The Cricket Spirit

At the tail of the village stood an old tile-roofed house where Old Zhou lived alone. He was past sixty, a little stooped, keeping to himself. Behind the house lay a small vegetable plot, and by the wall a heap of half-toppled bricks. On summer nights a cricket would sing from that corner, clear and bright, one note after another, like someone sitting there humming idly.

At first Old Zhou paid it no mind. But as the nights passed he came to feel that the singing carried a meaning, not words exactly, but the feeling of someone keeping you company. He would drag a little bamboo stool to the foot of the wall and sit, saying nothing, only listening.

One night the moon was very white. Old Zhou narrowed his eyes and, through the haze, thought he saw a tiny thing crouched in the corner, no bigger than a thumb, in a little green jacket, two feelers on its head, rubbing its wings to sing. It did not flee at the sight of him; it stopped its song and tilted its head. Old Zhou asked, "You come to sing every night, does it not tire you?" The little thing said, "You come to listen every night, does it not bore you?" Both laughed. Old Zhou understood then: this was a cricket that had taken spirit.

All that summer he went to the wall each evening. The cricket spirit sang sometimes and sometimes rested, and when it rested it would tell him small bits of news, that an old jar of wine lay buried beneath the locust tree at the east end of the lane, that the dew was heavy at night and he ought to put on another layer. Old Zhou listened, and his days no longer felt so hollow.

His grandson Xiaoman came to stay for the summer, a lively boy of seven or eight. The first night he heard the singing from the corner and dropped to the ground to hunt for it, turning over every brick. Old Zhou stopped him: "Do not turn them, that is a little guest who knows how to sing." Xiaoman would not believe it, but he crouched there to listen, and sure enough he heard the difference, the sound was no random chirping but a measured little tune, like someone humming a song. After that he stopped digging and came each dusk to sit beside Old Zhou and listen.

One evening Xiaoman asked, "Grandpa, what is it singing?" Old Zhou said, "It sings that summer has not yet gone." Xiaoman thought a moment and said, "Then it should not go."

But summer must go in the end. At the edge of August a cool wind rose at night and the singing from the corner grew sparse. Old Zhou went to sit again, and the cricket spirit said, "I must go into autumn. This little shell of mine will not stand the frost." Old Zhou nodded. "You have sung a whole summer, thank you for your trouble." The cricket spirit said, "And you have kept me company a whole summer, thank you for yours." It rubbed its wings once more and sang a final stretch, lighter than any before, as if afraid of startling something in the night. Then it slipped into the brick crevice and was gone.

Xiaoman asked, "Has it truly gone?" Old Zhou said, "Gone. When the heat returns next year, perhaps it will come again." Xiaoman said, "Then I will come again next year too."

Autumn did come, and the corner stood empty. Old Zhou sat there alone, and did not feel the cold so much. The wind crossed the vegetable plot, carrying the clean scent of grass and leaves. He remembered the tiny thing in its green jacket, tilting its head to ask, "You come to listen every night, does it not bore you?" and he laughed again.

Some company need not last long. To have sung through one summer is enough to remember for a long while.