魔幻小说：《河口的空栏》

《河口的空栏》

河风从海面卷上来，带着半熟的盐腥与泥灶的潮热，湿漉漉地拍在老灯桩上，再顺着堤脊滑进测潮棚。木架长年浸水，一吸气便吱哑，像在低声背诵旧账。门楣下悬一口生锈的小钟，退潮时它自己磕齿，声不亮，只空，如水底的低语，在棚里绕了一圈又散。

我在铁脚桌前，摊开《潮时册》和一块画满格线的硬板。格线把日与时、潮差与风向、盐度与泥沙浓度拆成方格，像把河水裁成听话的碎片。我用铅笔写字，用刀片刮字，用橡皮抹字。

写与抹、抹与写，如两只不知疲倦的舟，互为牵拽。河口在外头呼吸，我在格子里为它翻译。黄昏，风里的铁味更重，一阵一阵，如从破船的铁皮上蒸出。

那风总带点异样的声响：锚链悄然拽动底泥，浮标的绳在水里颤鸣，像有人把名字念到一半，忽地停下。

舅舅年轻时在口门当河工，肩背微倾，像在对水让位。他说，水要有自己的空白，人不能把它写满。

我点头，却仍在页脚塞进注记：谁家的篾篓从上游漂来，哪只水鸟不按季折返，几蓬芦苇的根探下一寸。

阿月在码头晾网，网眼滴水，落石面即蒸，如泪未干便散。我以为记录就是拴住。有人低语：拴住便是越界。我没回嘴，将这句话抄在边栏，仍越了界。

 

河口派出所隔两天派人抄《潮时册》。抄的人换来换去，笔迹粗细不一，却总略过边栏。老人们在码头抽旱烟，说大潮进来时的一声“顿”，像铁在水里被敲，听见的人会下意识系紧鞋带。孩子蹲在磙石上，看潮涌过脚背，笑着跑开。

渔队的老付最守口，夜里带手电到水位桩边，眼神沉如河底。他说桩子会动。说完他把手电扣在胸前，像把一句话扣回心口。

我看过，动的不是桩，是泥。泥将桩吞一线又吐出，像人在水里练气。

老付说，这个吞吐，不要写。写了，水就怕。

我将这句抄在封二：“不要把水写满。”
    以前讲“让一口”，船进出要让一口水，不跟水抢。后来年轻的图快，船鼻扎得太实，夯得水发闷。册上的小字，是在跟水说话。话多了，水烦。

口门有脾气。年轻时丢过一个兄弟，灯灭后没找到。阿海也在这儿干过，后来沉进河口，没上来。他是我堂兄。

 

端午后的第三个大潮夜，风折向，如黑暗里有人扭动罗盘一格。堤外浮标拉得笔直，绳深处吐出低低的颤。我压低灯罩，让光圈只照《潮时册》：六月十六日那页，主栏挤满数字，边栏堆满迟到的注记，像一个人把自己塞进纸上，连喘息都无处安放。

我取出刮字刀，刀口贴纸走，纤维粉粉立起，凉如水底的光沫。我削去“午后有黄泥上翻”，削去“鹞鹰追鱼群”的箭头，削去“涨退之间有嗡”的“嗡”。

刀口刮过纸面，低吟如水底的叹息。纸屑落进铁盘，灰白一片，凉得像退潮后的石面。我想抓住那些字，却发现它们像我的影子，化成水影，漂向河口。风在门缝短促吸气，像对我不满。刀尖一抖，格线破了一丝。我把刀平平放下。

门楣的小钟轻磕一齿，空声如水底的低语，在棚里拐了个弯。

我换橡皮，抹去主栏最密的一处，将“2.3”“2.4”“2.5”抹成淡灰。纸面浮起细凹，像退潮后的裂缝。外头水声将“数”的尾音吞掉，低吟如未尽的句子。那夜我只做一件事：

将六月十六日主栏最拥挤的一格抹成空。

空旁，我写了个小字：空。

翻页、收刀、拨灯，如关上一扇窄门。
    二十三时五分，测潮棚内灯低，闻细细刮纸声，如修册。过二十步，海铁味起。灯下人影举刀片。未扰。

 

第二日下午，舅舅来了，衣襟潮湿，晕开水花。他站在门外，没有进屋。我把册子递给他，他指着空白处，没有发表任何意见，然后掏出旧石灰粉，在沙盘上抹平一块地方，用指尖捻起灰粉画出了河口：主流部分用硬笔画，支流部分用软笔画。

“你把格空了，水会自己补。”

