木 木
八十年代，有一姑娘号召：1.70米以下男人均为“残废”。于是全国未婚女青年纷纷揭竿起义。
我细细量过九十九次自己标高，实属“终生残废”系列。
但那时年少，血旺气盛，誓与凡俗抗争到底，于是连哄带骗将一净高1.74米女孩拐回家作了太太，这一壮举颇为“残疾人”们扬了一段眉吐了半口气。
将太太置回家后起我才意识到我的悲哀，这一愤世之举不仅未了我“终生残疾”而又平添了“终生遗憾”，我从未享受过将男人坚定有力的胳膊窝勾着太太姣美柔滑的后脖子上接遛弯的幸福。
这一幸福对我来说不仅意味着双脚要离开这生我养我的土地，而且神圣的肚脐亦昭之于众。
现在，每每出门，高扬的手臂牢牢地挂在太太肩头，其状如猴子紧紧抓着电杆，任凭太太在马路上将我拖来拖去 ……
痛苦的我常常痛苦地想，如果重活一回，我再也不与世俗去抗争，因为与世俗抗争是要付出代价的。
Lifetime Regret
MuMu
Translated by Sun Yifeng
In the 1980s, one young lady issued a public pronouncement dismissing all men under the height of 1.70 metres as “handicapped”. It was met with an avalanche of responses from virtually all unmarried women in the nation.
After making perennial efforts to measure my exact height, I reached the inescapable conclusion that I was permanently handicapped. Back in those days, I was a callow young chap vastly capable of daring and foolhardiness, and determined to wrestle with this prejudice against men’s lack of height. So by hook or by crook, I married a girl who was 1.74 metres in height. Such an astonishing tour de force thus achieved greatly bolstered the morale and esteem of those of us who were “handicapped”.
But only after the girl was enticed into matrimony did I begin to feel my self-inflicted anguish. This over-reaction of mine not only failed to put an end to my “permanent handicap”, but also gave me lifetime regret. I was deprived of the earthly pleasure of walking with my wife in the street with my strong arm around her delicate neck because it meant that my feet would be lifted from the land that had nurtured me, and worse still, my sacred belly-button would be put on public display.
What happens now is that whenever we go out together, with my outstretched arm tightly clinging to my wife’s shoulder, I am pretty much like a monkey hanging on to a wire pole, allowing her to drag me along the street …
In excruciating agony, I often ponder this: if I could live my life once again, I would never try to achieve the elimination of prejudices of any kind for the simple reason that there is a price to pay.