The Day the Sun Died

by Yan Lianke

  “Don’t forget to prepare three large wreaths, two small ones, and a set of funerary objects.

  “When I come to pick everything up tomorrow or the next day, I’ll bring you the money.

  “I’m leaving now, but don’t forget what I told you.”

  He did, in fact, leave. As he retreated into the distance, he resembled a shadow disappearing into a dream. My father continued staring at that man’s face, which resembled an old tabletop. That pair of half-closed eyes looked like those of an idiot. Father knew that the man was dreamwalking. He was taking care of his neighbor’s funeral arrangements while dreamwalking. A live dreamwalker was taking care of the funeral arrangements of an old man who had died while dreamwalking. I watched as he took one high step followed by a low one, appearing as though he were floating along. As he was speaking, he didn’t let Father get a word in edgewise. He remained completely absorbed by his own speech. Most dreamwalkers are like this. Either they keep their heads down and do their thing without saying a word, or else they babble continuously to themselves, not caring whether or not anyone else is listening. I was reminded of that woman who had been yelling at her husband, Wang Ergou, in the square. She had been running around, cursing, and shouting to herself. The woman had gone to sleep, had been woken up, and after becoming active had promptly fallen asleep again—but even after falling asleep, she continued doing the things that urgently needed to be done.

  She was dreamwalking.

  She, too, was dreamwalking.

  By this point, there were many villagers and townspeople who were dreamwalking.

  Among the townspeople standing in the square, weren’t there also some who were dreamwalking? Why is it that the woman who had been cursing the men had left, yet the men remained standing in the square? My father headed over there. “Keep an eye on your mother. Don’t let her go outside while dreamwalking.” As he turned around and shouted to me, I saw that in the lamplight he resembled a dream shadow heading forward.

  When he reached the square, Father looked at everyone’s face, as though he were searching for something. Then, he stood in surprise in front of those men and women. He saw that half of the people had faces the color of bricks in an old city wall. They were dusty and wooden. Or light yellow and dark gray, or dark yellow and light gray. They were all dreamwalking. Their eyes were half-closed, but they believed they were actually awake. They were asleep, but their spirits were awake. Meanwhile, the faces of the people who were not dreamwalking were also light gray and light yellow. Their eyelids were heavy and it looked as if they were about to doze off. They wanted to sleep, but made an effort to remain conscious. Perhaps if they toppled over they would fall into a deathlike slumber, and it was simply by virtue of the fact that they remained standing that they were able to stay awake. They remained awake, but didn’t notice that everyone around them had entered a dreamscape. They had no idea that everyone else had already entered a dreamscape, and instead they simply continued standing in the square, appearing disheveled and whispering to themselves. The lamplight shining down on their heads resembled muddy water, and was the same color as their faces. A dog was barking, and there was the sound of footsteps walking back and forth. A night cat ran out of the square, and as it passed us it began to slow down. It leaped up onto a wall, then lay there and watched the people in the streets, the events in the town, together with the consequences that this night’s developments would have for the entire world.

  My father stood for a while longer in the square. He stood in front of that crowd, and said to one of the people, “It looks as though you are dreamwalking. Quick, return home and go to bed.” Then he said to another, “It looks as though you are dreamwalking. Quick, return home and go to bed.” No one paid him any heed. It was as if people couldn’t even see him standing in front of them. He shook the shoulder of a young man from the pharmacy across the street. “Look, your eyelids are as heavy as iron plates. Quick, return to the store and go to sleep.” The young man from the pharmacy removed my father’s hand from his shoulder and flung it aside. “In telling me to go to sleep, you are telling me to dreamwalk. But if I were to start dreamwalking, all of you would then be able to rob my store.” He said this as quickly and clearly as someone who was awake. My father also shook the shoulder of the owner of a tea shop. “Are you really not asleep? I see that your eyes are struggling to focus.” The man also removed my father’s hand from his shoulder. “Why are you shaking me? Did you think I was dreamwalking?” He said this angrily, but avoided meeting my father’s gaze, and instead continued looking in another direction. He gazed out into the hot, grayish-black night, and into the murky grayness at the other end of the street. After a moment, the man turned around and said to the group of people assembled in front of him, “I’m advanced in age, so you should listen to me. Tonight, the entire town of Gaotian has collectively begun to dreamwalk. So, none of us should go to sleep, because as soon as we do, we’ll become infected with somnambulism. And as soon as you become infected, you won’t know what to do.

  “Tonight, none of us should sleep. Instead, we should all stand guard and make sure no one robs my shop. We should also make sure we don’t die while dreamwalking without realizing it.”

  Everyone crowded around the owner of the tea shop, and said, “We’ll do as you say, and tonight we’ll all stay here in this square. If someone tries to rob the store, we’ll be here. We’ll help guard the store, and the people inside. We’ll stay here all night, if need be.” The other man replied, “You can’t stand here all night . . . Go have a drink . . . Go have a drink . . . If we have a drink, we’ll be able to stay here all night. We’ll be able to outlast the dreamwalking. We’ll guard the store, and we’ll guard you. And if anyone tries to take advantage of the general somnambulism to rob you, we’ll pounce on him like a swarm of bees.”