“我看不见。”

“那就看它怎么补。”

我在沙盘旁边竖起细竹签，绑上红线，坠着旧铅锤。风吹过，红线轻轻摆动，摆到某个点就停住了，就像是认准了一寸的尺度。舅舅卸下门楣上的小钟，挂在竹签中部。钟碰到红线，发出一声虚弱的响声，如同水底的低语。

傍晚时分，阿月在码头晾网，网眼上的水珠落在石面上，瞬间蒸发，就像泪水还没干就散去了。沙盘上的灰尘被风抹平，凉凉的，就像退潮后的石面，仿佛从未被触动过。我胸口松了一口气，却又吐不尽，那口气停在喉头，感觉有什么东西要往上浮。

    小时候在口门边迷过路。有人喊我的名字，喊到一半，声被浪扣住。我追逐着那半截名字，一直跑到木桩潮线，鞋子里灌满了水。那个人始终没有出现，只有灯影摇晃了两下。后来家人再也没有提起那天的事。有人说潮水涨得太快，木桩没能拔出来；也有人说，是我家的船没回来，舅舅喊了半夜。对我来说，六月十六日就是那半截名字。想要留住它，却发现它像水中的倒影，消散在河口吹来的风里。

 

这些年我习惯“留”。那天起，舅舅教我“删”。

删不是撕，不是遮。删要让纤维还在，字的力不在；把纸与笔之间那层“用力”，温和地拿走。我练了三天，先练角页，再练旧栏。写得越满，删越难。删一字，纸留淡影。如人从水里上岸，脚底轻轻一扣。删多纸会破，我每日只删一字：删“潮”、删“涌”、删“急”、删“至”。删到“到此”的“此”变空。手背落在纸的末端，盐味很淡，就像潮水退去后石缝里的霜。

我贴近纸面，纤维在灯下颤。

细白鱼群似的，一起翻身。

刀口一落，它们散开，又缓缓聚回。

测潮册最近三天有轻微的笔迹去除痕迹。没有发现涂抹，怀疑是用刀刮去墨迹。主栏有一处空格，是六月十六日。建议：保留空栏观察，不要补写。

舅舅年轻时赶堤，打防波桩，睡湿席，肩背微倾，像对水让位。他话少，如字先在水里走一遍再挑出。他曾在酒里说：“那年夜里，灯全灭，水比命值钱。”没再解释，我没追问。他的“删够了”，像医生的手背：不热，不冷，准。

阿月住在潮线内侧，晾网手很快，耳朵薄得像小贝壳，贴着光线看就像贝壳一样。她说她能听见水说话。她母亲某年退潮后没有回来，她便学会了听潮水退去的声音。

“潮水有两种‘空’：一种给它走，一种遮它伤口。”

“今晚是哪种？”

她侧耳：“走。”

    我看见他站水边，小钟在背后，空空的。沙盘有个缺口，风一吹合上。水说了句什么，又吞回去。听不清，不是恨人的。

第七夜，风变长，如海上有人提起白布。小钟碰红线，红线碰竹签，竹签碰沙盘边，连成一串轻扣声，如远处合上几扇窄门。河口静下，一种“该来的没来”之空，铺开堤外。

我灭灯至半格，走到水边。潮退中段，暗流掠脚踝，像不想惊动我。锚链松一齿，浮标斜了又直。我站在水边，像被河口摸了一下额头：

这里要删，不要留。

删不是抹去证据，是交还给水。水自有账。

六月十六日那页右边，空格如一扇小窗。我翻过去，又翻回来，确认它还在。空格边，我用最细的笔写一行几乎看不见的字：

“此栏空，听河口自记。”

舅舅门外托着钟，如捧着孩子，把它挂回门楣。

钟声沉下一分，棚内的空也跟着沉稳。

 

月末，档案室调册。灰衫抄录员翻到六月十六日，停了两秒，抬眼看着我。我没有说话。他微笑着，照旧抄写，空格的地方也留着空白。那些模糊的字迹没有被看到，或者说，他假装没有看到。

单据上写着：

“六月十六日主栏空格一处，疑观测空位，保留。”

保留，像把空抬高了一寸。

入伏之后，白色的雾气笼罩着河口。棚屋里的钟被潮气侵蚀得更加空洞，不再敲响，只在风吹来时轻轻摇摆。我收起一半沙盘里的灰，剩下的一半放在门槛内侧。红线缠绕着铅锤，高高地挂着，没有碰到地面。

舅舅说：“删够了。”

“怎么知道？”

