This time the pandemic put me in the eye of the storm in Shanghai.
Working from home also let me thoroughly understand the neighborhood situation.
The committee secretary lives in our building,
next door lives a family of three,
and downstairs is also a fanatical Daolang fan who plays music at max volume.
But none of this compares to that neighbor who shouted thirteen times for supplies.
The first shout came during the morning meeting.
The increasingly hot weather had me pushing open the window,
warm air carrying “Send supplies!” rushed into the room,
hitting the bewildered me.
For a moment I couldn’t tell if it was the joking of the Beijing meeting room in my headphones,
or the suppression of being locked down in Shanghai.
The second shout followed close behind.
“I want supplies!” — one phrase with precise subject-verb-object expressing the demand.
The pandemic stripped away Maslow’s false prosperity,
making everyone confront the first level of needs head-on.
Mia said the recent situation often makes her think of “The Three-Body Problem.”
Maybe it’s this kind of feeling.
The third shout was no longer as forceful.
“Supplies…” the trailing sound gradually dissipated in the wind.
April brought your shout,
but Cao Gui doesn’t lie — by the third [drum beat], it’s spent.
The fourth and fifth shouts came after a while.
“Where are the supplies? Send supplies!” — six words mixed with reluctance, indignation, defiance,
two punctuation marks combining question, rhetorical question, and inquisitive setup.
The whole neighborhood was simultaneously in the daytime noise,
and in the silence set off by the shouts.
Maybe others also like me
posted on WeChat “Lmao, someone next door is shouting for supplies,”
playing the role of a complex-moodied onlooker.
The seventh and eighth shouts came very unexpectedly.
After laughing, I thought I could return to normal online work.
But to my surprise the neighbor seemed to have pulled out a metal basin,
banging while shouting: “Send supplies! Bang bang bang! Send supplies! Bang bang bang!”
As if the metal basin used for washing vegetables had been given a temporary heavy responsibility,
it gathered its spirit and lived up to expectations, producing an ear-splitting sound.
The ninth shout was slightly gentler.
Maybe the sound of banging the basin also bothered his own ears,
the neighbor stopped his hand, but didn’t close his mouth.
“Supplies!” — the shout of these two words pierced through my eardrums straight to my soul.
I couldn’t help but think, luckily we successfully grabbed vegetables, the company helped,
so we don’t have to experience in 2022 the hardships parents talked about from childhood.
The tenth shout didn’t come for a long time.
Our neighborhood has five or six high-rise tower buildings,
each building has one or two thousand residents.
During the pandemic everyone is rare in cooking at home concentrated.
If you really run out of vegetables,
you can use the smell of the neighbor’s stir-fried carrots to flavor your rice.
I joked this way with Mia.
Maybe the cooking fumes at noon covered this shout.
This “Send supplies” was consciously missed by everyone.
The eleventh and twelfth shouts came with a trace of sarcasm.
“Are there supplies? Are you sending supplies!” Two exclamation-question sentences vented a month of emotions.
I, sitting by the window, also stood up,
wanting to use the binaural effect to find where this guy actually was.
But finding a once-spoken sentence is like recovering a basin of spilled water,
there’s memory, there’s the scene, but no possibility, no method,
just like many people’s love ends this way,
behind comedy is tragedy, behind tragedy is also comedy,
life is a Möbius strip,
there are always people who hear a word and misuse it…
In the chaotic emotions, I seemed to hear the thirteenth shout,
again “I want supplies!” — this simple, blunt, but hopeless demand.
But I also seemed not to hear this shout.
On reflection,
in this month of lockdown, besides one supply distribution,
the rest of the time I could only rely on my own hands to grab vegetables, meat, eggs, milk.
Let this guy shout.
I hope he has food and drink.
Thinking this, I stood up and closed the window.
(end)