The Day the Sun Died

by Yan Lianke

  At this point, Father also noticed the blood flowing into the outhouse. He saw that a stream of blood had curved around his foot. He stared at the bloody floor in astonishment, then picked me up out of the way of the blood, carrying me to an empty area in the center of the outhouse.

  “What time is it? Is the sun really not going to come? Has the sun really died?”

  I remembered the radio dangling from my waist, and quickly brought it around to the front. After pressing the “on” button, I held the radio up to my ear, then I brought it down again and hit it a couple of times. Finally, it began producing sound. The announcer’s voice sounded slightly frantic as he methodically read the broadcast, as though a tape were being played over and over again. The problem that we now must attend to is . . . Father grabbed the radio and turned the volume almost all the way down, such that only the two of us could hear it.

  Because of the terrain and airflow, as well as the cold front that has moved in from the northwest, several regions in our city will find themselves in long-term hot, overcast conditions with no sun, no rain, and no wind. This means that there will be dense cloud cover but no rain or wind. The result will be long-term hot and overcast conditions, such that at midday it will be as dark as dusk. Furthermore, some regions may witness midday darkness like that of a solar eclipse, making the day look as though it were the middle of the night.

  When the broadcast reached this point, Father turned off the radio.

  Upon turning off the radio, he wanted to say two completely extraneous phrases. Two dreamtalking phrases.

  “Where can I go to find a sun that can make me wake up?”

  “As soon as the sun comes up, the night will end and everyone will wake up.”

  And then, and then he straightened his back, and very urgently—yet at the same time very woodenly—stood there and listened to the sound of people running around and fighting outside. He walked away from me, then stood stealthily in the entrance to the outhouse, as though standing in the doorway to his dream. With one step, he would be able to enter his dream, and with another he would be able to emerge from his dream and wake up. Father stood in the entrance to the outhouse, with his neck extended until it was as long as a rope, stealthily watching the fighting that was going on outside in the night. After waiting for the commotion to calm down, he dragged me from the outhouse. Sneaking along beneath the roadside wall, we fled east, to the area outside town.

  It was as if we were running into a dreamwalking state.

  It was as if we were running out of a dreamwalking state into a state of wakefulness.

  BOOK ELEVEN

  Rise: The Final Bird Flies Away

  1. (6:00–6:00)

  Once again, we ran out of town.

  The town streets were full of people who were wounded and bleeding. In the light and in the shadows, they were shouting, “Help me! Help me! For better or for worse, we are all fellow countryfolk. Help me! Help me!” The wounded were bleeding. They were awake, and had expressions of remorse. “I think I’m dreamwalking. I think I’m dreamwalking. I had already fallen asleep when I heard someone whispering in my ear, saying that I should go into town to steal, and that tonight many people were going into town to steal, and I don’t know what happened, but the next thing I knew I was following this person to go and steal and kill.” A thin, middle-aged man’s face was covered in blood, and he was holding his head in his hands. “I saw people stealing televisions, quilts, and sewing machines, but I didn’t steal anything myself. Instead, I got my face slashed.” Holding his wounded face, he removed the cloth from his arm and handed it to Father. “Use this to wrap my head. Use this to wrap my head.” Father took the cloth and proceeded to rip up his own shirt, and then wrapped the man’s head. But as Father was doing this, he kept muttering to himself, “I’m so sleepy, yet you demand that I wrap your head! I’m virtually dreamwalking myself, yet you demand that I wrap your head!” Father wrapped the man’s head using strips of cloth from his own shirt. Then Father and I supported him as though escorting a wounded soldier back from the battlefield.

  The peasants were wounded and bleeding. They had all emerged and congregated beneath a large truck, where they were talking and hugging one another. They all woke up and ran away in every direction, toward their respective homes. “This is extraordinary dreamwalking! This is extraordinary dreamwalking!” Those who were dead and no longer bleeding weren’t able to wake up, but those who were awake were heading home, while those who were still dreamwalking continued surging into town. Those who were awake but pretending to be dreaming, meanwhile, also mixed in with the dreamwalkers and proceeded into town with them. It seemed that some had finished shopping at the market and were heading home, while others were still heading to the market. Those who were heading to the market were walking confidently down the middle of the road, while those who were awake and returning home after having stolen things were walking along the road’s outer edge. When members of these two groups encountered one another, they either didn’t say anything or else simply exchanged a few pleasantries.

