The Day the Sun Died

by Yan Lianke

  “We can light a fire, and the sun will come up!

  “We can light a fire, and the sun will come up!”

  By this point, I realized that Father had fallen into a deep dream state. He had been awake all night running and shouting, so he must have been so exhausted that he would fall asleep as soon as he had somewhere to rest his head. Even though he was sleeping, his head remained erect, and he continued running around incessantly. I assumed that as soon as he ignited the oil in the pit, everything would be finished and he would lie down and fall asleep—and even if the flames were licking his body and burning him to death, he might not wake up.

  In order to prevent Father from getting burned alive, I ran after him.

  I was concerned that after Father ignited the oil, he might fall into the fire.

  But at this moment, there was a new development that startled both the dreamers and the dreamwalkers. Just as Father finished moving the final empty barrel from the edge of the pit and was wiping his hands with some dry grass, he turned to everyone and shouted, “The sun is about to rise! . . . The sun is about to rise!” Just as Father was about to take an oil lamp down from a tree and use it to ignite the oil, Yan emerged from somewhere in the crowd and stood in front of Father, his entire body and his face covered in corpse oil. I didn’t know whether he had gotten dirty while the dreamwalkers were pushing the oil barrels, or if it had happened while he was following Father down to the pool of oil. In any event, Yan stood in front of Father, and it was as if a dark cloud had appeared and blocked the sun as it was about to come up. Yan stood a step away from Father, and made a few ordinary remarks—actually, some truly earthshaking remarks.

  “If you ignite this now, it will only produce a flat surface.

  “If you want this fire to resemble the rising sun, you will need to transform this flat surface into a giant fireball.

  “I’ve given this a lot of thought, and the only solution would be to install a pole in the middle of the pond, and then place a pile of oil-soaked hay on top of it, such that after you ignite the oil you also ignite the pole with the oil-soaked hay, which will then burn in midair, and from a distance it will look like a fireball, and will look like the rising sun.”

  Father stood next to the oil pit. The others were either squatting next to the pit or else lying in the grass. They were lying around like bales of hay or overturned barrels. Under the lamplight, everything was dark and murky—the tree shadows were dark and murky, and the entire world was also dark and murky. I stood on a mound next to Uncle Yan and examined his expression. Then I turned my attention to his shoulder, and saw that his shoulder bone resembled a withered yellow rib. I saw that his face resembled the lamp’s yellow light, and was fluttering like a silk sheet and shimmering like a red flame, such that it appeared as though his face was hiding a sun beneath it. I stared at Yan. I thought about what he had said. His eyeballs moved, as though there were a pair of fireballs burning and spinning inside his face. Father began looking for something in the crowd of sleeping people. From under the tree and next to the pit, he removed a couple of straws from one of the bales of hay, then stood in front of Yan. Suddenly, he noticed that those sleeping, dreaming people had removed their oil-soaked clothing and left it scattered. Father began to grin happily, like someone who returns home and finds his keys, or like a baby that manages to find something someone else has lost. Or like the time I found a wallet someone had dropped on the way to the market and, after a brief hesitation, I picked it up and hid it.

  Father was silent. He was silent for a long while. He was silent for an entire lifetime. Finally, he shifted his gaze from Yan’s body back to the oil pit. The oil’s surface was perfectly calm and flat, like an enormous sheet of black silk fabric shimmering in the light. Shadows of trees and human figures were projected onto the oil’s surface. Initially, the foul odor of the corpse oil was oppressive, but after a time you no longer noticed it. No one knew that the oil came from humans, that it was corpse oil generated by the crematorium over a period of more than ten years. I was the only one who knew. Only Father and I. But I can’t remember whether at that moment I was awake, asleep, or dreamwalking like Father. I really can’t remember. I now believe that I must have been awake—but if I was awake, how could I have let my father do such an imbecilic thing? Even cats, dogs, pigs, chickens, and other domesticated fowl know you shouldn’t do what he did. In the end, I was a stupid child. I really was a stupid child. I was awake, yet I let Father proceed with his plan. I let him do the thing that he most needed to do, yet which was also what he shouldn’t have done. In Gaotian, at the base of the hill, the lights were still blinking haphazardly. The sound transmitted from there was urgent, chaotic, and murky. On one side there was the reservoir, while on the other side there was the village at the base of the mountain ridge. Behind us there was the scenic compound with Uncle’s house, which was brightly lit but had no sound. What on earth was going on in Uncle’s house? Who had time to worry about what was going on over there? Who knew what was going on in that scenic compound? Who even had the energy to think about it?

  The pit had been filled with oil, and was about to be ignited.

  The sun would emerge from this pit.

  Daylight would drive away the darkness.

  I stared at Father’s face, and at Yan’s riblike shoulder. He had originally been wearing a T-shirt, but I didn’t know where the shirt had gone. At any rate, he was now shirtless and covered in oil, and one would never have guessed from his appearance that he was a prominent author.

  He, too, was a dreamwalker.