  Then everyone left.

  They dispersed.

  In the end, the only person left in the square was Father. He watched everyone depart as though watching a herd of sheep walking through a field. He was now alone, as though there wasn’t anyone else living in the Funiu Mountains—only him, standing all alone in front of the village on top of the mountain. It was as though he were the only one left in the world—standing alone in this square.

  It was late at night. Extremely late. At the very least, it was already the third geng period, which is to say, between eleven-thirty and midnight. In the past, it would have been peaceful at this time of night. Everyone in Gaotian would have been asleep, and from the streets you could have heard everyone snoring. But on this particular night, the stillness was broken by a faint roar—a roar that contained a deadly terror. After standing in the square for a while, my father finally returned home. His footsteps started out slow, then gradually picked up speed, but after a while they slowed down again. When he finally returned to the funerary shop, he saw that my mother was no longer cutting paper blossoms and wreaths in her sleep, but rather had collapsed against the wall and was now sleeping soundly. No longer dreamwalking, she had returned to the peacefulness of deep sleep. Father stood in the entranceway, thought for a moment, then dragged my mother away as though dragging a sack of grain. “If you want to sleep, then sleep. Just make sure that you don’t die in your sleep.” As Father was saying this, he hauled Mother to the top of the stairs so that she could sleep in her room on the second floor.

  Our house had four rooms in all, two upstairs and two downstairs. The upstairs rooms were used as bedrooms, and one downstairs room in the front was used as a business space for New World and the one in back was used as a kitchen and storage area. The stairway was located against the back wall. The stairs were made from elm wood. The wood was originally painted red, but now the paint had worn away and all that remained was the original grayish-black wood. In the center of each step, there was a pair of depressions left by people’s feet. My mother stepped in those depressions as she went upstairs to go to sleep. After watching my mother go upstairs, my father returned t
o the front room and stood there looking in both directions. “Niannian, you’re not sleepy? If not, then it would be best if tonight you simply didn’t sleep.” He went into the kitchen and washed his face in the sink, and when he emerged he handed me a wet cloth. “Wipe your face and come with me to take a look at our old home. I don’t want anyone to take advantage of the somnambulism to pry open our front door!”

  As he said this, he walked away. He led me out into the street, and into the dreamscape night.

  2. (23:42–24:00)

  Father and I walked along, one in front of the other. I told Father countless things, but now I can’t remember what exactly I said. I think I asked him, “Are you afraid of dreamwalking?” I myself wanted to dreamwalk, but was not at all sleepy. There was a strange energy surging through my body, like what I felt years ago when I entered the Luoyang Zoo for the first time. At that moment, I glimpsed an extraordinary new world. Father said, “Tonight, something extraordinary may happen in our town. We may face a mass death.” I replied, “Hopefully, we’ll at least be able to make it through the night.” Father then said, “As soon as the eastern mountains light up, and the sun rises in the east, everyone will wake up. People who need to go and harvest wheat will go and harvest wheat; and those who need to thresh grain will thresh grain. The stores in town that need to open for business will open for business.”

  I think he said a lot more, but I can’t remember what.

  After a while, he walked away.

  The moonlight was truly the color of water. But in that water-colored moonlight, there was no longer the coolness that there used to be at night. Instead, that water-colored moonlight resembled boiled swill that had not yet cooled. The moonlight was steaming, and as the steam that was rising from the ground blew away, sweat poured down my father’s face and his back. We walked away from the liveliest part of the street toward the village street on the west side of town, which was less than two li away. Or perhaps it was a little more than two li away. I originally thought we would be able to get there in no time, but on this particular night I felt as though it were ten or even twenty li away. Or even a hundred or a thousand li. On the road, I saw someone who had been sleeping but needed to take a piss. So, like a child, he opened his door and peed into the street. The street had been repaved with cement several years earlier, and the combination of his urine and the steam rising from the cement produced a boiling sound. As the man urinated, he continued muttering to himself. “That feels good. That feels really good!” Heaven permitted men and women to enjoy that sort of pleasure, and it sounded as though he and his wife had just done it. It was as if just as they were doing it, he suddenly needed to stop and go outside and take a piss, planning to then return to bed and finish what he had started. But it turns out that when he finished peeing, he forgot that his wife was still in bed waiting for him. Instead, he remembered something else he wanted to do. He wanted to walk to the fork in the road. He simply stood there, staring at the sky. “Has the sun begun to come up? Because if it has, I have to go and buy my mother some mutton soup. If I do so now, my wife won’t know. If I go early, I can purchase the first serving from the first pot. That way, there will be a lot of meat and oil. Mother said she hasn’t had any mutton soup for several days, so she immediately tied up her pants and headed toward the town’s train station, where people selling beef and mutton were gathered.” Upon seeing me and my father, the man said, “Hey, has the sun begun to come up? It looks like both midnight and early dawn.” My father peered at that person’s face. “Zhang Cai, are you dreamwalking?” “Hey,” the man replied, “I’m asking you whether the sun has come up or not.” Father suddenly struck Zhang Cai’s shoulder, and Zhang Cai recoiled as he opened his eyes and shook his head. “How did I end up here in the middle of the street? Didn’t I go to the bathroom to pee? How did I end up out here in the street?”

