From up the hill

From up the hill

They set a big fire in the middle of the town. It’s for the winter holidays. People gather around it, drink wine, red or white, and sing songs with their terrible voices. It’s a bizarre tradition, but the people of the town seem to love it. The fire will be on for a month. One whole month! This is pretty curious. Would it be ordinary by the end?!

ZC and I walked up the hill by the old abandoned church. We passed by the ruins, and reached the top of the hill. You could see a few villages around the valley, some were pretty far away. And if you stayed long enough, the sky would glow brightly from the stars as your eyes would get used to the darkness; it looks more beautiful than ever. I looked at our town down the hill. Here’s now my temporary home, it might not totally feel like home. This small town looks even smaller from up the hill. It was alive once upon a time, but it gradually stopped living from thirty years ago. A very slow death, indeed, and it’s still dying. It was a sad feeling to see all these old people at the market earlier in the afternoon, too many of them. Too many old men and women for a small town like this! I asked ZC what I’ve been wondering ever since I came here, what would happen when all these old people pass away?! New people would come, he answered. That was very optimistic, although, I don’t think younger people would come back. It’s not about this town, it’s everywhere all over the world. Some villages are destined to disappear considering the float of the modern society we live in. They would just fade away, and it’s only a matter of time.