by Yan Lianke
“It’s not possible that we’re dreamwalking.
“It’s not possible that we’re dreamwalking.”
The person I suspected was dreamwalking was half-awake and half-asleep, but even in this indeterminate state, the sound of his footsteps running down the street never stopped, so that he wouldn’t lag behind the others. There was noise everywhere. There was movement everywhere. The world was drowned in these sounds, and people were rushing around frantically as if in a nightmare. First it was one family, then ten or more, and eventually it was dozens and even hundreds. It seemed as if the entire town were moving in a nightmare—as if they were all in a liminal state between sleep and wakefulness. My family was awake, and after watching that night’s developments, we felt as though we had mastered this night’s trajectory. As a result, our awake brains came to function as the entire town’s brains—which is to say, the entire town’s soul and the entire world’s lantern. Riding his motorized cart, Father cut back and forth through the crowd while shouting.
“Don’t run away! Don’t run away! Wake up everyone who is sleeping, and tell families to guard their houses!
“If you don’t guard your houses, you are simply inviting others to come rob you!”
Everyone suddenly came to a stop and stood on the side of the road. People suddenly understood that, in leaving their homes, they were simply inviting others to rob them—to come take their possessions with impunity. By having a lock on the door, they were essentially telling people, “Come on in! No one’s home!” Everyone therefore rushed home. Many people ended up returning to their homes. Wherever Father went, he would shout his warnings, urging people to return home and guard their houses for the rest of the night. He urged them to guard their houses for the rest of the night, and not run away. But at this point, dozens or even hundreds of outsiders who were pouring in from the southeast—either because they heard our shouts, or because they had run into some of our relatives—all rushed toward us wielding knives and clubs. When we were a dozen or so paces from one another, they raised their carrying poles, hoes, scythes, and clubs, like a grove of trees swaying in the wind. Instantly, the situation changed completely.
My father turned toward the south, and stood in the street with a frightened look. My mother also turned toward the south, and stood there with a stunned expression. I similarly turned toward the south, and in the lamplight I saw someone running and firecrackers exploding on the ground, and also saw all the raised weapons glinting in the light. The sound of “Kill him, kill him!” drifted across the street. There was an array of bright, dark eyes that did not appear at all sleepy, as if there were people who were completely awake, and who had not dreamwalked. There were several people sprinting, chased by a large crowd who had not dreamwalked. I wasn’t sure whether those in front were fellow townspeople or outsiders, nor whether those chasing them were outsiders or townspeople. During this chaos, one person running in front tripped and fell, and without waiting for him to get up, one of the people chasing him slammed a shovel down on his leg, and someone else brought a hoe down on his head and neck. After a shout of “Motherfucker!” he collapsed like a baby swallow falling from its nest. There was a thin, piercing, needle-like cry that was abruptly cut short. Another cluster of clubs and hoes slammed down, and the man on the ground became perfectly still, like a pile of mud. I heard the sound of sticks, clubs, hoes, and shovels slamming down onto his body. One man running in front turned and shouted, “You’ve killed him! You’ve killed him!” Before the crowd had a chance to respond, hoes and clubs came raining down on him, so he turned and continued running down the road.
He came sprinting toward us.
The sound of the crowd chasing him resembled thunder or fireworks, and they trampled the man who had fallen as if they were stomping through mud.
My mother stared in alarm. “Quick, run!”
I also stared in alarm. “Quick, get in the cart! Father, quick, get in the cart!”
Father also stared in alarm, and he pushed the cart toward the side of the road to hide. Fortunately, the cart stopped in the opening to an alley that was as dark and quiet as a bottomless well. We dashed inside, whereupon the crowd behind us ran back and forth in confusion.
“They went in here! They went in here!”
Father turned off the cart’s headlights, and our entire family slipped into the dark alley as though sinking into watery depths. We became invisible to the people chasing us as if we were mere apparitions in a dream.
The people chasing us came to a halt.
We heard them, as though hearing water lapping on the opposite shore. I don’t know how Father was able to see the road in the darkness, or how he managed to turn from one alley into another. It was not only those behind us who were making murderous sounds; people ahead of us were also chasing and killing each other, and there were also sounds of chasing and killing on either side of us. The entire town appeared to have woken up. Just before daybreak, the entire world seemed to have woken up. The sound of chasing and killing descended on the town like a thunderstorm, and the entire world seemed to have descended into a storm of people fleeing and chasing one another. The entire world was engulfed in the sound of screams and murderous beatings. It was as though everyone had suddenly woken up, yet it was also as if the people were all still sleeping. They were dreamwalking, and the people were running around and chasing one another. Sometimes there would be only a handful or a few dozen people being chased, but at other times there would be several dozen, or even a hundred or more. As the numbers grew, the crowds gradually became braver, and sometimes they would stop and wave their sticks and clubs while an avalanche of bricks and stones from who knows where started raining down on the pursuers.