  “Aiya, how did the town end up like this?”

  “Go quickly! If you are too slow, then there won’t be any stores left. There won’t be any goods left.”

  Empty-handed, the awake people returned home, while encouraging the dreamwalkers to rush into town. The people in the street carrying empty shoulder poles, pulling empty carts, or driving empty cars were proceeding into town draped in red flags and carrying all sorts of lanterns. They resembled a cavalry, and their lights illuminated the entire street. The town was going to meet its end because, no matter what, the townspeople would have no way of fighting off this wave upon wave of countryfolk. Father and I had both tied white cloths around our forearms. The thin, middle-aged man with the bloody head, whom we had left to the east of town, was now running out of town. He was running along the outer edge of the road as he headed toward the southern part of town, running against the tide of people who were surging into town. The entire way, Father grasped my hand, and I heard him mumbling.

  “Niannian, it seems that Father is dreamwalking. He is going to do something extraordinary!

  “Niannian, Father is dreamwalking. Don’t wake him up. Father is going to do something extraordinary!”

  I realized that Father really was dreamwalking. I realized that he had been tired and had fallen asleep, at which point he must have been infected by the hysterical dreamwalking that had affected the entire town. Because I was stupid, I knew that Father had fallen asleep and was dreaming, but I didn’t attempt to release him from his dream. Instead, I merely followed after him, following him as he dreamwalked out of town. From the east side of town, we proceeded south until we arrived at an intersection and waited there. Group after group of countryfolk heading into town passed in front of us, and in town we could hear the screams of people beating others, and of people being beaten. This dry, cracked sound hovered over our heads. The air was full of the smell of blood, as though it had been burned or boiled. There was also the woody smell of that old pagoda tree behind us—the burnt smell of battle. This had previously been an ice cream and popsicle stand. My father and I were here, our bodies covered in the smell of sweat and confusion. The empty spaces in town were either illuminated or full of murderous screams. All of those sounds that emerged from the light either flew overhead or dropped down to earth. The boundary between light and darkness resembled diluted ink that was permeating everything around it. You could see layer upon layer of leaves in the trees, leaves so thick that they came to resemble splotches of ink in their own right, and the sky resembled an enormous black sail erected overhead.

  The night had already ended.

  The night coolness had also already ended.

  Based on the heat, it was clear that it was already the time of day when the sun would ordinarily be several rod-lengths high in the sky. It was the time of day when the sun would ordinarily be prepared to blanket the earth with its heat. In summer, this ti
me of day was between eight and nine o’clock, when people would be eating breakfast. But time died at six o’clock. It died inside the deathly blackness just before the sun should have come up. The weather was as the announcer had described—hot and overcast. As the announcer had said, the sky resembled a total solar eclipse. Even in the middle of the day, all you could see were the objects and shadows directly in front of you, and if you were three to five meters away, you wouldn’t be able to see anything clearly, as it would all be a dark blur. In this darkness, in this murderous fighting, in the chaos in which the daytime had died, we watched and listened, as Father sat on the ground and leaned against the pagoda tree. As he was resting, I took advantage of a ray of light that was passing overhead, and could once again see the whites of his eyes. His eyes resembled a dirty white rag. The white part of his left eye was as large as his right, his right eye was as large as his left, and his blackish-yellow pupils resembled two drops of sewage that had fallen onto the rag. It looked as though Father had fallen asleep. He must have been so exhausted that he fell asleep. But even as he slept, he continued dreamtalking as though he were awake. “We must find the sun. If we can find the sun, we’ll be able to save the people of this village, this town, and this entire region. If we can bring out the sun, we’ll be able to save the people of this village, this town, and this entire region.” There was a murmuring sound in my ears, and there was a murmuring sound hidden in the world. As Father was speaking, he turned to look at the area above the town. “The fact that the lights above the town are still swinging back and forth indicates that the people are still fighting.” After he said this, he again turned his head in that direction. “We must try to go and find the sun. We must go and find the sun. I always feel that the sun is hidden somewhere on my body, but I can’t remember where I left it—the same way that you might want to speak to someone, but you open your mouth and realize you can’t remember the person’s name.” As Father was saying this, he stood up from where he was sitting under the tree. I was very surprised that Father would stand up while asleep, as though he were awake. But then my surprise gradually faded, as I remembered that during this night of somnambulism, everyone was dreamwalking, and if you didn’t dreamwalk, that was considered to be very odd. Father stood there and seemed to be searching for something on the ground, while also feeling around in his pockets. He circled halfway around that pagoda tree, and then he came to a halt. He knocked twice on the tree, then beat his own head, as though the sun were hiding inside his skull. It was as though, by pounding his own head, he could squeeze out the sun that was hidden inside.

