魏廷諭
Living human beings should never disturb the dead!
When I was little, I studied in a small private primary school which was
established forty years ago. The
campus was so small that all classrooms were close together.
Although our campus was small, we had many trees;
some were old and some were young. We used to play under the trees when
the sun was shining; however, if the weather were bad, even cloudy or
rainy, it would be all dark outside. Under such circumstances, the
teachers would bring us to the basement for games.
The basement was actually the place for the first and second graders to
have their 「sing-and-play」 classes. There was a narrow stairway leading
down to the basement and a small locker, located halfway down the
stairs, which kept the things that might be used in the classes. The
basement was always gloomy. If we kept walking down to the room at the
bottom, we could not see anything at all after we opened the small and
spotted door. It was all dark without a stream of light. As a group of
children, we did not dare to bother the darkness. We often waited for
the teachers to turn on the lights before we would go down the basement.
Scary stories surrounded our small school. A boy in our class said that
he once saw an old man in white walking in the pouring rain without
cover, but the old man seemed to feel nothing. Some girls swore that
once they heard someone screaming when they went to the toilets. Uncle
Li, the janitor of our school, who lived in a small room beside the
first-grade classrooms, told the girl students that he heard a baby cry
at night a few times. Some seniors even said that a man hung himself in
the basement.
I
had not gone down the basement after the third grade since we had no
classes there; besides, we had little time to play because we had many
more assignments to do. However, when it was close to our graduation,
we had to have our pictures taken for our schoolbook and the place for
photo shooting was nowhere else but the basement.
I
still remember that afternoon. We entered the basement nervously. The
temperature there was extraordinarily cold. We waited for the
photographer in silence. There was a weird atmosphere growing in the
basement, which made everyone want to get out as soon as possible.
Sadly, according to the student number, I would be the last one to take
the photo. When it was my turn, my teacher had gone upstairs to summon
other students; so at that moment there were only two people in the
basement, the photographer and pigeon-hearted me.
I
was uneasy and squirmed nervously until the photographer ordered me to
sit still. I was usually a good and quiet girl, but something made me
uncomfortable at that moment. But as I sat still, I suddenly felt a
gentle wind blowing around me. As a closed room, there should not be
any wind in the basement. Feeling
eerie, I remembered what my classmates told me a few days ago, 「Remember
the mad man who hung himself in the basement? Right now he is searching
for company!」 Those mysterious words increased my fear. As soon as the
photo was taken, I ran out of the basement immediately.
I
have not gone back to school after graduation. I heard that a new
building was finished on campus and the old basement was no longer
used. Come to think of it, due to a shortage of land in a crowded city
like Taipei, many primary schools, especially the private ones, had been
built right on top of public graveyards. Does that include my
elementary school with its gloomy basement?