Can Xue - Vertical Motion

“So did he want to become a bird?” I asked.

“I don’t think so. He had a higher purpose.”

I talked with the elder for a long time about what my father’s last wish might have been. We spoke of sandstorms, of giant lizards, of a certain oasis that had existed, and also of certain minor disturbances involving our ancestors in remote antiquity — because a qualitative change in the earth brought about a scarcity of food. Each time we broached a new topic, we felt we had almost reached my father’s last wish. But as we continued talking, it eluded us even more. It really made us uneasy.

Thanks to the elder’s information, I gradually calmed down. After all, there was a last wish! This made me feel less nihilistic.

“M! Are you digging?”

“Ah, I am!”

“That’s good. We’ve all been worried about you.”

These dear friends, associates, kin, and confidants! If I didn’t belong to them, who would I belong to? The hometown was so serene, the soil so soft and delicious! I felt that I became a better self. Although my chest still ached dully, the disease had left me. This didn’t mean, however, that I was unchanged. I had changed. Hidden in me now was an obscure plan that even I couldn’t explain.

I was still like everyone else — working, resting, working, resting. I heard subtle transformations taking place in our hometown. For example, the tribes decreased in number; the desire to procreate declined; unreasonable complaints spread among us; and so on. Recently, we had begun to amuse ourselves by measuring the lengths of our beaks with the width of our atrophied fingers. “Ha, ha! Mine is three fingers long!” “Mine is four!” “Mine is even longer — four and a half!” Even though our fingers weren’t the same width, this activity was still fun for everyone. I discovered that my beak was longer than those of all of my brethren. Was it possible that the elder who had disappeared was my great-grandfather?! Because of my discovery, I broke out in a cold sweat and kept this secret to myself.

“M, how many fingers is your beak?”

“Three and a half!”

I kept my body vertical and continued rushing upward. Everyone soon discovered this change in my motion. I felt the fear all around me. I heard them say: “Him!” “Scary, scary!” “I feel the land wobbling. Will there be an accident?” “M, you need to get hold of yourself.” “It isn’t in our nature to move straight up!”

I heard all of this. I was engaged in a dangerous activity and couldn’t stop this impulse. I ascended, ascended — until, worn out from this work, I slept a dreamless sleep. It was a sound sleep — like death. It was free of confusion and anguish. And I couldn’t estimate how long I had slept. After I awakened, my body once more rushed up. This had become a conditioned reflex.

=

Before long, I noticed a deathly silence all around me; they were probably deliberately staying away from me. Because I was far from the border, others must have been here, too. For the first time in my life, I was alone in an absolutely quiet place. Two large things — black, certainly blacker than the earth — settled over my head all the time. I thought those two things must be heavy and impenetrable. The bizarre thing was that as I kept digging upward, they kept backing off. I couldn’t touch them. If I touched them with my beak, would we be together for all eternity? Sometimes, they fused into one huge thing and sometimes they separated again. When they were fused together, they made a gege grinding sound; when they were separated, they moaned unhappily. I couldn’t think about so many things: I just continued darting ahead as though they weren’t there. I thought, I wasn’t supposed to die so soon . Was I perhaps implementing my father’s last wish?

More time passed, and I was working in the deathly quiet and sleeping soundly in the deathly quiet. Scrupulously controlling my feelings so as not to think too much, I knew I was approaching the boundary. Ah, I nearly forgot those two black things! Did I take them to be myself? It was obvious that one could become accustomed to anything. To be sure, I was also sometimes weak, and at such times, I would utter a heartfelt lament: “Father, ah, Father, your last wish is such a terrifying black hole!” This lament gave rise to a misconception: the layers of black earth were twisting me, as if they would twist off my body. I also felt that my ancestors’ corpses were hidden in the earth’s folds. The corpses emitted spots of phosphorescence. I never hallucinated for very long: I didn’t like sentimentality. Most of the time, I ascended step by step. Ascended!

Since beginning vertical motion, I felt that my life was more disciplined — work, sleep, work, sleep. Because of this regularization, my mind was also transformed. In the past, I loved to have rambling daydreams — about the layers of black earth, about the ancestors, about Father, about the world above, and so forth. Daydreaming was a way to relax, a kind of entertainment, a kind of tasty turpentine. Now everything had changed. My daydreams were no longer rambling; now they had an objective. As soon as I began resting, those two black things above me started suggesting a direction, and they towed my thoughts in that direction. What was above? Simply those two things. As I was musing, I heard them make the bizarre sound of a watchman’s wooden clapper: it was as if someone were striking clappers on an ancient mountain on the ground above and the sound actually reached us underground. Listening attentively, I was thinking of the huge black things. While I was enthralled in this, the sound of the clapper would suddenly stop and become the sound of us insects — many, many insects — boring into the ground. Sometimes I also heard the obscure sound of insects talking — a sound that I seemed to have heard before. Ah, that sound! Wasn’t it the very sound that I had heard not long after I split away from my father’s body? It appeared that Father was still among us. He brought me a sense of stability, confidence, and a kind of special excitement. A new realm of imagination lay in this. I realized that I liked my present life. When you were about to achieve your objectives, when you incessantly extended your beak toward the things that interested you so much: Didn’t you feel happy? To be sure, I didn’t think of this too much: I merely felt satisfied with my new circumstances.

I realized tardily that the two black things above were not just totally black, but they contained infinite hues that were in constant flux. The closer I came to the boundary, the weaker and flimsier the core parts seemed to be, as if they would pass through light. Believe me, my body was close to sensing light, which was pink and a little hot. Once, when I overexerted myself, I felt I had torn one of the cores. I even heard a breaking sound— cha . I was both excited and afraid. But after a while, I realized that nothing had happened: they were still above me. All was well. I was being silly: How could there be light underground? Now these two things were so exquisite, so seductive. Wasn’t Father’s obscure voice echoing once again?

=

Before long, something happened: while I was digging upward, there was a sudden landslide. It was only afterward that I concluded it was a landslide. At the time, I realized only that I was falling and I didn’t know where I had fallen. I remember that at first I’d been excited and had faintly heard the noise that was told of in our ancient legends: the sound of people above congregating for singing and dancing. At the time, I thought, How can there be a congregation in the desert? Or perhaps it wasn’t a desert over us, after all? Now, the two black things above me really did let light through. I am speaking merely of my conclusion, because I wasn’t aware of it. This light wasn’t pink, nor was it yellow or orange. It was a thing that you couldn’t sense, wedged between the two black things. The sound of the musical accompaniment became increasingly intense, and I grew increasingly excited. I exerted all of my strength to thrust upward. and then there was the landslide.