The Tide Has Come

Later, some people called those years the migrant workers wave. The tide started from newspapers, train stations and remittance orders sent back by relatives. When it arrived in the village, there was only one sentence left: There is a way to survive outside. Then the people left. First one, then a family; the adults work in the east, the children grow up in the west, the money is tucked in the letter, and the words are squeezed into a few minutes of long-distance phone calls. Some people set up a stove in a foreign land, thinking that once the pot is boiled, the family will not be separated; some people guard the old house, waiting for the person who sent the money to come back, and while waiting, they send their children out farther away. Over the decades, they have repaired the house, changed the locks, and moved many times. When the tide recedes, what is left on the ground is not neat. There are old accounts, watermarks, and some things that I didn't care to say at the time, and I don't know where to start talking about them later.