The Sea Breeze of 1979

In 1979, the sea breeze made the patrol uniforms rustle. This out-of-town young man who had just graduated from the police academy stepped on the gravel of the North Sea to report for duty, with the uppers of his shoes still stained with the loess from his hometown. He started working at a guard post in a small mountain town. The first time he stayed on guard, he saw iron sand glowing blue in the waves. That was the smuggler's code, and it fell into his heart like a seed. In the days that followed, he chased the ship under the reef, saw the blood on the account books, and touched the cold in the chip. In the Baihutou waters of the 1980s, the knives of the Iron Sand Gang reflected the moonlight; in the data flow of the new century, encrypted signals are hidden in the melody of MP3s. The corners of the police signal "0715" were polished and shiny, and a gap was left from the fishing raft shootout in 1987, like a knot tied by time. He met his lifelong lover here. In the years to come, the red soil and cooking smoke became the most stable shore behind him. When his black hair was stained with frost, he still used to walk on the beach. During the ebb and flow of the tide, the shadow of the boundary monument was stretched very long, like his life filled with files. At the age of 85, he was lying on the hospital bed, and the sound of waves outside the window was the same as when he first arrived. The moment before I closed my eyes, I seemed to see myself standing on the dock in 1979 again. The sea breeze lifted the police uniforms. The ship in the distance was breaking through the morning fog, and his shadow had merged with the sea.