  Zhang Cai turned and returned to his home, as though he had suddenly woken up. “How did I end up in the street? How did I end up running out into the street?”

  Farther ahead, there was a woman in her thirties who was coming out of her home holding a cleaver. “I’m exhausted, I’m so exhausted.” Mumbling to herself, she suddenly threw down the cleaver. “I’m about to give birth! I’m about to give birth!” She bent over, then squatted down. She looked as though her belly hurt so much that she was about to roll on the ground in agony. We hurried over, thinking that she was about to give birth right there in the middle of the street. We helped her up, whereupon I saw that her expression resembled a cloth that was glowing bright red in the lamplight. But even as she was talking and shouting, her eyes remained tightly closed, as though transfixed. “Are you dreamwalking?” my father shouted, then shook her. My father and I both stared at her belly.

  She really was pregnant. Her belly swelled, becoming more and more rotund. She was wearing a large, thin shirt, and the pictures of flowers and plants printed on the shirt were soaked with sweat. “Quick, wake up and return to your home. Make sure that nothing happens to your belly while you are dreamwalking,” Father shouted while standing in front of her. She was, in fact, startled awake, then began to laugh. “Tianbao, this time I’m pregnant with a boy. My first three children were all girls.” She laughed as she said this, and continued laughing as she returned home.

  After this, there was a noise from the house next to that of the pregnant woman. The door was made of willow wood, and the creak it gave as it opened resounded through the emptiness. Following that sound, a man in his sixties emerged. He was thin with white hair, was wearing slippers, and had a bag strapped to his shoulder. The bag was so heavy that he was doubled over at the waist, and every time he took a few steps he would need to stop and rest, and stretch his shoulder. As he walked, he muttered to himself, and his mutterings seemed to flow out of his bag like water—flowing onto the ground and onto the street. But after he walked past several houses, we all realized what he was carrying, and we knew what he was going to do with it. He headed toward Liu Datang’s house. Then, thump thump, he knocked on Liu Datang’s door.

  “Brother Datang, please open the door.

  “Brother Datang, I want to return a sack of wheat I borrowed from your family more than a decade ago. After we fought several years ago, I thought that I had returned it, but in my dreams tonight I suddenly realized that I hadn’t.

  “It wasn’t that I wanted to keep your grain. I really did forget. If I had wanted to keep your grain, I wouldn’t be considered human. I’d be a pig, a dog. Instead, I’m even worse than a dog or pig, because I really did forget. I wasn’t trying to keep your family’s grain.”

  The door opened.

  The two old men stood there staring at each other, with one of them standing inside the door and the other standing outside. The one outside stood there for a while, then placed the sack of grain inside the doorway. A brusque, embarrassed sound came from inside. “It was just a sack of grain. If you forgot it, it’s OK.” But then the sound of embarrassment changed to one of surprise, as though someone suddenly noticed that what he had just picked up was not a ball of warm cotton but rather a lump of ice.

  “Are you dreamwalking? You have a confused look, and your eyes are shut. Brother Qingshan, come here and wash your face.

  “Quick, come over. I’ll bring some water for you to wash your face.”

  Along the road, we kept running into dreamwalkers. Some of them woke up when Father tapped them on the shoulder, but others ignored him, staggering away as he shouted to them. There were men and women, ranging from young people in their twenties to old people in their seventies and eighties.

  This is how the great somnambulism began.

  The quiet night sent the sound of the great somnambulism outside the village, outside the town, and throughout the entire mountain range. It transmitted the sound to villages and households in the nearby mountains. The entire village was sleeping, but it sounded as though it were awake. The entire town was sleeping, but it sounded as though it were awa
ke. The entire world was sleeping, but the dreamwalkers made it sound as though it were already morning and everyone was waking up. I saw a man dreamwalk out of his home, completely naked. Both his torso, which was generally left bare in the summer, and his thighs, which he always covered with underwear, were as black as the night. His skin resembled the sunrise. Naked, he walked outside, but we didn’t know where he was heading. He hurried along without saying a word. His member was dangling between his legs like a dead bird. I was startled by that ugly thing, and my gaze was so pained that I couldn’t look away. “Father . . . Father,” I shouted, as I grabbed my father, who was walking in front of me. I pointed at the naked man, who was in the process of turning into an alley. Father abruptly came to a halt, as though the town street was sucking at his feet and holding them in place. “Hey, do you realize you’re not wearing any clothes? Do you realize you’re not wearing any clothes?” Then he went up to the man and tugged at his left arm. The man immediately shook off Father’s hand. Without saying a word, he continued toward one of the houses in that alley.