Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

like a raging torrent. I squatted down in front of a tall pile of apricot leaves, roots, and branches in the feed preparation room to think about the past, veiled in mist, and examine the present. Bones of the Mount Yimeng pigs that had died the year before had been placed in large baskets outside the room, where they showed up white in the moonlight, with specks of green glittering here and there. They gave off an unpleasant odor. I gazed out to see what appeared to be a dancing figure walking toward the moon, which by now looked like a ball of quicksilver, and turn on to the path to the Apricot Garden Pig Farm. She looked up, and I saw her face, which looked like a used water ladle, a sort of burnished yellow; owing to the fact that she was wailing, her open mouth was like a black mouse hole. She held her arms close to her chest, her legs were so bowed a dog could have run between them, and her feet pointed outward as she walked. The range of her rocking from side to side appeared almost greater than her movement forward. That’s how bad she looked as she “ran” along. She had changed drastically since my days as an ox, but I knew who she was as soon as I laid eyes on her. I tried to recall how old Yingchun would be, but my pig consciousness overwhelmed my human consciousness, and as they merged they created mixed feelings: excitement and sorrow.
    “Oh, my son, what’s happened?” By looking through the gaps in the window, I saw her throw herself on the kang, weeping as she nudged Lan Jiefang.
    The way his upper body was trussed up, he could hardly move, so he kept kicking the wall, which, not all that sturdy to begin with, seemed in danger of coming down; gray peelings like noodle dough floated to the ground. Chaos reigned in the room, until Hong Taiyue commanded:
    “Get a rope and tie his legs!”
    An old man named Lü Biantou, who also worked on the pig farm, dragged a length of rope up and climbed clumsily onto the kang. Lan Jiefang’s legs were kicking out like the hooves of a wild horse, making it impossible for Lü to get the job done.
    “I said tie them!” Hong bellowed.
    So Lü pressed Jiefang’s legs down with his body, but Yingchun immediately began tearing at his clothes and wailing, Let go of my son— Get up there, somebody, and help him! Hong shouted. You sons of bitches! Jiefang cried out. You’re a bunch of pig sons of bitches— Pass the rope underneath! The third son of the Sun family burst into the room. Get up on that kang and give him a hand! The rope was wrapped around Jiefang’s legs, but also around Lü Biantou’s arms, and then tightened. Loosen the rope, and let me get my arms back! Jiefang kicked the rope loose; it twisted like a crazed snake. Ow, Mother. . . Lü Biantou reeled backward and banged into Hong on his way to the floor. The Sun boy, with the strength of youth, sat down on Jiefang’s belly and, ignoring Yingchun’s clawing and cursing, quickly tightened the rope and eliminated the possibility of Jiefang mounting any resistance. On the floor, Lü Biantou was holding his nose, dark blood oozing out between his fingers.
    Son, I know you don’t want to acknowledge any of this, but every word of what I’ve said is the unvarnished truth. When people are driven nearly mad, they are imbued with superhuman strength and are capable of almost supernatural deeds. That old apricot tree still has several egg-sized scars from injuries it sustained when you banged your head against it in a fit of rage. Under normal conditions, in any battle between a tree and a human head, the tree will win. But when they go a bit crazy, people’s heads get harder. So when your head and the tree met, it wobbled and sent snowflakes fluttering to the ground. You, meanwhile, recoiled backward and landed on your backside. A knot swelled up on your forehead, but the poor tree lost a chunk of bark, exposing the whiteness underneath.
    Bound hand and foot, you writhed and twisted in a mighty attempt to get free. So Baofeng gave you a sedative and you slowly relaxed, your eyes open but unfocused, sounds of sleep leaving your mouth and nose. The tension in the room dissolved. I breathed a sigh of relief. Now, Lan Jiefang, you’re not my son, so whether you lived or died, whether you were crazy or just stupid, should have meant nothing to me. But I really did, I breathed a sigh of relief. After all, I concluded, you’d emerged from Yingchun’s womb, and in a previous life, that womb had been my