- 第1節(jié) 船難之后
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“讓那些死去的人安葬他們的死亡!碑(dāng)男孩在荒涼的叢林里跋涉,藤蔓在他腳邊纏繞時(shí),這句話在他的耳邊響起。一次又一次,他聽(tīng)到船長(zhǎng)喊:“全速前進(jìn),讓那些死去的人安葬他們的死亡!爆F(xiàn)在船長(zhǎng)不在了。男孩的同伴帶領(lǐng)著他穿越這片詭異的叢林,他感覺(jué)非常孤獨(dú)。他在想那句話到底是什么意思。死人能做什么呢?他們?cè)趺茨馨苍嶙约耗兀?
這個(gè)想法在男孩的腦海里盤(pán)旋,與最后那段日子的記憶混雜在一起。他再次聽(tīng)到暴風(fēng)雨的咆哮聲,船就在他的腳下劇烈地晃動(dòng)。臺(tái)風(fēng)似乎無(wú)處不在,就連身經(jīng)百戰(zhàn)無(wú)所不知的船長(zhǎng),也被這突如其來(lái)的一切嚇到了。
“抓緊主帆!”他對(duì)船員們喊道,“全速前進(jìn),讓死去的人安葬他們的死亡!”男孩緊緊地抓住了船身,即便船身已經(jīng)裂開(kāi)。天空中的閃電像煙花一樣,在此之前,男孩只是聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò),卻從未見(jiàn)過(guò);雷霆撼動(dòng)了空氣,船身在它的吼叫聲中不停地?fù)u晃。大浪翻滾而來(lái),打在甲板上,然后消退,片刻寧?kù)o之后,大浪再次涌現(xiàn),像黑黢黢的山巒將小船包圍。
在他意識(shí)到究竟發(fā)生了什么之前,這段記憶會(huì)在一瞬間侵占男孩的頭腦。然后它們慢慢消退,就像暴風(fēng)雨終將消退那樣。他們又回到了叢林,日復(fù)一日單調(diào)地走著,身邊都是藤蔓和樹(shù)木,完全不像是以海為生的水手們的生活。有時(shí),男孩會(huì)回想起在風(fēng)暴之前,甚至是在上船之前,他在陸地上生活的時(shí)光,他在農(nóng)場(chǎng)生活時(shí),覺(jué)得“被陸地包圍著”,盡管他當(dāng)時(shí)還不明白這個(gè)詞是什么意思。他想起自己的父母虛弱憔悴的面容。他相信他們盡了最大可能來(lái)為他創(chuàng)造一個(gè)家,但是母親悲傷的、布滿(mǎn)皺紋的臉,和父親皸裂的手,比他所有的童年記憶都要深刻。這些記憶就像毀滅性的風(fēng)暴和閃電那樣,布滿(mǎn)了男孩的天空。
對(duì)男孩來(lái)說(shuō),出生地的石頭路預(yù)示著他不會(huì)喜歡這種生活,也不會(huì)喜歡這個(gè)地方。但大海更加溫柔,變幻莫測(cè),正適合一個(gè)有野心的小伙子去塑造自己。所以他來(lái)到了海上。他已經(jīng)領(lǐng)略到了大海的冷酷,他想著,思緒又回到了叢林里。很快,他的思緒又飄回到了在船上的幸福的日子。盡管他是以偷渡者的身份上的船,但船長(zhǎng)還是收留了他,并且每天都給他安排些課程——教他觀測(cè)星空、繪制船的航線。“無(wú)知是很危險(xiǎn)的,不只是在船上,在生活中都是這樣的!贝L(zhǎng)警告他說(shuō)。很快,男孩就像了解自己一樣熟悉了夜晚的星空和船長(zhǎng)房間的航海圖。在不
斷學(xué)習(xí)的過(guò)程中,他感到安心。
但如果船長(zhǎng)突然身陷困境,男孩又怎么能再次獲得安全感呢?他又怎么能相信船長(zhǎng)所說(shuō)的一切不會(huì)導(dǎo)致同樣的災(zāi)難性的的結(jié)局呢?“讓死去的人安葬他們的死亡。”是的,他已經(jīng)看到了暴風(fēng)雨過(guò)后那些死去的人。幸存的船員提醒他離那些尸體遠(yuǎn)點(diǎn),最后不得不拽著他的胳膊將他拉走,那句“讓死去的人安葬他們的死亡”又出現(xiàn)在他的腦海中。這句話到底是什么意思?在記憶中搜索,男孩震驚地發(fā)現(xiàn),在船難發(fā)生之后,他已無(wú)法將船長(zhǎng)與其他人區(qū)分開(kāi)來(lái)——廚師,最低等的船員,甚至是他的父親。這就是船長(zhǎng)所說(shuō)的“他們的死亡”的意思嗎,所有的死者都是屬于彼此的?
