November 30, 2020

Western Province, Egypt

The scorching summer sun shone directly on the shriveled loess in the northwest, and there was no trace of vitality, so my mother took my sister to the back mountain to pick up vegetables, leaving me and my eldest brother and second brother to watch the door at home. At noon, the eldest brother shouted that we should go to the river to play in the water together, this proposal aroused the interest of my second brother and me, and it was a relief to be happy in the water at noon, so the three brothers hit it off without hesitation.

The only small river in my hometown is located under the cliff in front of my grandfather's house, and above the cliff is my grandfather's field, and there is a big wheat field on the left side of the land, and there is a small road next to the wheat field. When I was a child, I remember that no matter how dry my hometown was every year, there was always a magic in my grandfather's field, and when I planted wheat, a piece of green wheat would grow, and in autumn, the golden wheat would be in harmony with the earthy earth, without any sense of disobedience. When it comes to harvesting wheat, grandpa will carry the cut wheat to the wheat field and spread it all over the wheat field, and then pull the donkey, and then pull a stone roller behind the donkey, so that a person, a donkey and a roller will go along the cake-like wheat field round and round and round, the weight of the roller is enough to squeeze the wheat grains out of the wheat ears, and finally the grandfather only needs to use a fork to pick up the wheat straw and stack it into piles, and the full wheat grains show a small face like a big fat boy, and grandpa will use a dustpan to raise wheat in the afternoon when it is slightly windy. In this way, the wheat straw crushed by rollers can be blown clean from the inside of the wheat.

That year, grandpa's field was covered with a piece of green melon seedlings, there is no doubt that this year grandpa will be a bumper harvest year, in order to prevent passers-by from stealing melons, grandpa built a shed in the middle of the melon field, whether it is day or night, grandpa will always stay there. Of course, one of the things that must be done before going to the river is to go to the melon shed to find grandpa's beautiful watermelon. At noon, Grandpa fell asleep alone in the melon shed full of shade, or maybe it was because it was too sunny, so everyone went out a few people, so the noon in the village was surprisingly quiet. The three brothers pretended to steal melons and quietly plunged into the grandfather's melon field, although the eldest brother was about ten years old at that time, but he picked up the melon was not small at all, a grasp of a quasi, sweet rustling melon will never slip away from under the nose of the eldest brother, this thin teenager picked up a melon wider than his body and smashed it to the ground, and then picked up the smashed partition to me and the second brother, and then told us to eat quietly, not to be discovered by grandpa.

The cool and sweet watermelon under the seedlings is so delicious that I forgot my grandfather's existence and shouted at the eldest brother and second brother: "Brother, why is this melon so delicious." Of course, my voice definitely woke up the sleeping grandfather, after all, grandpa's task is to guard the melon field, so any sound can alarm him. Grandpa got up and picked up a stick and looked around the melon shed, and suddenly saw three figures lying on the ground not far away, grandpa quietly walked over and lifted the stick to the back of the eldest brother, and scolded loudly: "I put a few of you broken tigers and tigers all day long and thought about stealing my little melon."

The beaten eldest brother cried out with a painful "wow", and the frightened me and the second brother threw away the watermelon in our hands and immediately got up. Grandpa saw that it was a few of us, his face pulled and then said: "I thought it was the person who stole the melon, then why don't you tell me when you come, if you want to eat the melon, tell me that I won't give you a few of you", and then he saw the smashed big watermelon, and glared at the eldest brother and scolded: "You see how wasteful such a big watermelon is, how good it is to sell it for money, why don't you pick a small one to eat?" Let's go, there's a little melon in the shed, I'll cut a few of you and eat it."

In this way, Meimei rubbed a meal in grandpa's melon shed, and then told grandpa that we were going to the river to play with water, grandpa heard that we were going to the river, raised his head and stared at it for a long time, and then said coldly: "There are ghosts in the river at noon, those ghosts are hot and have nowhere to go, so they will lie in the water at this time, and you will go if you are bold." The three brothers were frightened by the grandfather, so they wavered slightly, and the grandfather said: "Don't go again, it rained a few days ago and the water in the river rose, you might as well show me watermelons in the shed, and I'll go back to the house for a while."

"Hag, walk in the river and play with water", as soon as Grandpa's voice fell, the voice of the eldest brother's classmate was heard on the road. Why do you call him a sharp-mouthed slipper? I think that at that time, people would give that person a nickname when they looked like something. Sharp-beaked yoer is what we called the lizard when we were children, because the lizard's mouth is pointy, and it feels particularly smooth to run, so we call it sharp-beaked yoer, of course, the eldest brother's classmate has a pointed mouth, so the name sharp-beaked yoer naturally belongs to him. The eyes of the four grandchildren were all attracted by the sharp mouth, and the eldest brother got up and replied, "My father said that there are ghosts in the river, let me show him the melon", "You listen to your grandfather coaxing you there, he just wants to coax you to show him the melon, go away, you don't show it again", grandpa heard the sharp mouth and said that his mind was broken, so he yelled at the sharp mouth and said: "Don't coax you to a broken tiger and tiger again, why don't you talk more than, play your way", grandpa said while walking towards the sharp mouth, Of course, the group naturally pulled out their legs and ran down the slope to the river.

