excerpts from Bermuda

On Tuesday, the phone call to collect my father's belongings finally came. The other party suggested mailing the parcel and picking it up in person. I got on the train to Seattle on Wednesday.

My father crossed the Caribbean three times and didn't come back for the last time.

It starts from Bermuda in the east, reaches Miami in the west and reaches Puerto Rico in the south. It is famous for the disappearance of ships and planes, and is called "the devil's triangle sea where death lives". My father's boat set sail in sunny weather and arrived at the destination in the scheduled evening. The sails were full and the hull was the same. The crew and passengers were nowhere to be found, leaving intact goods, luggage and food, brightly lit, with bookmarks in the novel, halfway through the diary and the radio still on.

The prices of direct flights and transfer flights were out of budget, so I decided to rent a car in Seattle and go south to Miami.

The two cities are just opposite the northwest and southeast. If we are lucky, we will arrive in a week or so.

in late January, the air was dry and cold. It began to rain soon after I left the garage. I rented a big red Chevrolet with eight seats. Suitable for long-distance travel. Through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Florida in the lower right corner of Georgia, my father was there. Father's luggage is right there. Before leaving, my mother told me to sprinkle desiccant immediately after taking it. I was bored in the cabin for a long time, and my clothes and books were the most susceptible to moisture. I casually promised that I had no real feeling for the word "relic". It is no exaggeration to say that I never even thought that my father would die before hearing my mother's depressing news of the shipwreck.

After the accident, the search and rescue work at sea lasted for two weeks, and the police finally added the father's name to the list of victims.

At home, there are no bodies, and funerals and ceremonies cannot be held. Mother then asked me to contact each other, hoping to get back the rest of the luggage and put at least a few personal items into the coffin.

In order to find out the cause of the disappearance or death, the relics of the whole ship were transported to the police station for examination and filing, which was a heavy workload, and the efficiency was slow as Christmas approached. In this way, another month passed, and on a gloomy Tuesday morning, I received a phone call from the cold voice of the tablet, informing me to pick up the parcel at the designated place within half a month.

"who? Whose package? " I'm half asleep.

"Mr. Jin Haoping."

"..."

oh ... right.

that's right. Father is gone.

Tuesday

On Friday, it kept raining in Seattle.

The vehicles on the expressway are running at a high speed. The wiper rubbed against the window regularly and dully. Dean Martin's version of San Francisco is playing on the dry radio.

"... I left my heart in San Francisco,

it called me from the top of the mountain,

I went to the cable car to climb near the starry sky.

The morning mist may freeze the air, but I don't care ... "

...

My father, who has no melody, loves this song and occasionally hums a few words.

actually, I'm not close to my father. He travels all the year round. My impression of him stayed in the huge travel bag and the gifts inside.

My mother's family opened a bookstore in Hezhi in the north, where I lived until I was fifteen. Grandma has four daughters, and her mother ranks last. My family is prosperous, but there are few boys. I play with my cousins all day long and occasionally listen to their stories about their fathers, which makes me curious and lonely. But I'm not impressed by my father's love, and I don't know if I should envy him.

It's like sensing my emotions. At this time, my father comes back with a travel bag over his head and stands at the door with a smile that looks like fatigue and guilt. No one will come in without a conversation, as if asking for forgiveness. If you really care so much, why did you leave? I thought so, hiding behind my cousin and peeking, and refused to approach him.

However, children are the most sensitive and tolerant. My persistence is only a few hours.

Before going to sleep, I ran barefoot to the backyard full of vegetables, knowing that my father was sitting by the door waiting for me with a gift. Cartoon electronic watch, Christmas snow crystal ball, animal bone earrings, beret with star signature, wooden Rubik's cube, Indian headdress, insect fossils ... each one is not cheap and takes a lot of effort, and there are cards with neat fonts. I was bought off by my father's sincerity almost immediately, and I was reluctant to continue to be angry.