In this way, the pursuers became the pursued.
And those who were fleeing became chasers in their own right.
After a pause, footsteps once again filled the town like a thunderstorm. The noise began. The running began. The explosions began. Clubs were slammed down, raised up, then slammed down again. But Father, seemingly oblivious to it all, rode his cart from the south side of town into the center, and then from the center of town toward the northern end, and finally, via an alley, he reached the outer edge of town. Panting heavily, he hauled us out of town, as though taking us from a state of wakefulness into a dream, and then from a dream back into a crystal-clear state of wakefulness.
3. (5:51–6:00)
Standing at the base of a hill to the west of town, I saw that more than a dozen stars were twinkling in the watery-blue sky. There was fog in that blueness. The town appeared as though it were right below us. It was already so late at night that it seemed as though we could almost glimpse daybreak on the other shore. The sun would soon rise—even on a night like this, full of murderous violence, the sun would still have to rise. There was a cool, brisk breeze, and it surged down the mountain like water coursing down a canal. Our sweat began to pour down, and we began to relax.
I knew that, in making it out of the town, we had managed to escape the murderous violence.
In order to see clearly what had happened there, I got off the cart and, with Father, pushed it halfway up the hill. We parked the cart in a flat area at a turn in the road. We could see the lights in all of the town’s streets and alleys, and we could see lights in the classrooms of the town school. The lights rose and fell like water in the reservoir on a clear day. We could still hear the sound of shouting and the pounding of footsteps from the chaotic violence down below. The sound resembled turbulent water in the reservoir on a stormy day, and as the waves crashed into one another, it was impossible to tell when one wave disappeared and when a new one rose in its place. Father stared blankly, as did Mother. My family looked at one another, and then we fixed our gaze on the night town, as though looking at a windswept lake. We were unable to see the houses and trees in the village to the east of town, and we were unable to make out the houses, streets, and trees in the town itself. In the end, the sun had not
yet come up, and the world was still engulfed in darkness. The dense stillness in the distance was as terrifying as a volley of black and invisible needles filling the sky. I developed goose bumps, and when I touched my arms, they felt as cold and hard as stone rods. In the nearby field, there was a rustling sound. The leaves of the brambles and wild jujube trees next to the road appeared dark green at night, and there was a rustling sound of something crawling over them. Wild fruits were hanging from the branches like babies extending their fingers. The night was filled with the sound of crickets singing in the wild areas next to the road. There were also grasshoppers singing from some of the jujube trees on the roadside, along the ditch, and at the top of the cliff. At night, the entire world became so still that it appeared as though the world had ended and all that was left was empty air circulating through the darkness. It was as if the world had ended and all that was left was an abandoned grave. Because everything was so still, it was possible to hear sounds and movements that normally you would not be able to hear. A sense of fear and dread permeated the night like blades of moonlight and starlight cutting through the night sky.
Mother and I stood next to the cart. Father stood in front of us, in a spot closer to the world—as though he were standing in the world itself. “How could this be? How could this be?” Mother seemed to be talking to herself, but at the same time she also seemed to be asking Father.
“When I was small, I heard of dreamwalkers, and even encountered some, but who had ever heard of dreamwalkers who simply couldn’t be woken?”
“Don’t say anything, don’t say anything. I told you not to say anything, so why are you still speaking?”
Mother stopped speaking. Instead, she sat down on the ground, as though she were tired.
Father stared at the town as though he were trying to capture some sound, as if he were trying to discern something. With one hand resting on the cart’s metal railing and the other touching his still-swollen left cheek and ear, Father stood in the stillness. But, in the end, he was unable to hear, capture, or discern any sound.
Appearing discouraged, Father looked back at us, then gazed out at the mountains surrounding the town.
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“This sky seems to be dead. If it doesn’t start to brighten soon, that must mean that it really is dead.”
He spoke to Mother, but also seemed to be speaking to himself. I remembered that there was a brick-like radio in the cart, which gave the time. I rummaged around the cart, throwing out a couple of empty sacks, until I finally found the radio. When I tuned it, there was a crackling sound, like a shovel being dragged down the road. The crackling sound sent shivers down my spine. I fiddled with the radio, and finally found a channel with music. “Di . . . di . . .” After two notes, there was a crackling sound followed by the sound of a young announcer. “It is currently six o’clock in the morning, on the first day of the seventh month.” The voice sounded so pure that it seemed as though it were the seed of a good voice.
“It is six o’clock.”
“The sun is about to come up.”
Mother and Father said this simultaneously, as though they were thanking time. They were thanking the arrival of six o’clock, as though they were thanking everyone for being about to wake up. In the summer, the sun would appear from behind the eastern mountains at a little after six. On a clear night, the sun would come up at six, after which the sky would brighten and everyone would wake from dreams. At this point, because I shifted my position, the orientation of the radio I was holding also shifted, and the clear sound of a male announcer emerged from the static. It was a long weather announcement.