他看河，眼神像把一条线拉直。

“水面把你的字接回去，就够。”

那天晚上，我试着再刮掉一个字。刀还没碰到纸，指尖就先传来一阵刺痛。纸的末端在指纹里结成了细小的盐粒，像没融化的泪珠。我明白，删除这件事，身体比纸更早记住。

那夜，我以为听见水下有人轻轻敲桩，像在招呼。光滑的泥面上浮出半截手指，又被水裹回去。我喊出“阿海”，声音没有出来，只剩一口气打在纸上，留下一点盐的印子。

手掌按在空白处，纸张是温暖的，就像刚有人坐过一样。那一瞬间，我看见了一幅极短的画面：木桩的线条，黑色的海面，灯影折断，人影在水里弯了一下，然后就再也看不见了。不知道那是记忆还是水面给的影子，胸口那根细细的弦轻轻回弹，恢复到原来的尺度。

 

又过了三日，我独自坐在棚内。风与潮水平稳，仿佛远处有人吹奏排箫，气息沿着无形的管道缓缓传来。我翻开《潮时册》，用最轻的力气在六月十六日的页角盖章：

删。

章落，风从门缝来，抬起页角，又放回。

我关上灯，搬了把椅子到门口坐下。湖水退了一指，又停住了。我不再计算时间，也不再数页码。隔着水面的码头，阿月的晾网声拉长又缩回，就像绷紧的线松开了一格。

秋汛前，新的册子送到了，纸张很硬，格子很细。我抄写了老付的那句话：“不要把水写满。”又加了一行：“空栏即在场。”

新册第一页的日期，是明年的六月十六。

字还没写，格子里已有淡淡的潮痕。我笑了，像在看一本自己未写的旧书。

河风巡逻而过，灯桩上的鹞鹰时而落下，时而又飞起，影子瞬间压在水面上。沙盘上的灰被风抹平，指腹一触，冷得像刚露出的石皮。旧册子被仔细包裹好，放在高高的架子上。手背上沾着灰，我舔了一下，没有味道。

我对门楣上的小钟轻声说：“停。”

隔水传来阿月的嗓音，不高，也不清楚。

像有人在水底说话，被浪一点一点推到岸上。

我分不清她说的是“潮退了”，还是“删够了”。

河水就在这里，河口依旧。风像一个熟悉路线的哨兵，不停地巡逻。夜里，钟不敲响，木梁因为热胀冷缩发出极其轻微的空响。我双手平放在膝上，听着水将空白重新接回自身，纸页上仍然留着一道细缝。

忽然，从堤外传来极细的一声“顿”，像铁在水里被轻轻敲了一下。

我抬头，风正好——

空栏自己响了一声。

没有白光，也没有告别。

只是退潮的一瞬间，就像轻轻地从纸上抬起多写的字。

河水从不记账，却在每一页空白里留下了一道裂缝。

 

（汪翔，2025年10月19，写于伊利湖畔）

The Empty Column at the Estuary

by Wang Xiang 

The river wind rises from the sea, carrying half-cooked salt and the damp heat of clay stoves.
It slaps against the old light post, slides down the ridge of the levee,
and drifts into the tide-measuring shed.
The wooden beams, soaked for years, sigh with every breath—
a quiet recitation of old accounts.
A rust-stained bell hangs under the lintel.
When the tide ebbs, it clacks against itself, dull and hollow,
like a whisper underwater that circles the room before fading away.

At the iron-legged table I unfold The Tide Register
and a thick board covered with square grids.
The grids divide day and hour, tide range and wind direction,
salinity and silt concentration—
as if the river could be trimmed into obedient fragments.
I write with a pencil, scrape with a blade, erase with a rubber.
Writing and erasing, erasing and writing,
two tireless boats pulling at each other’s ropes.
The estuary breathes outside; inside the squares, I translate it.
Toward dusk, the wind tastes of iron,
as though rising steam from a wrecked ship’s hull.

That wind always carries strange noises:
chains tugging at the mud,
a buoy’s rope quivering—
as if someone had begun to call a name and suddenly stopped.
When my uncle was young, he worked the mouth of the river,
his back always tilted, as though yielding to the water.
He told me, Water needs its blank space. Don’t try to write it full.
I nodded, yet at the foot of the page still slipped in notes:
whose bamboo basket floated down from upstream,
which bird missed its migration,
how deep the reeds’ roots reached this week.

At the pier, A-Yue dries her nets.
The dripping water hits the stone and vanishes—
like tears that evaporate before they’re seen.
I once thought that recording was a way of holding on.
Someone whispered: To hold on is to cross a line.
I didn’t answer, but copied the words into the margin—
and crossed the line anyway.

