魔幻小說：《河口的空欄》

《河口的空欄》

河風從海麵卷上來，帶著半熟的鹽腥與泥灶的潮熱，濕漉漉地拍在老燈樁上，再順著堤脊滑進測潮棚。木架長年浸水，一吸氣便吱啞，像在低聲背誦舊賬。門楣下懸一口生鏽的小鍾，退潮時它自己磕齒，聲不亮，隻空，如水底的低語，在棚裏繞了一圈又散。

我在鐵腳桌前，攤開《潮時冊》和一塊畫滿格線的硬板。格線把日與時、潮差與風向、鹽度與泥沙濃度拆成方格，像把河水裁成聽話的碎片。我用鉛筆寫字，用刀片刮字，用橡皮抹字。

寫與抹、抹與寫，如兩隻不知疲倦的舟，互為牽拽。河口在外頭呼吸，我在格子裏為它翻譯。黃昏，風裏的鐵味更重，一陣一陣，如從破船的鐵皮上蒸出。

那風總帶點異樣的聲響：錨鏈悄然拽動底泥，浮標的繩在水裏顫鳴，像有人把名字念到一半，忽地停下。

舅舅年輕時在口門當河工，肩背微傾，像在對水讓位。他說，水要有自己的空白，人不能把它寫滿。

我點頭，卻仍在頁腳塞進注記：誰家的篾簍從上遊漂來，哪隻水鳥不按季折返，幾蓬蘆葦的根探下一寸。

阿月在碼頭晾網，網眼滴水，落石麵即蒸，如淚未幹便散。我以為記錄就是拴住。有人低語：拴住便是越界。我沒回嘴，將這句話抄在邊欄，仍越了界。

 

河口派出所隔兩天派人抄《潮時冊》。抄的人換來換去，筆跡粗細不一，卻總略過邊欄。老人們在碼頭抽旱煙，說大潮進來時的一聲“頓”，像鐵在水裏被敲，聽見的人會下意識係緊鞋帶。孩子蹲在滾石上，看潮湧過腳背，笑著跑開。

漁隊的老付最守口，夜裏帶手電到水位樁邊，眼神沉如河底。他說樁子會動。說完他把手電扣在胸前，像把一句話扣回心口。

我看過，動的不是樁，是泥。泥將樁吞一線又吐出，像人在水裏練氣。

老付說，這個吞吐，不要寫。寫了，水就怕。

我將這句抄在封二：“不要把水寫滿。”
    以前講“讓一口”，船進出要讓一口水，不跟水搶。後來年輕的圖快，船鼻紮得太實，夯得水發悶。冊上的小字，是在跟水說話。話多了，水煩。

口門有脾氣。年輕時丟過一個兄弟，燈滅後沒找到。阿海也在這兒幹過，後來沉進河口，沒上來。他是我堂兄。

 

端午後的第三個大潮夜，風折向，如黑暗裏有人扭動羅盤一格。堤外浮標拉得筆直，繩深處吐出低低的顫。我壓低燈罩，讓光圈隻照《潮時冊》：六月十六日那頁，主欄擠滿數字，邊欄堆滿遲到的注記，像一個人把自己塞進紙上，連喘息都無處安放。

我取出刮字刀，刀口貼紙走，纖維粉粉立起，涼如水底的光沫。我削去“午後有黃泥上翻”，削去“鷂鷹追魚群”的箭頭，削去“漲退之間有嗡”的“嗡”。

刀口刮過紙麵，低吟如水底的歎息。紙屑落進鐵盤，灰白一片，涼得像退潮後的石麵。我想抓住那些字，卻發現它們像我的影子，化成水影，漂向河口。風在門縫短促吸氣，像對我不滿。刀尖一抖，格線破了一絲。我把刀平平放下。

門楣的小鍾輕磕一齒，空聲如水底的低語，在棚裏拐了個彎。

我換橡皮，抹去主欄最密的一處，將“2.3”“2.4”“2.5”抹成淡灰。紙麵浮起細凹，像退潮後的裂縫。外頭水聲將“數”的尾音吞掉，低吟如未盡的句子。那夜我隻做一件事：

