Walking through storms together
His left hand supported her shoulder, while his right hand tightly grasped one of her arms.
Her hands were always in a half-clenched position, her stiff arms twisted and suspended in the air. Her feet were also deformed, and with each step, her body would shake violently. From a distance, she looked like a giant tumbler.
He supported her, moving step by step. With every step she took, it seemed he had to exert all his strength. Perhaps because of his long-term habit of bending over, his tall and thin body appeared somewhat stooped.
People often sighed when they saw their backs from afar: “She used to be such a beautiful woman, but a serious illness tormented her into this state—she’s not even thirty yet, what a pity!”
Some people muttered: “That man surely won’t last long; one day he’ll let go, after all, he’s still so young…”
However, from spring to autumn, from summer to winter, regardless of wind, frost, snow, or rain, every morning, they appeared on this riverside road.
Over time, people gradually got used to seeing them, just like seeing any power pole by the roadside. Occasionally, a familiar person would greet him, and he would raise his face, laugh heartily, and say loudly, “Much better, much better, today we walked two more steps!”
That morning, as usual, he was walking with her on the riverside road. Without any warning, a typhoon suddenly brought heavy rain, and the sound of the wind and rain mingled with the crashing noise of objects falling. With a loud bang, a breach opened in the embankment behind them, and muddy river water roared onto the road.
In the storm, he waved his hands to stop cars, but none would stop. He shouted for help, but there were only occasional passersby running wildly, and no one heard his cries.
The water on the road rose bit by bit, soon submerging their calves, thighs, waists, and chests. They floated like two leaves in the water.
He no longer called out in vain but held her hand and moved slowly through the water. An hour later, they were found by the armed police.
He held onto a branch of a camphor tree with one hand and tightly grasped her with the other. When they were rescued, he was already unconscious, and people couldn’t pull her hand out of his. Not until he woke up and saw her smiling face did his fingers tremble, and their tightly clasped hands finally let go.
If they had been discovered five minutes later, the floodwaters would have covered their heads, and they would have certainly died. Some said he was foolish, that he could have escaped danger by simply letting go. Friends who rushed to the scene even angrily scolded him: “You’ve taken care of her for seven years, is it worth risking your life too?”
A journalist covering the flood happened to witness this scene and quietly pointed the camera at him. Faced with his friends’ anger, he stammered: “At that moment, how could I think about whether it was worth it? All I knew was to hold her hand tightly like usual and walk slowly with her.”
As he spoke, she just laughed, and the drool from her mouth fell like a string of pearls onto his wrist. Ignoring his friends, he quickly used a towel to wipe her mouth.
She struggled to lift her right hand, using her crooked fingers to pick up the towel, clumsily wiping the saliva from his wrist, and then smilingly rubbed the towel on his face.
He immediately squatted down, bringing his head to her hand, allowing her to haphazardly wipe his face with the saliva-stained towel.
In the later television footage, people saw him always smiling at her, his eyes full of pity and care. His face was calm, with no trace of post-disaster fear.
They continued to appear every morning. Every difficult step they took convinced me that there really is a kind of love in this world: it can share a lifetime of sorrow, needing no vows, but can walk slowly with you through raging storms.
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
