2020-08-15

【Aiden in English】

        I saw a dead dog in the street. This happened a few weeks ago while practicing for an upcoming license exam. The small, frail body was mutilated, sitting on the yellow stripe between the lanes. Luckily for me, I was going forty miles-and-hour and whizzed by its small frame without a detailed image. It more or less resembled a smear of black and dull pink in my peripheral vision, though my imagination filled in most of the canvas.

        Man, that sucks. I felt bad. The dog didn’t deserve to end in such a gruesome, hopeless manner. Throughout the driving session, I felt distracted, only thinking about the tragedy I just witnessed. I’ve never owned a dog or even a pet, but in the fleeting moments that I drove by the decaying corpse, I felt vulnerable, alone— depressed by the darkness in the world that can quickly swallow joy in an instant.

        Turns out, it was just a raccoon. I knew this because on the drive back. I saw the opposing side of the animal and caught a glimpse of its face. Despite the gore spilling out onto the concrete, I distinguished a whisker-y snout with an irregular set of teeth to sharp for dogs of that small frame. With this discovery, my soul’s anguish ceased. But why?

        Throughout my childhood, raccoons were stereotyped into a pesky, crop-stealing hooligan species, particularly by my grandmother who managed a veg patch. She invested hours into growing tomatoes and green beans, and it wasn’t before long that a grueling faceoff occurred between the animal and the grandma.

         “Those damn raccoons,” my grandma would exclaim in Chinese. “All they know is to eat other people’s hard work.”

         “You don’t even have a fence around your garden.”

        And so, with a rickety plastic barrier hitched around the plants, we had successfully kept the illegal immigrants out, and in my immature imagination, we’d defended against a serious evil in the world.

        Thus, as I reflected on my drastic shift of emotions towards the dead animal on the street, many things aligned in my mind. First, I indeed still do not like raccoons, though not with a burning passion as my early years. Second, and more importantly, I discovered the value of clarity.

        The color of chicken separates delicious juiciness and intimate sessions with the toilet later. Clarity provides truths we sometimes don’t realize the first glance, or even avoid exploring entirely. Those details separated my sadness of an innocent dog’s death to the indifference of simple roadkill.

        In moments of contemplation, slight twists of truth drastically swerved my personal outlook on reality. My anguish, my sadness, all vanished with clarity. If I’d known that the body belonged to a veggie-stealing thug, then my heart barely would’ve cared.

        During all of this thinking, I also discovered that my childhood shaped my present mindset to degrees I didn’t even consider. I haven’t seen a raccoon in years, likely due to my lack of outdoor activity, but since the dismantling of our garden, the raccoon enigma faded into the passing years of school.   

        I am a subject of many stereotypes and mindsets passed down through family and culture, much like everyone else. Despite never actually meeting a raccoon up close, I felt as though my family had outcast those corrupt villains from our home. But seeing the body lay there on the street, motionless like any other house pet or animal, I acknowledged that neither a dog nor raccoon deserved the unfortunate ending of a tire and that perhaps those two are less dissimilar than I imagined. Perhaps it would also be time to cast aside those fuzzy childhood influences and create some new mindsets with more clarity instead.

【紅霞譯文】

        街頭有條死犬，那是我幾周前為考駕照而外出練車時目睹的場景，孱弱的屍體殘缺不全，癱坐在路間黃色標道線上。我正以40邁/小時的車速行駛，看不清小狗模樣，觸目驚心的畫面讓我浮想聯翩，眼前仿佛一片暗粉色。

        嗨，多慘啊。我情緒低落，這隻狗寶真不該落得恐怖絕望的地步。接下來的駕駛過程中，我心神恍惚，老是想起剛才看到的不幸。我從未養過狗或其它寵物，但就在路過腐屍一剎那間，我感到脆弱孤寂，內心茫然自失，快樂隨之離去。

        其實那不過是只浣熊而已，返程途中我才看個明白。從馬路對面打量動物模樣，儘管水泥地上血跡斑斑，我依舊分得出鬍子巴茬的嘴巴與參差不齊的犬牙,足以將狗撕成碎片。至此，積壓在心頭的痛苦煙消雲散，但究竟為什麼？

        在我的童年時代，浣熊被認定為無法無天、糟蹋莊稼的壞東西，尤其對于堅守自留地的外婆來說更是如此，她投注了大把精力種植西紅柿和四季豆，可沒隔多久，外婆與浣熊成了勢不兩立的對手。

        “可惡的浣熊，”外婆用中文喊道： “它們就知道竊取別人的勞動果實。”

        “沒本事看住你的菜地。”

        於是，作物四周晃晃悠悠的塑料欄杆拔地而起，成功地將非法移民擋在門外，我蠻以為這下足以嚴懲罪無可恕的壞蛋，簡直幼稚至極。

        如此，當我反思自己因街頭那個倒霉傢伙而引起的情緒劇變時，許多事情浮現在腦海中。首先，儘管沒再像早年那麼感情用事，可我現在依舊不喜歡浣熊；其次，關鍵在於我發現了是非曲直。

        雞肉顏色與美味多汁及愛上廁所毫無關係。事實表明我們有時並非留意初次接觸，更談不上深入了解。對待無辜狗寶之死和其它類似交通命案，我的傷心程度迥然有別。

        說白了，真相稍加扭曲就會完全改變我個人對現實的看法，所謂的痛苦，所謂的悲傷，一切皆可蕩然無存。要是早知死的那位就是偷吃蔬菜的蒙面大盜，我根本無動於衷。

        經過這番思考，我還發現童年生活在某種程度上影響到現時心態。我已經好多年沒見過浣熊（可能由於缺乏戶外活動所致），但自從拆除菜園子以來，被浣熊抓狂的日子也一去不復返。

        正如其他諸位，我沿襲了家庭、文化帶來的陳規舊念，雖說從未真正接觸過浣熊，但總覺得是家人徹底肅清了那些好吃懶做的惡棍。當它橫屍街頭，像任何寵物或動物那樣失去生命體徵，我承認無論狗寶還是浣熊都不該慘遭汽車碾壓，對他們應同等看待。也許現在是時候去擯棄似是而非的童年影響，轉而樹立較為正確的全新理念。