Oyster Man...

Finally called me to find this article, read it in a magazine many years ago, and then looked for a long time and did not find it, adapted and published today.

"The good thing about a circus is that it has a lot of characters you need. These characters are in their own right, and each has its own story. These stories, these laughs and tears, have become the condiments and bedding for the grand performance, the curtain on the ceiling is getting more and more cold, the audience is like a sardine, lamenting its own paleness and smallness, irresponsibly lamenting the wounds on the actors, how bright the oil paint is, how sad the face under the oil paint is, of course, this sadness meets everyone's needs, you, me, we, let the flutter with the wounds last longer! The shouts of the audience will also become more and more evocative. ”

—Oyster Man Diary.

The Oyster Man lived in this circus, his pale face, his bloated shell-like body, hands and feet like long-soaked in water, puffy, miserable white, covered with various red and blue blood vessels with the twists of the trail.

The blood vessels stretched all the way into his body, and beneath the ugly oyster shell, hid the oyster-like internal organs. Those heartbeats that had once been beating gradually disappeared, and those hearts and lungs that should have belonged to him slowly transformed into a warm, viscous milky yellow liquid that he had seen and eaten, and when he was still a fisherman, he often caught oysters.

He often sat at the bow of the boat, pried open the oysters to eat the milky yellow meat inside, and when eating the oyster meat, he always unconsciously remembered a nursery rhyme:

Oyster man, cook over a fire

Shell as bowl, meat as dish

The chickpus is coming, come on

He always hummed a song to swallow the oyster meat into his stomach.

When I think about it now, it's like a nightmare.

Later he encountered the storm, a huge oyster bit his body, he struggled hard to finally climb to the shore, but it was no longer him, but a half-human, half-oyster monster that came ashore.

The monster left the house.

The Oyster Man is not short of money, and his tears are pearls. There is a fairy tale that when a princess cries, her tears will turn into pearls, and her flower-like face reflects the luster of pearls. But the Oyster Man, his ugly body was already disgusting, his pale face was crying, and even the turtles on the beach were scared away. How could he pick up those round beads, he didn't want any of them, he had everything. Where the oyster people passed, many pearls were left behind, attracting a gang of robbers.

They kidnapped him, beat him, humiliated him, set him on fire, forcing him to leave more pearl tears, and the oyster people cried while ashamed of their cowardice.

Finally he found a chance to escape, and from then on he vowed not to shed tears again.

Later, he went to this circus.

The circus is called the Panda Hotel, and the floats are decorated with huge panda models, and the leader is a girl in a red flag robe, plus an old couple to jointly run the troupe. In addition to performances, they also sell soba noodles.

The girl is sweet-looking, wears a red cheongsam, and when the circus program is scarce, she can also perform a martial art with sticks as a squirrel. The Oyster Man liked her when he saw her, and he decided to stay in the circus and perform with the girls from town to town.

The girl is called a little lice, tied a pair of upturned braids, the waist is not much thicker than the chopsticks in the soba noodle shop, and the eyes are slender and slender. The first time the oyster people saw her was at the soba noodle shop, and she brought the noodles over.

The wind and sand that day were very large, and there were not many tickets sold, and the oyster man ate very slowly in the shop, and he had been looking at the little lice, looking at her narrow waist, the chaff with holes in the cheongsam, the freckled face covered with incense powder, and he went out and said to the little lice:

"My name is Oyster Man, I used to be a fisherman, and then a big oyster ate part of me, and I became like this."

The oyster man shyly but firmly unfolded his heavy shell, revealing his terrible and fragile internal organs, his strangely shaped heart intertwined, the wind and sand blowing, and his stomach was cold as if he were holding ice, but he still let the little lice see enough, and the little lice looked very carefully.

"My name is Little Lice, it's windy here, I'll help you block the wind."

She untied the silk scarf on her wrist and wrapped it around the oyster man's stomach, which was orange, and the oyster man felt that his stomach had become warm.

Tears of indisputable anger, tears of emotion were about to fall again, and the oyster man desperately tried to hold him back.

The little lice said, "Your belly is so beautiful." ”

The Oyster Man stayed.

The Oyster Man never spoke of his tears turning into pearls, and why he stayed, and the little lice did not ask. Since that meeting, the oyster people have rarely seen the little lice, and even if they did, the little lice have not blocked the wind for him. He lives with the bear, gets up early every day and works greedily, desperately helping the circus, but his heart is like holding a brazier, very warm.

The Oyster Man's performance project is not difficult, but it is the most disgusting and feared he has ever had, and he wants to go up to the stage with great vigor, open his shell, let everyone see his internal organs, and admire his strange expression.

Dressed as a cook, he walked up, holding a large oyster prop in his hand and singing the song he used to sing as a fisherman:

The hawk-billed beast is coming, come on

While singing, he pried open the props, and the shells on his body were also opened like everyone else

The applause was thunderous, the oyster man performed naked offal, a cook made a fire to cook, his stage words were saying, I am going to cook myself, yes, he is a human and an oyster, the fun of self-cooking is really funny, and everyone in the audience laughed.

There is a hidden pain in the heart of the oyster, but the hidden pain is offset by the attention of the small lice in the background, and the oyster man says to himself,

"The people on the stage counted something, they were strangers, but they were little lice, and I wanted to work for the little lice." ”

The oyster man swallowed the tears in his eyes and silently returned to his room, fluttering under the small lamp of the moth, and he looked doubtfully at the simple door, and the little lice outside him would come to see him, but there was none.

A day passed, two days passed, and slowly, he got used to it too.