After chasing the sharp-mouthed slipper, Grandpa walked along the melon field, and then shouted at the three brothers in the melon shed not far away: "Hag, you guys can play if you want to, I won't go back, I'll see it here", "Ang" The only thing that the eldest brother could reply to Grandpa was this word, so he took me and the second brother's hands and got up and slipped clean.

The three brothers trotted all the way to the river, panting and didn't have time to rest, they stripped naked, and then the eldest brother shouted at the sharp-mouthed yoggler who was playing in the water: "Sharp-mouthed, is there ice in the water", "No ice, you beg to scatter, your old flat head will coax a few of you very much." After a while, the eldest brother poked his head out, touched the water on his face with his hand, pointed to the upstream of the river and said: "Nada water is shallow, you two go to Nada to play, don't come here, it's a little deep." My second brother and I carefully followed the direction pointed by the eldest brother and slowly plunged into the water, although the weather was hot, but the flowing river water was in contrast to the hot sun. The cool river water made me and my second brother become cautious when entering the water, generally in this case we will choose two ways, one is to slowly immerse in the water, and then soak in the water for a while to adapt and then let go, one is like the eldest brother, not to mention a fierce man into it, immediately adapt to the kind, of course, I and the second brother are less courageous, so we naturally chose the former.

In this way, my second brother and I got used to the coldness of the water after a while, got up and ran not far from the riverbank, and then immediately turned around and ran into the river again. The second brother was relatively weak when he was a child, and he often had a cold, and stomach troubles were often his things, because the weather was relatively hot, and the three brothers walked from home to their grandfather's melon shed, and then they ate some cool watermelons in their grandfather's melon shed, and then soaked in the icy water in the river for a while, so the problem came, the second brother caught a cold, and the watermelon he ate in his stomach was soaked in the cool river water and seemed to be fermenting in his stomach, turning back and forth in his stomach and constantly breeding one gas after another. Before the second brother could reflect, bubbles gurgled up from the water, of course, along with the bubbles, there were also watermelons that the second brother ate in his grandfather's melon field, and the undigested watermelon seeds and red watermelon flesh floated to the eldest brother and the sharp-mouthed sloer with the wine.

"Let's go, don't play, Mom is estimated to be back soon, and Mom will hit me if I'm late when I go back", the second brother was afraid that his behavior in the water just now would be known by the eldest brother and the sharp-mouthed girl, so he took me to the place where the clothes were stacked on the riverbank under the pretext that my mother was going home quickly, and the eldest brother saw that the two of us went up, so he asked, "Why don't you two play?" "Mom is coming back, let's go back" The second brother replied, "Okay, let's play again", the eldest brother didn't finish speaking before he heard the sharp mouth next to him shouting excitedly: "Hag, look, there are watermelon seeds on the water, this is not who poured the watermelon seeds into the river", said that the sharp mouth pointed to the floating watermelon seeds and opened his mouth to pick it up, the eldest brother looked at the floating watermelon seeds and the sparse melon pulp, he seemed to be white, looked up at me and the second brother on the shore, so he and the second brother looked at each other and laughed. While knocking on the watermelon seeds, the sharp-mouthed slipper asked: "Brother Ri, you are laughing and sprinkling, eating and begging for children, ha, delicious", "You even play with your brother, my mother is coming back soon, I have to bring my brother back, otherwise my mother will know that we are playing tricks and beat a few of us." After that, the eldest brother got up and walked to the shore, and while getting dressed, he secretly asked the second brother standing next to him: "Is that you Bahadi?" The second brother pouted and nodded like a bell.

After the three brothers left the river not far away, the eldest brother let go and said to the second brother: "If you let the sharp-mouthed slipper know, you will definitely be beaten", "I am afraid of being beaten, so I called you to go", "Hahahahahaha" The three brothers said that they laughed once, and shared this matter with their grandfather after they arrived at the melon shed, and the grandfather's mouth couldn't close when he smiled, but he smiled over and over again and said: "The sharp-mouthed slipper has eaten beautiful today." After so many years of this incident, every time I talk to my two brothers, I will definitely make everyone laugh, as for the sharp mouth, I haven't seen him since I left my hometown in 00, and interesting times and interesting people only exist in people's thoughts.

I remember when I was a child, every time I played in the river after the water was dried by the sun, there would always be one after another white alkali melon, my mother was particularly opposed to us going to the river to play with water, as long as we saw a few of us on the neck of the neck of the alkali melon, my mother will know that we must go to the river to play with water, of course, it is natural to wake up is the mother's meal of broom pimple or punishment station. In order not to let the mother find out, one of the most intelligent and yin practices of the eldest brother at that time was to go to the grandfather's melon field every time he finished playing with water and asked his grandfather to put on two watermelons, one was broken and eaten on the spot, and then the eaten watermelon skin was rubbed on the face and neck and arms, so that the alkali melon melon on the body would be absorbed by the moisture in the watermelon skin and wiped clean, and the other would be taken back to the natural filial piety of the old lady, and to the mother to prove that we have been in the grandfather's melon field, and we have not gone anywhere.

Time flies, everything is useless, people say that after the bitterness is sweet, but the bitterness of life finally becomes a great suffering, and in the end what people miss is the time that is gone forever.