他一步一步地機(jī)械地走著,讓自己不要再去想自己的家,以及那個(gè)他唯一敬重過(guò)的男人。走去哪里呢?他不知道前方是什么。但他依然移動(dòng)著腳步,似乎是按照自己的意愿。他的心依然在跳動(dòng),肺依然在吸入空氣。他的思緒繼續(xù)追溯著自己的生命,伴隨著自己的心跳與呼吸,他繼續(xù)向前走著。
Special Stories
After the Shipwreck
“Let the dead bury their dead.”
The words rang in the boy’s ears as he trudged through the inhospitable jungle,vines snarling around his ankles. Over and over again, he heard the captain shout, “Full speed ahead, let the dead bury their dead.”
Now the captain was gone and the boy felt alone despite his companions, now leading him through the alien jungle. He wondered what the words meant. How can the dead do anything? How can the dead have dead of their own?
These thoughts circled the boy’s head, intermingled with the events of the last days. Again he heard the roar of the storm, felt the ship bucking and braying beneath his feet. The typhoon had come out of nowhere, it had seemed; even the captain, who surely knew everything, was taken aback by its sudden appearance.
“Avast and hold the mainsail!” he shouted to the crew. “Stay fast and let the dead bury their dead!”
The boy had held fast, even as the ship had come apart. Even as the lightning lit up the sky like the fireworks the boy had heard about, but never seen. Even as the thunder filled the air, shaking the very timbers of the ship with its bellowing ferocity. The walls of water rose up, crashing over the deck, then receded for an instant of calm before rising up as a dark mountain to once again besiege the small ship.
These memories would come to the boy in a split-second, filling his brain before he had a chance to consciously remember what had happened. Then they would recede,just as the storm had eventually receded, and the jungle would return, the monotonous trudging, day after day amid the vines and trees that were nothing like his second home on the ocean.
Sometimes, the boy would think back to before the storm, and even before the ship, to his life on land—the stultifying life on the farm where he felt landlocked before he even understood what that word signified. He thought of his mother and father, frail and worn-looking. He believed his parents did all they could to create a home for him,but his mother’s sad, creased face and his father’s cracked hands crowded out all other childhood memories. They filled the boy’s sky, just as the thunder had, and were just as devastating, in their own way, as the storm.
For the boy, his birthplace’s rocky ground yielded only a life he could not live and a place he could not love. But the sea was softer, a malleable place in which an enterprising lad could reinvent himself. So the boy had run off to sea. He had learned the hardness of the sea, he thought, as he jerked his mind back to the jungle.
Soon, his thoughts drifted back to his blissful days upon the ship. Although he had come aboard as a stowaway, the captain took him in and gave him daily lessons in reading the stars and plotting the ship’s course. “Ignorance is dangerous, not only aboard ship but also in life,” the captain warned. The eager boy soon grew familiar with the night’s sky and knew the maps in the captain’s quarters as well as he knew his own reflection. He had felt so secure in the captain’s knowledge and in his own growing understanding.
But if the captain could be caught unawares, how could the boy ever feel safe again? How could he trust that everything the captain had said wouldn’t lead to the same disastrous end?
“Let the dead bury their dead.” Well, he had seen the dead after the storm. As the remaining crew members had urged him away from the wreckage, finally having to pull him by his arms to force his legs to move, the words “ Let the dead bury their dead” appeared unbidden in his mind. But what did those words mean? Searching his memory, the boy was shocked to find that after the shipwreck, his mind’s eye could no longer distinguish the captain from any other man—the cook, the lowest deckhand, or even the boy’s father. Was that what the captain meant by “their dead”—that all the dead belonged to one another?
He walked mechanically, pace after pace, leading him away from the remains of his home and the only man he had ever loved. Toward what? He had no knowledge of what lay ahead. But still his legs moved, seemingly of their own accord, his heart continued to beat, his lungs continued to fill with air. His mind continued to retrace his life, and with the beating of his heart and the filling of his lungs, still he walked.
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