作者：金米

又到512了，18年前许多家庭遭遇灭顶之灾的日子。很多时候，我已经习惯沉默。但有时候，实在忍不了，因为我看到一个国家最深的裂缝，并不在山河断裂之处，而在人心终于意识到：原来连孩子伏案写字的地方，也会因为偷工减料而塌陷。而我这样的人，永远不会原谅一个残害孩童的社会。汶川之后，我始终忘不了那些学校。也是因为这件事，过后没多久，促使我毅然去了云南临沧一座山巅之上的学校工作。当年的言论管控还没到令人发指的地步，新闻实时播报里，我看到新修的五层教学楼，像被踩碎的苏打饼干一样塌下来，薄薄地伏在地面，竟只有半个篮球场那么高。旁边那些几十年前的旧楼，墙皮斑驳，窗框生锈，却偏偏站着，像几个沉默而苍老的证人。那种对比让人心里发冷——原来真正摇摇欲坠的，从来不是楼，而是良心。废墟里几乎看不到钢筋。那不是地震能解释的事情。地震可以震碎水泥，却震不没钢筋。可那些本该像骨头一样撑住楼体的东西，稀薄得仿佛从未存在。于是整栋楼便直直地压下来，压在课桌上，压在练习册上，压在那些刚学会背《静夜思》的孩子身上。最残忍的不是死亡。最残忍的是：你知道他们还活着。一只小手还在动，一截碎花裙露在石缝外，细细的呻吟像春天快断掉的虫鸣。那个母亲已经哭不出声了，只会沙哑地重复：“她还活着啊……她还活着啊……”可没人敢进去。因为那废墟太脆了。脆得不像钢筋混凝土，倒像酥掉的灰饼。部队拦着所有人，怕二次坍塌。

于是所有人只能站在那里，看着孩子一点点安静下去。我忽然想起鲁迅先生写过，中国人最擅长的，是“瞒”和“骗”。瞒上，骗下。骗领导，骗百姓，骗检查，骗验收，最后连老天都想骗。钢筋可以少放一点，水泥可以稀一点，签字盖章却一样鲜红。饭局照吃，笑照拍，典礼照剪彩，新闻里永远是“重点工程”、“百年大计”。可大地不认这些。大地一翻身，那些酒桌上的推杯换盏，那些文件里的漂亮数字，那些层层审批里的“关系”和“意思”，一下全露了馅。原来有些楼，从盖起来那天开始，就已经准备好要埋人了。我看着那些塌掉的教学楼，觉得那不仅是建筑塌了，而是整个社会对于“未来”二字，早已偷偷腐烂。因为一个民族若连孩子都敢骗，连学校都敢偷工减料，那么倒塌的就不只是楼板，而是这个民族心里最后一点对天理的敬畏。最令人绝望的是：很多人后来居然慢慢就忘了，就像忘掉其他类似的灾难一样。废墟被清走，新闻过去，城市重建，高楼重新亮灯。有人升官，有人退休，有人继续在饭桌上谈笑风生。只有那些死去孩子的年龄，永远停在了那一年。他们再也长不大了。

编辑：胡丽莉 校对：孔祥庆 翻译：周敏

May 12: A Commemoration Lest We Forget

Author: Jin Mi

Abstract: Eighteen years have passed since the May 12 earthquake, and many people have long since forgotten. However, those collapsed school buildings, the children beneath the ruins, and the cutting of corners behind it all remain like an unhealable wound to this day, reminding people: what truly collapsed might be conscience and reverence.

It is May 12 again, the day 18 years ago when many families encountered a fatal disaster.

Most of the time, I have become accustomed to silence. But sometimes, I truly cannot endure it, because I see that the deepest crack of a country is not located where mountains and rivers break, but where the human heart finally realizes: it turns out that even the place where children lean over desks to write can collapse due to cutting corners. And a person like me will never forgive a society that harms children.

After Wenchuan, I could never forget those schools. It was also because of this matter that, not long afterward, I was prompted to resolutely go to work at a school upon a mountaintop in Lincang, Yunnan.

Back then, the control over speech had not yet reached an outrageous level. In the real-time news broadcasts, I saw the newly built five-story teaching building collapse like a stepped-on soda cracker, lying thinly on the ground, unexpectedly reaching only as high as half a basketball court. Beside it, those old buildings from decades ago, with peeling walls and rusted window frames, happened to remain standing, like several silent and elderly witnesses. That contrast made one’s heart turn cold—it turns out that what was truly precarious was never the buildings, but the conscience.

Almost no rebar could be seen in the ruins.

That was not something an earthquake could explain. An earthquake can shatter cement, but it cannot make rebar disappear. Yet those things, which should have supported the building structure like bones, were so thin as if they had never existed. Consequently, the entire building pressed straight down—pressing onto desks, pressing onto exercise books, pressing onto those children who had just learned to recite “Thoughts in a Quiet Night.”

The most cruel thing was not death.

The most cruel thing was: you knew they were still alive.

A small hand was still moving; a section of a floral skirt was exposed outside a stone crevice; thin groans were like the breaking chirps of insects in spring. That mother could no longer make a sound from crying; she could only hoarsely repeat: “She is still alive… She is still alive…”

But no one dared to go in.

Because those ruins were too brittle. So brittle that they did not resemble reinforced concrete, but rather crumbly ash cakes. The troops held everyone back, fearing a secondary collapse.

Thus, everyone could only stand there, watching the children quiet down bit by bit.

I suddenly remembered that Mr. Lu Xun once wrote that what Chinese people are best at is “concealing” and “deceiving.”

Concealing from superiors, deceiving subordinates.

Deceiving leaders, deceiving the common people, deceiving inspections, deceiving acceptances, and in the end, even wanting to deceive Heaven. Rebar can be placed a bit less, cement can be a bit thinner, yet the signatures and stamps remain just as bright red. Banquets are still eaten, photos are still taken smilingly, ribbons are still cut at ceremonies, and the news is forever about “key projects” and “century-long blueprints.”

But the earth does not recognize these.

As soon as the earth turns over, those toasts exchanged at wine tables, those beautiful numbers in documents, and those “relationships” and “meanings” within layer upon layer of approvals—all of a sudden, the truth of everything is exposed. It turns out that some buildings, from the day they were constructed, were already prepared to bury people.

Looking at those collapsed teaching buildings, I felt that it was not only that the architecture had collapsed, but that the entire society’s attitude toward the word “future” had already secretly rotted away. Because if a nation dares to deceive even children, and dares to cut corners even on schools, then what collapses is not merely floor slabs, but the very last bit of reverence for heavenly justice in the heart of this nation.

What brings the most despair is: many people later actually forgot slowly, just like forgetting other similar disasters.

The ruins were cleared away, the news passed, the city was rebuilt, and the high-rise buildings lit up again. Some people were promoted, some people retired, and some people continued to talk and laugh freely at the dinner table. Only the ages of those deceased children remained forever stopped in that year.

They can never grow up again.

Editor: Hu Lili Proofreader: Kong Xiangqing Translator: Zhou Min