將六月十六日主欄最擁擠的一格抹成空。

空旁，我寫了個小字：空。

翻頁、收刀、撥燈，如關上一扇窄門。
    二十三時五分，測潮棚內燈低，聞細細刮紙聲，如修冊。過二十步，海鐵味起。燈下人影舉刀片。未擾。

 

第二日下午，舅舅來了，衣襟潮濕，暈開水花。他站在門外，沒有進屋。我把冊子遞給他，他指著空白處，沒有發表任何意見，然後掏出舊石灰粉，在沙盤上抹平一塊地方，用指尖撚起灰粉畫出了河口：主流部分用硬筆畫，支流部分用軟筆畫。

“你把格空了，水會自己補。”

“我看不見。”

“那就看它怎麽補。”

我在沙盤旁邊豎起細竹簽，綁上紅線，墜著舊鉛錘。風吹過，紅線輕輕擺動，擺到某個點就停住了，就像是認準了一寸的尺度。舅舅卸下門楣上的小鍾，掛在竹簽中部。鍾碰到紅線，發出一聲虛弱的響聲，如同水底的低語。

傍晚時分，阿月在碼頭晾網，網眼上的水珠落在石麵上，瞬間蒸發，就像淚水還沒幹就散去了。沙盤上的灰塵被風抹平，涼涼的，就像退潮後的石麵，仿佛從未被觸動過。我胸口鬆了一口氣，卻又吐不盡，那口氣停在喉頭，感覺有什麽東西要往上浮。

    小時候在口門邊迷過路。有人喊我的名字，喊到一半，聲被浪扣住。我追逐著那半截名字，一直跑到木樁潮線，鞋子裏灌滿了水。那個人始終沒有出現，隻有燈影搖晃了兩下。後來家人再也沒有提起那天的事。有人說潮水漲得太快，木樁沒能拔出來；也有人說，是我家的船沒回來，舅舅喊了半夜。對我來說，六月十六日就是那半截名字。想要留住它，卻發現它像水中的倒影，消散在河口吹來的風裏。

 

這些年我習慣“留”。那天起，舅舅教我“刪”。

刪不是撕，不是遮。刪要讓纖維還在，字的力不在；把紙與筆之間那層“用力”，溫和地拿走。我練了三天，先練角頁，再練舊欄。寫得越滿，刪越難。刪一字，紙留淡影。如人從水裏上岸，腳底輕輕一扣。刪多紙會破，我每日隻刪一字：刪“潮”、刪“湧”、刪“急”、刪“至”。刪到“到此”的“此”變空。手背落在紙的末端，鹽味很淡，就像潮水退去後石縫裏的霜。

我貼近紙麵，纖維在燈下顫。

細白魚群似的，一起翻身。

刀口一落，它們散開，又緩緩聚回。

測潮冊最近三天有輕微的筆跡去除痕跡。沒有發現塗抹，懷疑是用刀刮去墨跡。主欄有一處空格，是六月十六日。建議：保留空欄觀察，不要補寫。

舅舅年輕時趕堤，打防波樁，睡濕席，肩背微傾，像對水讓位。他話少，如字先在水裏走一遍再挑出。他曾在酒裏說：“那年夜裏，燈全滅，水比命值錢。”沒再解釋，我沒追問。他的“刪夠了”，像醫生的手背：不熱，不冷，準。

阿月住在潮線內側，晾網手很快，耳朵薄得像小貝殼，貼著光線看就像貝殼一樣。她說她能聽見水說話。她母親某年退潮後沒有回來，她便學會了聽潮水退去的聲音。

“潮水有兩種‘空’：一種給它走，一種遮它傷口。”

“今晚是哪種？”

她側耳：“走。”

    我看見他站水邊，小鍾在背後，空空的。沙盤有個缺口，風一吹合上。水說了句什麽，又吞回去。聽不清，不是恨人的。

第七夜，風變長，如海上有人提起白布。小鍾碰紅線，紅線碰竹簽，竹簽碰沙盤邊，連成一串輕扣聲，如遠處合上幾扇窄門。河口靜下，一種“該來的沒來”之空，鋪開堤外。

我滅燈至半格，走到水邊。潮退中段，暗流掠腳踝，像不想驚動我。錨鏈鬆一齒，浮標斜了又直。我站在水邊，像被河口摸了一下額頭：

這裏要刪，不要留。

刪不是抹去證據，是交還給水。水自有賬。

六月十六日那頁右邊，空格如一扇小窗。我翻過去，又翻回來，確認它還在。空格邊，我用最細的筆寫一行幾乎看不見的字：

“此欄空，聽河口自記。”