To our listeners—our vast audience of listener friends:
All the listener friends who are now turning on their radios and tuning them to 127.1 MHz for our weather forecast, please take notice. Please take notice. Last night at around nine-thirty, on account of the hot and dry weather combined with excessive seasonal exhaustion, in some areas of our city there appeared a once-in-a-century mass somnambulism. Governmental organizations have already sent a large number of employees to all of the affected counties, townships, and mountain regions, to implement and promote waking-up and self-rescuing measures, and to guard against deleterious behavior resulting from somnambulism. Now, however, the problem to which we must pay very careful attention is that this morning after six o’clock, and for the rest of the day, as a result of topographical and meteorological conditions—and specifically a cold front from the northwest—our city and the surrounding region will find itself in long-term hot, overcast conditions with no sun, rain, or wind. These so-called hot, overcast conditions result from the presence of a thick, dense cloud cover without any rain or wind, producing a long-term state of hot darkness, which will make daytime seem like dusk, and dusk seem like nighttime. Some mountain regions will even find themselves in a state of darkness comparable to a complete occultation of the sun by the earth’s shadow, such that daytime will be indistinguishable from the middle of the night. Or, to put this more colloquially, some regions will find themselves in a state of darkness resembling a solar eclipse—which may lead people to oversleep and contribute to an extension of the general somnambulism. Those people who have exhausted themselves while dreamwalking all night will find that, after they fall asleep, their somnambulism has been deepened.
The broadcaster’s voice was calm and unhurried, as though he were simply reading an article. His voice was as clear as a bell. But when my father heard this broadcast, he stared in shock, as did my mother. I also stared in shock, as I carefully held the radio. I was afraid that if I jostled it, the announcer’s voice might get cut off. At that moment, Father seemed to think of something, and he nudged my hand holding the radio. After adjusting the dial, Father took the radio and headed to the top of the hill to get some thornbush branches. As he walked away, the radio’s sound became louder and clearer, even as the sound of the sand and rocks that he dislodged while climbing up the hill also became louder and clearer.
He climbed so high that the noise below faded away.
The announcer repeated the same broadcast, as though replaying a recording. Father stood next to a thornbush above us, holding the radio up to his ear. Every word and every letter the radio announcer uttered smashed down on us like black raindrops and ice pellets.
The broadcast was repeated three times, and the sound smashed down on us three times. With our ears pricked, our family listened to the entire broadcast three times.
The entire world had disappeared, and all that remained was this weather broadcast.
The world had disappeared, and all that remained was the sound of those black ice pellets falling and smashing to the ground.
The radio was turned off. Father stood there in the darkness like a black column, in which should have been the sunrise.
“The sun has died, and the town has expired. The sun has died, and the town has expired. The town has truly expired.” Father kept repeating these two phrases over and over, and even as he was coming back down from that higher position on the hill, he continued mumbling these same two phrases. But once he was beside us again, he stopped mumbling and fell silent, as though the sun really had died, or as if the world before him had, in fact, disappeared and died. He stood there silently, gazing in the direction of the town while listening carefully. At this moment, someone else appeared at the foot of the hill, not far from us. Another person was fleeing the mayhem in the town. Three more people. Seven or eight more. They ran and paused in an illuminated spot, then quickly disappeared into the dark night. Needless to say, they were as exhausted as we were, and sat down to rest. It was at this time that the lights above the town once again began to flicker, like the surface of a lake glimmering in the sunlight. In the early morning stillness, all sounds appeared to be amplified, and it seemed as though we could even hear the breathing of ants and other insects. The faint sounds of fighting that drifted up from the town resemble
d the rumbling of an underground river. The sound of footsteps inching forward were like omens anticipating an earthquake. The town was still alive. It was still breathing. It was still killing. Even after waking up, the town continued beating and killing, as it had when it was dreamwalking. Normally at this hour, at six in the morning, there should have been a fish-belly-like light peeking over the eastern mountains, and a spray of red sunrays should have been spurting through mountain ridges. After a while, that spray of red sunrays would become a shore of light red water, flowing, accumulating, and spreading under the eastern sky. The eastern sky would turn white, then bright red, then purplish-red. The east would turn golden yellow and red. The mountain’s trees, rocks, and grass would be dyed crimson. The birds, after sleeping all night, would wake up and begin to sing, and would carry the dawn’s red glow from the tree branches into the sky. In this way, a new day would arrive. But on this night, this red dawn didn’t arrive. Instead, the eastern mountains remained as dark as a deep gully. The blackness of a dark day followed the previous night’s black night, as though the night had never ended, and as though it would never end. It was as if a new day had never arrived. It was as if the previous night had never concluded, and as though the nighttime were an endless ball of black thread.
Father returned and stood next to the cart. He looked at the town as though looking at a bottomless lake. Mother got up from the ground and, holding the cart’s railing, stood next to Father, as though she were grabbing the bow of a boat.
