A sunny spring day. The sky is high and dreamy blue. The spring breeze feels warm and gentle, like the breath from the lips of a young woman asleep.
At the foot of a small hill outside the village sit two old men, Old Man Zhu, and Old Zhong. Both have celebrated their eightieth year and are highly respected by the entire village as wise elders.
Once it has climbed overhead, the sun begins to grow lazy. Time slows to a crawl. Having exchanged pleasantries Old Man Zhu and Old Zhong settle down like two heavy sandbags without another word. They keep taking long drags on their pipes, basking in the sun as if they want to suck the juice out of life.
A hawk appears in the sky. No one knows when it came. No one knows where it came from. Oh, it soars high in the sky.
The hawk looks quite experienced and capable. With its wings spread out arrow-straight, it stays in the air, motionless, as if it would crash down at any moment, yet it seems fastened to the sky, like the stars fixed in the galaxies. What a feat!
Old Man Zhu sees the hawk first. He turns and shoots a glance at Old Zhong. He is filled with pride for his discovery. He has never expected himself at this advanced age to be able to see a hawk so high in the sky. A man’s eyes are directly linked to his heart and good eyesight means he is not old yet. Although Old Man Zhu is thrilled beyond himself, he appears calm as calm can be. There is little he has not done or seen.
“Hawk!”
Old Zhong is refilling his pipe; the jade bowl twists and turns hard in the pouch as if it can never be filled.
“A hawk in the sky!”
Old Zhong takes the pipe bowl out of the pouch, presses it with his thumb, and succeeds in lighting it by drawing hard on it like a bellows. White smoke puffs, calmly and gently, out of his nose.
“Are you deaf?” Old Man Zhu cannot take it any more and exclaims through his clenched teeth.
“You are blind!” Old Zhong roars all of a sudden. He gives Old Man Zhu an angry stare but pays no attention to the hawk, as if he has already seen it, long before Old Man Zhu did, even though he has just caught a glimpse of that thing flying in the sky.
“That’s a hawk?”
Old Man Zhu’s proud head suddenly feels like a heavy block. He looks up into the sky and still feels stupefied.
“What is it then, if it’s not a hawk?”
Old Zhong grunts.
“If it’s not a hawk, how can it fly so high?”
Old Zhong grins contemptuously.
“If it’s not a hawk, what do you call it?”
When Old Zhong pulls the pipe out of his mouth, words come out popping like bullets:
“That’s an eagle!”
Now it is Old Zhu’s turn to growl at Old Zhong. His lips, quivering with anger, a pout so pronounced one could fasten a donkey onto it.
“Why! A whole forest of birds, you are the loudest. Hawk or eagle, aren’t they one and the same?”
“One and the same? Say mama gives birth to two daughters. They look almost the same. A man marries the elder sister, but the younger sister sleeps in his bed instead. Will that do?” Old Zhong sways and swings as he speaks, his head held high.
Old Zhu trembles from head to toe, his quivering lips drawing in each breath laboriously.
So Old Zhong lowers his voice and explains:
“An eagle’s voice is hoarse while a hawk’s is smooth; an eagle howls while a hawk sings; an eagle snatches chickens while a hawk takes rabbits; an eagle is big while a hawk is small.”
“Even a small eagle is bigger than a big hawk!” snaps Old Zhu, each word like the teakettle stop being popped out by steam, his saliva sprinkling across Old Zhong’s face.
Old Zhong bolts up. He knocks the pipe bowl clean against the bottom of his shoe, thrusts it into the sash tied around his waist, walks threateningly close to Old Man Zhu, his face blue with anger.
“Old rascal, you’ve got a ready tongue!”
“Old shameless, you’ve got a sharp tongue!”
“Why don’t you look again, eagle or hawk?”
“Why don’t you open your eyes, hawk or eagle?”
“It’s an eagle!”
“It’s a hawk!”
“If you lose, then you’re an eagle?”
“If you lose, then you’re a hawk?”
“Eagle, eagle, eagle, eagle!”
“Hawk, hawk, hawk, hawk!”
The two of them keep lashing at each other without either side gaining the upper hand, their faces red with passion.
Just then the bird falls down and lands right at their feet. It is a hawk-shaped kite.
Like ducks being choked by long vegetable leaves, the two old men stretch their necks as long as they can to see better, their eyeballs rolling in disbelief, not a sound coming out of their wide-open mouths. They look like blocks of rotten wood.
A kid comes running over to pick up the kite.
The two men spit loudly and then start to leave, each waddling like a broken kite.
(1992)