished there would be a Deus ex Machina to renew or even reconstruct my world. But all of those might forever only remain in my nostalgia.

I sounds like a sad story, as if my childhood was so ordinary and boring. And as a matter of fact, I can hardly deny it, since it’s not a false description of the life, that I’ve experienced by myself. But on the other hand while in my view, most of the people just wasted their life and were busy handling all kinds of meaningless affairs forcedly or unconsciously, and finally died with doubts and regrets, but said “I’ve enjoyed my life and been enough”. And I do not think that everyone have an obligation to live an exceptional story.

But what I said above maybe just self-comforting words. After all, no one would like to spend the whole life for their goals unswervingly and then finally turn into the dust that no one knows and remembers, as if they had never come before. I don’t know which side is right. It’s like a ultimate question. So I can say with certainty, that I cannot handle it.

But I did not think much about such things in that afternoon. For me, that afternoon was just a trivial one, of my thousands of afternoons. Many years later, when I tried to recall this period, I might have even forgotten it and cannot even utter any words about it. But I did remember that there was a time when I was truly living in that afternoon, which was enough. At least now I can still recall the dusk of that day, when the night gathered, and the darkness of forests were prolonged till the horizon. The moonlight cast on the mottled leaves, and I strolled along the path leading to the distance, no one with me except my shadow.

Both of the evening breeze and the morning breeze were cool and refreshing. And in fact, I was just a kid afraid of the dark like most kids then. So I cannot ensure that my memory is right, since I can even not believe that I was so brave to walk outside the darkness alone. either. So more particularly, it was like at a summer morning, on which time I was passing the path.

And therefore it brought me back to that distant morning again, when I was still a student. I was studying in the school of my village. It’s a small one, whose tallest building was only two floors. Ever since I started my school, I had constantly witnessed that it was encroached gradually by surround growing houses and other buildings. The school also lacked the teachers. And by the way, it was said that my class teacher, also responsible for my math and other several main courses, teaching us for years, was used to be just a cook in our school, until no more teachers could be found.

And here I want to talk about Tony, my classmate. It doesn’t mean that he’s the special one, but just, the first one that appears in my mind when I am thinking back now. He’s neither my desk-mate, nor front-desk- or back-desk-mate. To be honest, he was a guy who was a little short, quiet, and perhaps also a nerd at certain angle. But in the other hand, he was not an academic-excellent student either. Perhaps on the opposite as what you think, he just performed bad in his nearly every courses.

But everyone at least has some areas in which (s)he is expert. And as for him, it is the origami. With no cut or paste, just by folding, the papers turned into various animals, like senbazurus^[1], as if given the breath of life.

[1] From the Japanese word 千羽鶴（せんばづる）, meaning one thousand origami cranes. Considering its English name is too lengthy when put here and below, which may cause the inconsistent language sense from the source language, therefore here I just used its romaji.

I was interested by this kind of marvelous work and asked him if he would like to teach me how to make it. “It seems to flutter away once you throw it into the air,” I flattered.

“But it cannot be true,” he responded, without looking up, just sitting on the chair and concentrating on the desk. “Senbazurus are just the senbazurus, instead the cranes indeed after all. There’s no sleep, no diet, and no joy, no pain for it. In short: ‘it doesn’t think, therefore it is not’.”

I was astonished by his words and could not retort for the moment. I cannot deny that it is he that was at the true side, but I just did not understand why he was so serious about my request and his works in a sudden without any omens. “Perhaps he just in a bad mood today,” I thought to myself. “Maybe I should have not bothered him.”

But except him, most of my classmates were all playing noisily in the spare time between or after classes. And Arnold was the kid king among the whole grade in the school, though there might be only a dozen of people among a whole grade in the school of this remote village of mine. But he still had many friends, yet I was not sure if they were the friends indeed or in awe. I was the one of the kind of people who were taciturn and introverted, so rarely have I called any of my friends to play outside, and always on the contrary——it’s they called me. And just as what I mentioned, one day, Arnold called me out——of course I would not have dared to refuse. After all, he even took me to play truant together before, so what else could be more severe than that in the world, for me then the kid?

And what did we do then? It’s already beyond my memory. What I could only remember was that Arnold seemed to have found some new preys while we were heading towards the Tony’s home. His house was just located near the lake that I mentioned above. So specifically, our destination was not Tony’s home, but was the lakefront.

“Hey, there’s David and Mark,” Arnold said, “I’ll go to join them now. You can stay here for the moment or go back. Anyway it’s not what I need to care about.” And I chose the former. After all, David and Mark was even one grade higher than me. Since I was not too familiar with them, to stay with a relative acquaintance like Tony would be surely a better choice obviously.

So we were just watching TV to kill time. But that’s not the only thing we used to spend. We then went out and sit around the lake to continue our words. We talked much, from tales to myths, from unicorn to phoenix, and from monsters to thrillers. I was so amazed by the unconstrained world that existed in his mind.