  His dreamwalking was no different from anyone else’s. His hair was white, his eyes were half-closed, and he breathed through his mouth, not his nose. What time was it? I didn’t know where I had left my radio. If this had been an ordinary day, then it should have already been the morning, and the sun would be approaching its zenith. But the world was completely confused, the same way that at night you are unable to see the ocean. Time had died. The sun had died. But now, the sun would come back to life, and time itself would come back to life. Father and Yan stood there and looked at each other, but it seemed as though they couldn’t really see each other. They were both dreaming, they were both dreamwalking, and they were engrossed in their respective dreams and thinking about their own concerns. They were surrounded by the sound of people breathing and yawning. In front and in back of them, there was the sound of snoring and of people talking to themselves. Apart from these sounds, the world was extremely still, and everything under heaven was extremely still. Several dozen meters from the oil pit, there was a field, in which there was a hissing sound. It was as though a snake had crawled out of the weeds. Perhaps it was a wild hare that came running out. The sound fell into the darkness like a blade of grass falling into the oil pit, or a stone falling into the oil pit. The sound of snoring and people talking in their sleep slipped into the dark night and slipped into that oil pit that was one mu large. The oil pit was extremely still. The mountains, fields, and villages surrounding the pit were so calm that it seemed as though the sun and time itself had died. Next to this deathly still pit, Father’s nasal breathing sounded like a dragonfly fluttering around. Meanwhile, Yan was breathing through his mouth, which resembled the uncovered top of a soy sauce bottle, or an uncovered well on the side of the road. They silently watched each other for an entire day, an entire night, an entire season, an entire year—but it also seemed like an infinitesimally short flash of silence. At this moment, Father’s face suddenly became rigid and red. And beneath this rigid redness, a vein was pulsing.

  “Brother Lianke, you can use tonight’s events as the basis for a novel.”

  Yan gazed at my father and seemed as though about to say something.

  “I don’t doubt you’ll write this into a novel. This is the sort of story you find only once every hundred or thousand years.”

  Upon seeing Yan, Father didn’t say anything else. Instead, he went over to the tree and lifted several of
the lanterns hanging there, as though trying to determine how heavy each of them was. He selected a heavy one and brought it down. Like a child, he kicked his shoes into the oil pit, one after the other, and when they landed, they didn’t produce the sort of plopping sound and white splash that you would expect after throwing a stone into a pool of water, and instead they were engulfed by the thick, viscous oil as though they were being swallowed by a large tarp. Then, Father rolled up some wormwood grass he had picked, and also grabbed a large bundle of tree branches. He also took the clothes of some of the dreamwalkers and hugged them to his chest. In this way, as though he were moving to a new home, he carried, pushed, and dragged all this and the lantern and went over to the edge of the pit.

  For some reason, either because I was stupid or because I happened to fall asleep at that precise moment, I saw Father as though I were watching a dreamwalker from within a dream. This dream, however, gave me nightmares, and the dreamwalker brought me such terror that I became convinced I would die. It was as though I were dreaming and didn’t realize I was actually sleeping in my own bed, with my fists resting on my own chest. I wanted to move my fists, but even if I used all my strength, I still couldn’t budge them. I wanted to warn my father not to enter that oil pit, but even if I used all my strength, I wasn’t able to open my mouth or make a sound. Father was going to accomplish a great thing. The dream was able to realize a great thing. Dreamwalkers were able to realize and accomplish the greatest possible thing under heaven. So Father, carrying the kindling, made his way toward the center of the oil-filled pit. He proceeded step-by-step, and although sometimes the corpse oil didn’t reach his knees, at other times it buried his thighs. The wormwood branches paddled through the surface of the oil, releasing an oily stench that spread over the ridge, over the mountain, and over the entire world. I didn’t know what Father wanted to do. Yan, who was in a dreamy stupor, didn’t know what Father was going to do either. In fact, no one—including those who were sleeping, awake, and dreaming—knew what Father was going to do. The sky was gray, black, and murky. The land was black, dead, and murky. The people were black, gray, dead, and murky.

  “Father, what are you going to do?”

  I shouted as though I had spent the entire day running home, but was now standing in the entranceway to my house and wasn’t seeing my parents.

  Father turned to look at me and said something that no one in the world could have understood.

  “Niannian, at this time our Li family has repaid its debts, and even after you grow up, you won’t owe anything on my behalf.” His voice was hoarse and happy, like a sheet of white paper over a grave, happily fluttering in the wind.

  Yan stared at Father as he walked into the distance.

  “What are you doing? Can you carry all that?”

  There was no answer.

  The world was so still, it was as if it didn’t even exist. Father waded through the waist-deep oil to the center of the pit. He stood in the middle of the pit for a while, then took the grass, branches, and clothing he was carrying, and dipped them into the oil. Finally, as though he were taking a bath, he bent over and splashed the oil all over his body. Then he proceeded to an area where the oil reached his thighs, squatted down until the oil reached his neck, and stood up again. He walked back and forth through the oil until he had transformed himself into a veritable oil man. He seemed to be looking for something, trying to find something beneath the oil with his feet. Finally, he succeeded in finding it—perhaps a stone or a pile of dirt—beneath the oil, and slowly climbed onto it, so that now the oil reached only his feet. He placed the oil-soaked grass and sticks all around him, then stood up straight and looked in our direction.