  “I know how to bring out the sun!

  “I know how to transform the dark night into daylight!”

  2. (6:00–6:00)

  This is what happened.

  This is really what happened. If only I weren’t stupid—if only I weren’t stupid, I could have found a way to release Father from his dream. If only I weren’t stupid, I would have been able to release Father from the madness of his dreams. However, I was, in fact, stupid. I really was a bit stupid. When Father asked me to go with him, I went with him, and when he didn’t ask me to wake him up, I left him to his dreams. As we were walking, Father kept telling me over and over that he knew how to bring out the sun, that he knew how to make the sun rise. Then, we headed south, in the direction of the embankment where the crematorium was located. After proceeding a few steps, Father looked back to see whether or not I was following him, then he shouted into this daytime darkness,

  “Niannian, come with me.

  “Don’t you want this town to be saved? Don’t you want the entire world to be saved?”

  I followed in Father’s footsteps. It seemed as though I was following him not so that he might save this town, but rather in order to see how he was going to save it. “I have to roll all of the barrels of corpse oil out of the cave. I have to roll them up to the eastern end of the embankment. In the past, that is where the sun would always appear at dawn, and when people at the base of the hill see the sun emerging from the eastern side of the embankment, they will all wake up from their dreams.” Father kept talking to himself on this day that looked as though dusk had just transitioned to night. I listened to Father talk to himself, as we both proceeded toward the embankment. I wanted to see how deeply Father was sleeping, but the darkness obscured his face. It completely obscured his face. Several times, I walked ahead and then turned to look back at him—as though looking up at a bird’s nest hidden in a tree, but unable to see the nest or even the branches around it. All I could see was a dark shadow that appeared to hover in midair as he proceeded forward. Sweat dripped down from Father’s face onto mine. It was bitter and salty, and had a slight stench. It was on account of this sweat that I stopped turning around to look at him. It was the strength in his hand as he was leading me forward that convinced me that he was capable of going through with his plan. I therefore didn’t doubt him, nor did I attempt to stop him. Given that he was my father, how could I stop him? Given that he was my father, how could I doubt that he could be capable of bringing out the sun and transforming the dark night into day? Our footsteps were as fast as windblown raindrops. For every two steps that he took, I had to take three. When he took long strides, I had to jog just to keep up. This daytime night was already as dark as a lake of black ink, and as we walked along we kicked the darkness as though wading through a river of ink.

  This was the third time that night that we had walked along this stretch of road. When we reached the point where we would ordinarily turn to go to Uncle’s villa in the scenic compound, Father came to a stop.

  A miracle quietly occurred there.

  It was at that moment that I became convinced that Father was capable of bringing out the sun. I completely believed that he could make daytime return. Someone arrived at the intersection. He was pulling a handcart with an oil lamp hanging from the handle. When the man approached, Father called out to him, and the man came to a stop. “You must be heading into town to steal things?” The man squinted at Father. “Everything in town has already been stolen by others!” Father looked at him. “Let’s go up to the embankment and move some barrels of oil from the west to the east side of the embankment. For every barrel you move, I’ll give you ten yuan.”

  The man stood there, looking shocked.

  “Twenty yuan.”

  The man stood there in shock.

  “For every barrel you move, I’ll give you fifty yuan. If you don’t want to do this, then you can proceed into town and see what you can manage to loot. But beware the townspeople wearing yellow ribbons around their heads, as they may try to beat you to death.”