Every two days, the local police copy the Register.
The handwriting changes, but they always skip the margins.
Old men smoke dry tobacco by the pier,
saying that when the spring tide surges, there is a single clang,
like iron struck under water.
Those who hear it instinctively tighten their shoelaces.
Children squat on round stones,
let the water wash their feet, then laugh and run away.

Old Fu of the fishing crew keeps silent.
At night he brings a flashlight to the gauge post;
his eyes are as deep as the riverbed.
He says, The posts move.
Then he clicks the flashlight off against his chest,
as if pinning the sentence back into himself.
I’ve watched: it isn’t the post that moves, it’s the mud—
swallowing and releasing the pole,
like a man practicing breath under water.
Fu said, Don’t write that down.
If you write it, the water will fear you.
I copied his words on the inner cover:
Never fill the water’s page.

That summer, on the third night after the Dragon Boat Festival,
the wind turned—
as though someone in the dark had nudged a compass.
The buoys stretched taut; deep in the rope something trembled.
I lowered the lamp’s shade so its light touched only the page—
June Sixteenth.
The main column was crammed with numbers;
the margins piled with belated notes,
as if a man had pressed himself into paper until he had no air left.

I drew out the blade.
Its edge followed the paper’s grain;
fibers rose, glimmering like cold foam from the riverbed.
I shaved off “mud surge in afternoon,”
shaved off “hawk chasing fish school,”
shaved off the hum between rise and ebb.
The blade hummed low, like the river sighing beneath itself.
Paper dust fell into the tin tray, pale and cool—
like stones after the tide withdraws.
I wanted to keep those words,
but they melted into their reflections,
drifting toward the estuary.
The wind inhaled through the crack of the door, displeased.
My hand trembled; a grid line split.
I set the blade down flat.
The bell under the lintel clicked a tooth—
a hollow sound turning a corner in the shed.

Then I erased the tightest spot on the page:
“2.3,” “2.4,” “2.5” became a gray smudge.
The paper buckled slightly,
like a fissure left by the receding tide.
Outside, the water swallowed the end of the word number,
leaving a half-spoken murmur.
That night I did one thing only:
emptied the most crowded square of June Sixteenth,
and beside the blank wrote a single word—Empty.

The next afternoon, my uncle came.
His shirt was wet, edges blooming with watermarks.
He stood at the door and didn’t enter.
I handed him the register.
He pointed at the blank and said nothing.
Then he spread a patch of gray dust on the sand table,
and with his finger traced the estuary—
the main flow drawn in hard lines,
the tributaries in soft ones.
“You emptied the grid,” he said. “The water will fill it back.”
“I can’t see it.”
“Then wait and see how it fills.”

I planted a bamboo stick, tied a red string, and hung an old plumb weight.
The wind moved it; the string swung, then stilled,
as if deciding on an inch.
He took the small bell from the lintel
and hung it halfway down the stick.
It brushed the red string and made a weak sound—
like the river whispering from below.

By evening, A-Yue was drying nets again.
Water drops fell, hissed, and vanished.
The sand table’s dust was smooth, cool—
as if it had never been touched.
My chest loosened, but the breath caught halfway,
something inside still rising.

When I was a child, I lost my way by the river mouth.
Someone called my name—half a name—before the waves took it.
I chased the broken syllable to the tide-line,
my shoes filled with water.
The person never appeared;
only the light flickered twice.
My family never spoke of that night again.
Some said the tide rose too fast,
Some said our boat didn’t return.
For me, June Sixteenth is that half-swallowed name—
what I tried to keep,
only to find it dissolving in the wind off the estuary.

I grew used to keeping things.
That day my uncle taught me to erase.
Erasing is not tearing or covering.
You leave the fibers intact but lift the force from between pen and paper.
I practiced for three days: margins first, then old columns.
The fuller the writing, the harder the erasure.
Erase one word and a pale shadow remains—
like a footprint surfacing from the tide.
Erase too much and the paper breaks.
Each day I erased one word: tide, rush, surge, arrive—
until this arrival here became blank.
A thin salt remained on my hand,
like frost in the cracks of low tide.

Under the lamp, the paper’s fibers trembled—
tiny white fish turning as one in the water.
The blade dropped; they scattered,
then slowly gathered again.

The register showed faint signs of erasure these days.
No smears, only the lifted ink.
June Sixteenth had one blank cell.
They noted: Keep the empty space. Do not amend.