During the days when he stayed with us, he also actively helped with the housework and looked after the store, worked hard and never got angry. If menstruation, who was unfair to his mother, made trouble, he bowed his head and listened to the training with an open mind, without refuting a word, until the other party was aroused by his sincere attitude. Gradually, even his grandmother, who hated him most, was too lazy to blame him. So he was accepted by the family with a narrow margin. When all this happened naturally, I was the only one who thought it was not a good thing-that almost resigned behavior was like an advance of everyone's patience.

Apologizing too warmly is proof that it will happen again next time.

Sure enough, within a month, the huge traveling backpack was filled with things and ready to go.

The night before he left, my father came to bed and told a story instead of saying goodbye.

"... mother bobcats can swim. The body was dry and still injured. It was washed down from the upstream and probably hit by a drifting raft. We hunted some wild pigeons along the road and planned to feed them in case we met a bobcat. But it's a pity that the bobcat's nest was not found. Well, however, bobcats have great vitality. We left the pigeons in the bobcats' haunt, hoping to receive them ... By the way, you know opossum, right? Seeing a powerful enemy will temporarily go into shock, isn't it great? We have seen it ... "

Most of the animals in the story were saved by their father and friends.

I listened quietly. Although I never said anything to forgive my father for leaving again, I firmly thought: Father, not just my father. All this is for bobcats, opossums, elephants and penguins ...

I woke up the next day and went back to my life without a father. It's like a greedy dream.

I imagine that all the animals I have seen and those I have never seen have a happy ending, and it seems that my ordinary life has become great.

I can share a part of me with the world, just as the world has become a part of me. This self-righteous superiority has taken root in the body. Talking about my father with my friends, I also pretended to answer in a low-key way: "He is a traveler, his job is to travel, and he always disappears, which really makes people angry." Ah, but, bobcats, have you seen bobcats? What about elephants? Have you seen it? ..... "

There may be no difference whether the father is here or not. All I really rely on is the great illusion.

In the winter of fifteen, just after Christmas, my father appeared at the door again. As a matter of routine, I put on a lukewarm face to lead him in, took the gift, and waited for him to tell some new stories to replace the story of bobcats' survival that I was already tired of telling.

just then, the strange name in the card on the gift box jumped into my sight.

"Dad ... who is this?"

"what?"

"'to the favorite sunny center'. Who is Qingyang? Who is this gift for? "

"Ah ..."

"Who's this? This is not my name. "

My father's shocked eyes showed the embarrassment that the evidence of his betrayal was exposed.

On Wednesday

Sunday, I entered South Dakota. Cumulonimbus clouds followed me all the way, and the cloudy sky overhead was like the tearful face of a wronged child.

The highway surrounds Evil Land National Park and extends to the north indefinitely. There are few hotels. I have been driving for a whole day, and I am exhausted, and I dare not stop and rest in the wild. I thought at random, how many cars along the way, like me, headed for the southeast corner of the harbor? Among the hundreds of missing passengers, are there any family members? What shall we do with their luggage? Has anyone come to pick it up?

maybe this whole thing is just a bad prank? It's like Bermuda is a natural prank. Birth, illness, death and illness are the mischief of the nucleus. The earth is an alien prank.

......

Before evening, it finally began to rain, and the journey was shrouded in darkness.

this is a prank of god. I thought. I was so sleepy that I couldn't find a gas station to buy coffee, so I drove in a trance and the car kept slipping in the rain.

"Yu yarn."

father's voice.

I was so frightened that my drowsiness was swept away.

in front of the field of vision, more than ten meters away, two dim spots are vaguely flashing in the dense rain curtain, like the desperate and strange eyes of a dying person.

the yellow gradually expands.

it's a car light.

Pull over and turn on the emergency light. It must have broken down.

I slowed down and passed it. The owner was not in the driver's seat. It seems that I have got the assistance of the police.

the next second, a pair of hands slapped my window. The ring on the index finger hit the glass hard. His face was hidden under the brim of his raincoat.

I lowered the window and poked my head out: "Is that your car?"

"Please do me a favor, can you lend me your phone?" He said that in order to show his sincerity, the rain kept sliding down his forehead. "My phone ..."

His voice stopped in shock.

I recognize him, too.

that's a face that I will never forget.

"Yu Sha ...?" He said softly.

"hi. Qingyang. "

excerpts from Bermuda.