I used to have such a limited outlook during my childhood, and I can prove this by telling you a another story. It was when I was playing the cobbles behind the yard of my house, of course it might be boring in your eyes, but not in mine, at least at that time. Then one of my neighbors, an elder sister several years older than me, just came back from her travel to the urban district, where row upon row of skyscrapers, as she described, stood upright there. But it is not the point I am going to say, because the story I am telling now actually began with her introduction about the zoo, yes, just the zoo of animals.

She said she had seen tigers, lions, elephants and many other various animals there. But in fact, I was doubtful about her words: “No joking please,” I laughed. “There were never such things like tigers that had even existed in the world.” And then it was her turn to be surprised: “What? Why do you have such thoughts?” She laughed, too. But I was serious: “Because I’ve never seen so-called beasts in the real world, but only in TV programs or cartoons.”

That’s really ridiculous, to only believe the things that we’ve seen, but ignore those unknown existences. Now I’ve been not so naïve anymore. However, what’s more ironical is that, up to now I have not seen the tigers or lions personally yet.

But Tony is not the same, I hardly doubted his words.

Watching the TV for a long time would finally turned a boring activity, therefore we then went away from the chairs and just hung out in his house.

I’ve never taken a close look at the interior of his house before. I mean, it’s the first time that I’ve taken, but, could also be the last time I did, though I still didn’t realized it at that time.

“Let’s see something interesting,” he supposed. And then he took out a picture from the drawer, and passed it to me. “That’s it,” he smiled. And in fact, it actually aroused my curiosity successfully.

It was a black & white photo, slightly yellowed color reflecting the old stories beyond its experienced ages. There was a Japanese woman who stood at the prominent position of the photo, which could be easily inferred through the exotic kimono she wore, and the oil-paper umbrella she held. And apart from these, beside her was also a man who was standing upright.

So I started wondering——that who they were, and why they should appear in such picture——if they were still alive, or gone——was it a romance, or tragedy.

So I started trying to think about anything that might had some relations about this but was just in vain. Tony was an American, which I was sure about, so his parents should also be the same, apparently. I could also confirm from the accents of their tongues and appearance of their faces easily, because they were just coming back outside, opening the door, standing in front of us, and staring at us.

So I tried to look up, and then saw his father. I attempted to greet to him or say something, but his fury suddenly erupted before my hello somehow when he noticed the picture on the desk. He tried to hold back his anger to me at first but finally still shouted to me: “Go out here, now.” And then he turned his head to Tony. The atmosphere became solemn and both me and Tony could feel the pressure from the air. The pressure seemed to push me out, and then I realized that I was just an unexpected guest, instead of the intimate of them or someone else.

Therefore I was only to leave. Perhaps in order to avoid my suffocation due to the high pressure, Tony’s mom pulled out a piece of bread from their bag and gave it me, “You are Tony’s friend, right? Don’t be nervous or worry about Tony’s father, he is always like that——oh, well, would you like this? Just take it as a gift”. But what she said didn’t relaxed me, instead, I was even more worried when I heard the word “always”. But I did not want to intensify the tension anymore so I just took it symbolically.

But of course, no one would have any appetite at such situation. So I just threw it away on the side of the path once the figure of their house had faded away beyond my view.

That was the last time I met him, without farewell. The next term, I transferred to the school located in the county, the town district.

“You know, the school of our village, is so…”, my mother said.

“Up to you,” I just replied casually.

As a matter of fact, I was not the only one who transferred. According to my friends who still stayed there, after our leavings, two whole grades of the school did have classes in one classroom. Yes, just two grades, third of the primary school.

And the next time I come back, though in fact just passing through, I found that the gate has been locked, and the yard was only left with ruined walls under overgrown weeds.

I’ve left my hometown for education for nearly ten years. But most of my childhood friends have dropped out in their ninth grade year, drawing the period of their study career. It might seem a bit strange that though we were just living in the same village, we haven’t met each other for so many years.

Some of them now are working on street barbecue, some do the barber and some become laborers. Some are enjoying their lives and looking forward to tomorrow. Some are dreaming of getting rich overnight and write it down as a slogan in their social medias. Some of them are just another me that lost the dreams, doing the tedious work for living. Some of them have had the thick barriers with me, and I am also not the boy that denied the existence of tigers back then. Somehow I started to miss the old time…

We were all changed, never the same, like I was once travelling through the reeds forest, but now walking on the weeds meadow at the same place.

It’s been many years since my last time came here. Things were not, and so were the people. Air smelt damp, which made me a little bit chill in addition to the evening breeze. And just like an arranged coincidence, it started to sprinkle after a while, soaked my body and extinguished the flaring flames under the lake surface. Raindrop wrinkled the lake surface, just like the origami folding the ripples. The chirp of cicada was also silenced at that night. Moon shed its lights from lake bottom, scattering into beams of light. I was trying to flying to the sky, and finally touched the ceil, only to find that I had already been there, and someone was smiling to me.

“It’s getting late. Now go home and have a rest.”

So I was trying to go back and have a rest. Though I haven’t been a regular there for the recent years, I still managed to find my way to that old house following the reeds, and then slept by following his words, and therefore then I awoke——

From a long dream, I’ve had, for the whole day, at the cramped cabin, in a village, my old home, from dawn to dusk…