The author says: No.
So, what is it then?
In the era I grew up, it was almost impossible to choose the path I wanted to take. The overall environment was like a giant current, not only for young people but also for adults and middle-aged people like my father. Everyone could only roll in the giant current, full of whirlpools. Being caught in the whirlpool, I eventually became a professional soldier. And to think that it was Just a year ago that I promised Zhao Shuanghui to become an engineer to serve the country!
We have a classmate whose surname is Ruan. He is small and skinny with droopy eyes. We don't know which class he belongs to, but he only shows up when it's time to eat steamed bun for lunch and dinner. Another time he always appears is when it rains. The heavier the rain, the louder his voice gets. He goes crazy running around the campus and shouts, "It's raining! It's raining!" People told me a story about our classmate Ruan. He is from Hubei, where the word "rain" is pronounced as "ru" in the local dialect. One day, there was a heavy rain that caused flooding in his hometown along the Yangtze River. His house, village, and vast lands were submerged. He floated out and grabbed onto a tree branch. He held on for what seemed like an eternity until he was rescued. The trauma from that experience may take a long time to heal. He keeps running around shouting "It's raining! It's raining!" day and night.
The team captains had to intervene and force him into an empty room, but he still kept shouting, "It's raining! It's raining!" .
Once our family had a tomcat named "Pickup." Pickup was initially very likable - he would find his own litter box to solve his toileting issues, play with fur balls, and learn hunting skills in the forest. He showed potential to grow up and catch vermin and maintain peace, which made me have high hopes for him.
However, before long, Pickup's behavior changed. It started with knocking over the cup of water, and then he began loudly meowing on the other side of the litter box. I thought he had some supernatural ability to see something strange, but when I hurried over, I found nothing. It turned out he was just desperate to relieve himself. I picked him up and placed him in the litter box, he stopped meowing, squatted to defecate, and then covered it with litter, kicking the litter around the box. For those who have never had a cat, they may not understand the severity of these actions.
When my daughter came home from work and I explained the situation to her, her first reaction was surprised: "Could it be that Pickup is blind!" Since my daughter had to work the next day, I had to take Pickup to the nearest pet hospital to see a doctor. It turns out cats and dogs need to fill out a medical history form for appointments, even more detailed than humans - including address, phone number, name, gender, and "breed." Pickup was a common tabby cat, with different colors on his two ears, four legs, and tail. Therefore, I knew he wasn't from a prestigious lineage, so calling him a "domestic cat" didn't seem appropriate.
I filled in the "breed" column as " Chinese cat." The vet's expression changed when he saw this, and instead of looking at the cat first, he asked me with a strange look:
"How do you know he is a Chinese cat?"
I was speechless and could only awkwardly explain, "Because my daughter found him near the trash dump, maybe he is a domestic cat, right?"
"You can't use 'Chinese cat,' let alone 'domestic cat,'" he said as he crossed out "Chinese" and replaced it with "Mixed Breed." Then the vet asked,
"What's wrong with him?"
He's blind," I replied.
The vet withdrew the hand that was gently stroking the cat's back, and with a puzzled look, he asked,
"How do you know he's blind? Can cats go blind?"
It's strange, human can go blind, so why can't cats? Besides, determining if a cat is blind or not should be the doctor's responsibility, so why was he asking me?
"You can test his vision," I suggested.
Upon hearing this, the vet immediately got up, and seeing there wasn't a vision test chart displayed nearby, he probably had a special method for testing animals' vision, right? His response surprised me, "Take him back; I don't know if he's blind or not."
"Do you want to prescribe some eye drops for him, so he's not wandering around blind like this? If he keeps blindly wandering around, something might happen."
The vet, who was already about to leave, turned back and stared at me for a moment, as if pondering whether the problem was with me. He said, "Take him to see an eye specialist, or just take him to a psychiatrist." And with that dismissive attitude, he left.
And so, we ended up with a blind cat in the household.
Malacors is a story that the author spent two years writing and revising, but the story's origins were brewing in the author's mind for decades. The true protagonist of the story.