舅舅門外托著鍾，如捧著孩子，把它掛回門楣。

鍾聲沉下一分，棚內的空也跟著沉穩。

 

月末，檔案室調冊。灰衫抄錄員翻到六月十六日，停了兩秒，抬眼看著我。我沒有說話。他微笑著，照舊抄寫，空格的地方也留著空白。那些模糊的字跡沒有被看到，或者說，他假裝沒有看到。

單據上寫著：

“六月十六日主欄空格一處，疑觀測空位，保留。”

保留，像把空抬高了一寸。

入伏之後，白色的霧氣籠罩著河口。棚屋裏的鍾被潮氣侵蝕得更加空洞，不再敲響，隻在風吹來時輕輕搖擺。我收起一半沙盤裏的灰，剩下的一半放在門檻內側。紅線纏繞著鉛錘，高高地掛著，沒有碰到地麵。

舅舅說：“刪夠了。”

“怎麽知道？”

他看河，眼神像把一條線拉直。

“水麵把你的字接回去，就夠。”

那天晚上，我試著再刮掉一個字。刀還沒碰到紙，指尖就先傳來一陣刺痛。紙的末端在指紋裏結成了細小的鹽粒，像沒融化的淚珠。我明白，刪除這件事，身體比紙更早記住。

那夜，我以為聽見水下有人輕輕敲樁，像在招呼。光滑的泥麵上浮出半截手指，又被水裹回去。我喊出“阿海”，聲音沒有出來，隻剩一口氣打在紙上，留下一點鹽的印子。

手掌按在空白處，紙張是溫暖的，就像剛有人坐過一樣。那一瞬間，我看見了一幅極短的畫麵：木樁的線條，黑色的海麵，燈影折斷，人影在水裏彎了一下，然後就再也看不見了。不知道那是記憶還是水麵給的影子，胸口那根細細的弦輕輕回彈，恢複到原來的尺度。

 

又過了三日，我獨自坐在棚內。風與潮水平穩，仿佛遠處有人吹奏排簫，氣息沿著無形的管道緩緩傳來。我翻開《潮時冊》，用最輕的力氣在六月十六日的頁角蓋章：

刪。

章落，風從門縫來，抬起頁角，又放回。

我關上燈，搬了把椅子到門口坐下。湖水退了一指，又停住了。我不再計算時間，也不再數頁碼。隔著水麵的碼頭，阿月的晾網聲拉長又縮回，就像繃緊的線鬆開了一格。

秋汛前，新的冊子送到了，紙張很硬，格子很細。我抄寫了老付的那句話：“不要把水寫滿。”又加了一行：“空欄即在場。”

新冊第一頁的日期，是明年的六月十六。

字還沒寫，格子裏已有淡淡的潮痕。我笑了，像在看一本自己未寫的舊書。

河風巡邏而過，燈樁上的鷂鷹時而落下，時而又飛起，影子瞬間壓在水麵上。沙盤上的灰被風抹平，指腹一觸，冷得像剛露出的石皮。舊冊子被仔細包裹好，放在高高的架子上。手背上沾著灰，我舔了一下，沒有味道。

我對門楣上的小鍾輕聲說：“停。”

隔水傳來阿月的嗓音，不高，也不清楚。

像有人在水底說話，被浪一點一點推到岸上。

我分不清她說的是“潮退了”，還是“刪夠了”。

河水就在這裏，河口依舊。風像一個熟悉路線的哨兵，不停地巡邏。夜裏，鍾不敲響，木梁因為熱脹冷縮發出極其輕微的空響。我雙手平放在膝上，聽著水將空白重新接回自身，紙頁上仍然留著一道細縫。

忽然，從堤外傳來極細的一聲“頓”，像鐵在水裏被輕輕敲了一下。

我抬頭，風正好——

空欄自己響了一聲。

沒有白光，也沒有告別。

隻是退潮的一瞬間，就像輕輕地從紙上抬起多寫的字。

河水從不記賬，卻在每一頁空白裏留下了一道裂縫。

 

（汪翔，2025年10月19，寫於伊利湖畔）

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.