My uncle used to drive piles for the seawall,
sleeping on damp mats, back always bent to the river.
He spoke little; each word seemed to walk through water before surfacing.
Once, drunk, he said: That night, all the lights went out. Water was worth more than life.
He never explained.
When he said Enough erased,
His voice was like a doctor’s hand—steady, cool, exact.

A-Yue lives inside the tide line,
her hands quick, ears thin as shells.
She says she can hear water speak.
Her mother vanished one year when the tide went out;
since then she listens to the sound of water leaving.
“There are two kinds of emptiness in the tide,” she told me.
“One that lets it go, one that hides its wound.”
“Which is tonight?”
She tilted her head. “Go.”

I saw him at the water’s edge, the bell behind him—hollow.
The sand table gapped; wind closed it.
The river said something, then swallowed it back.
Couldn’t tell if it was sorrow.

On the seventh night, the wind lengthened—
as if someone at sea lifted a sheet of white cloth.
Bell struck string, string struck bamboo, bamboo tapped the sand’s rim—
a chain of soft knocks, like doors closing far away.
The estuary still.
A kind of absence—what should have come but didn’t—
spread beyond the levee.

I dimmed the lamp to half and walked to the water.
Mid-ebb, the dark current brushed my ankles,
as though not to disturb me.
A chain slackened; the buoy leaned, then righted.
The river touched my forehead: Here, erase, don’t keep.
Erasing is not hiding proof; it’s returning what belongs to the water.
The water keeps its own account.

On June Sixteenth’s page, the blank square stood like a small window.
I turned the page and back again—yes, it remained.
Beside it I wrote, in the thinnest ink:
This cell left empty—let the river write itself.

At month’s end, the archive clerk reviewed the register.
He paused at the blank, looked up, and smiled.
He copied everything,
even the blank left blank.
On the form he wrote:
June Sixteenth—observation void recorded. Preserve.
Preserve—as if raising the blank an inch higher.

The bell no longer rings;
it only sways when the wind breathes through.
Half the sand’s dust I gathered,
half I left by the threshold.
The red string wound round the plumb, hanging high,
not touching the ground.
“Enough erased,” my uncle said.
“How do you know?”
He looked at the river, eyes tightening a line.
“When the water takes your words back, that’s enough.”

That night I tried to scrape another word,
but before the blade touched paper, pain pricked my fingertip.
Salt crystals formed in the prints,
like tears that never melted.
I understood: the body remembers before the page does.

I pressed my palm on the blank.
The paper was warm,
as if someone had just risen from it.
For an instant I saw it all—
the posts, the black sea, the broken lamp light,
a figure bending in water,
then gone.

Three days later, I sat alone in the shed.
The tide and wind were calm,
as if someone far away played a flute,
the breath running through invisible tubes.
I opened the register, stamped the corner of June Sixteenth:
Erased.
The wind slipped through the door, lifted the page,
and set it back down.

I turned off the lamp,
carried a chair to the doorway,
and sat.
The water retreated an inch, then stopped.
Across the river, A-Yue’s nets lengthened and shrank in the breeze—
a tightened line relaxing by one knot.

Before the autumn flood, new registers arrived:
hard paper, finer grids.
I copied Fu’s words: Never fill the water’s page.
And added my own: The empty cell is a presence itself.
The first date of the new book was next year’s June Sixteenth.
No word yet, but faint tide marks already on the grid.
I smiled—reading a book I hadn’t written.

The wind patrolled past the light post;
a kite hawk landed and lifted,
its shadow pressed flat on the water.
The dust on the sand table smoothed over;
when touched, it felt cold—
like a new stone just revealed by the tide.
I wrapped the old register carefully,
set it high on the shelf.
Gray stuck to my hand; I licked it. No taste.

I whispered to the bell, “Stop.”
Across the water came A-Yue’s voice—
soft, uncertain—
as if spoken from beneath the tide,
pushed to shore, word by word.
I couldn’t tell if she said,
“The tide is out,” or “Enough erased.”

The river stays. The mouth remains.
The wind patrols its familiar route.
At night the bell keeps silent;
only the wooden beam expands and contracts,
a faint hollow click.
Hands on my knees, I listen—
the water taking back its blanks.
The page still bears a fine, thin seam.

A delicate metallic sound drifts from beyond the levee—
as if iron touched water, once.
I look up. The wind is just right.
The empty column rings by itself.

No white light, no farewell.
Only the ebb—
like a word lifted from paper, gently.
The river keeps no accounts,
yet in every blank
it leaves a crack,
fine as breath.