  He gazed at us for a while. He watched us for an entire lifetime. Then he opened the cover of the oil lamp.

  “Brother Lianke, when you write your novel, you must remember to render me as a good character!”

  This is what Father shouted. It was like something an awake person might have said. After shouting this, Father proceeded to pour the oil from the lamp onto the oil-soaked branches and grass in front of him. Then, he placed the lamp itself—with the cover removed—on top of those oil-soaked branches and grass. He didn’t hear the popping sound of the lamp oil burning. But as soon as the oil on the surface of that viscous oil pool was ignited, it immediately produced a conflagration—a sheet of fire as though it was a sheet of red silk suddenly blown into the air. I didn’t know what Father was trying to do, but Yan did. He exclaimed, “Ah! . . .” and his body tensed up and leaped forward, as though he were suddenly waking up from a dream.

  “Brother Tianbao, you’ve gone crazy . . . Are you dreamwalking, or are you awake?”

  Yan took a flying leap into the oil pit.

  But after he had advanced only a few steps, he saw, in the center of the pit, the fiery conflagration reaching for the sky. Yan came to a stop and stared in shock. He saw my father—whose body was covered in kindling, grass, branches, and clothing, as though he were a living fireball—standing in the center of the pit and swaying back and forth. Yan moved back toward the edge of the pit, as though he were trying to get as far away from this fireball as possible, and heard Father screaming in agony.

  “I’m awake! . . . I’m awake! . . .”

  Following these shouts, the conflagration that had been my father simply took a couple of steps, then came to a stop. The conflagration paused for a moment, but it also seemed as though it had been stopped for Father’s entire life. Then the conflagration proceeded to the center of the pit, so that it could yield the largest fireball possible. Once the conflagration reached this point, it stopped again.

  Father didn’t cry or shout, and instead he stood there and let the burning oil envelop the kindling, branches, and clothing he was holding. The conflagration also continued to envelop his own body. He let the flames climb the pile of kindling, grass, and branches, and soon an enormous fireball emerged out of the fiery conflagration. The oil pit’s burning surface was initially only as large as a tatami mat, but eventually it became larger than a house. In the blink of an eye, the fire enveloped the grass and kindling, and climbed up Father’s fiery column. The fire reached upward and spread outward in all directions, quickly engulfing everything around it. There were red and blue flames, and when the fire reached the point where the oil touched the grass and kindling, it became a golden yellow fireball. I saw Father standing in the fire like a fireball on the spire of a fiery tower. That spire was swaying precariously back and forth, but didn’t topple over.

  “The sun has come out! Write me into your novel as a good person!”

  I believe that these were the last words Father uttered, but I couldn’t tell whether he was awake or was talking in his sleep. His shouts were like a blade cutting through the night, jolting me from my stupor, but just as I was about to jump down into the pit, the fire’s heat pushed Yan away from the edge.

  As Yan emerged from the pit, he pushed me away from the edge. By this point, he was completely awake. He was staring in confusion, as though he had no idea what had happened. He grabbed his head with one hand, then grabbed his face with both hands. As he was doing so, he started shouting to the people who had gathered around the pit. “Heavens! . . . Heavens! . . .” Then, he looked at the fire that was leaping out of the pit and, like my father before him, began screaming frantically at the crowd.

  “Everyone run to the embankment!

  “Everyone run to the embankment!”

  By this point, those who had been sleeping and dreaming along the edge of the pit had woken up. They had all gotten to their feet and were staring at the flames. Most of the oil pit had already formed a fireball, and a wave of searing heat surged out like a tsunami.

  “Everyone run up to the embankment! . . . Everyone run up to the embankment!”

  Everyone ran after Yan. The footsteps mixed with his shouts, like raindrops pounding on a grassy hillside. A pungent yellow burning smell filled the air like a sandstorm pounding
my face and pounding everyone’s nose. The explosive sound of cold oil burning, together with people’s screams as they woke up, resonated to the top of the mountain. I could see the fire’s red glow in the air, and I could see the flames reflecting off the surface of the reservoir, like the reflection of the sun at dawn. Ash from the burnt oil flew around us like sparrow or phoenix feathers, and rained down on everyone’s head, hair, and face. People were running away and heading toward the embankment—running so fast that it seemed as if they were fleeing their own execution. They didn’t stop until they arrived at the rear of the hill, where the fire had not yet reached. When they looked back, they saw that behind them there was no conflagration, but rather a sun hovering over the eastern side of the embankment, looking as though it were about to rise. The sun’s flames reached as high as a tree, as high as a house, as high as a multistory building. A semispherical orb appeared to be hovering over the mountaintop, as though it were attempting to leap into the air but kept getting pulled back.