琳的故事

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年轻，因为有诱惑所以美丽；因为有激情所以绚丽。面对诱惑和激情，在年轻的琳身上，发生了怎样的故事呢？让我们一起听听Jack说故事吧！

Lin,whats happened to you?Youre beginning to look like a pig,” a colleague remarked.

“Why? Am I looking more beautiful?”Lin joked.

“If fat is beautiful,you are beginning to look very beautiful.”

“Fat?Me,fat?Are you saying Im fat?”Lin was shocked.

“Just look at your belly...you must be pregnant. I think you need to see a doctor,”the colleague cautioned her.

That evening,as Lin walked to the bus-stop after her days work,she decided to stop by at a doctors chamber. She fidgeted as she waited for the doctor. Finally,a nurse signalled it was her turn. Lin stepped into the room,her heart beating wildly.

“Name?”the doctor asked.

“Lin,”she replied.

“Age?”

“Twenty,” Lin lied,adding a year to her nineteen years.

“Hmm...tell me what your problem is,”the doctor asked,his eyes still on the prescription where he was noting the details.

“I need to be tested...to see if...” Lins words hung midsentence. Her eyes on her hands as they sat clamped on the table.

The doctor looked up,eyebrows raised,“Are you married?”

Lin shook her head.

The doctors expression hardened as he examined Lin,finally pronouncing,“yes,theres a baby inside you.”

Lins heart skipped a beat and thumped more wildly still. “Doctor,please remove it,”her voice pleading, unaware what made her make the request,her mind tangled like hair in a strong wind.

“Its too late for that. You are six months pregnant,” the doctors voice sounded like a sentence.

A little later, Lin left the doctors chamber,her steps lost in the maze inside her mind as she wandered along. “Six months pregnant,”the doctors voice replayed inside her mind again and again as Lin tried to collect her thoughts,fighting hard to hold back her tears.

“Six months,”Lin repeated to herself,echoing the doctors words,“Huang...Huang did it...I have been with Zhang only five months. Yes,Huang left it inside me...I must find Huang...but where can I find him?I havent seen him since I moved in with Zhang...” Lin spoke to herself. Lin recalled how Huang had charmed his way into her heart while they were still in school. She remembered how deeply and madly in love they had been with each other until life showed its tougher side. After they finished school,they could study no more as they had spent most of their time in each others company. Their parents had often pleaded with them to concentrate more on their studies,cautioning them of difficult times without a good education in a competitive world. But,youth had little patience with age and in their misplaced confidence, they neglected to do what they needed to do. Neither Huang nor Lin did well in their final examinations and both had to give up any ambitions of further studies they might have harboured in their lovelorn hearts.

After their graduation from school,their classmates were all excited about moving to well-known institutions of higher learning but Huang and Lin had dreams of making it big without the embellishments of degrees and certificates.

Soon,Huang and Lin left home and moved to Shanghai,the city of their dreams. Lin had little difficulty finding a job as a waitress but Huang wandered all day long on the granite-paved sidewalks of Shanghai,sometimes unable to find a job and sometimes unable to keep it if he did. He resorted to borrowing from Lin,a hundred now,a fifty then as his parents had stopped all financial assistance. Lin began to tire of Huangs constant borrowing and soon the earlier exchanges laced with sweet words was replaced with bitter quarrels and unkind utterances. Lin found some solace at work where she met Zhang,a man who was as kind as Huang was not. And,finally,one day,when Huang asked Lin for another hundred and she refused to part with a single jiao,Huang vented himself with an intensity she had never seen before. That day their love ended like a greasy, used and crumpled paper bag in the gutter.

For some days,Lin was inconsolable. Huang had left their one-room home and disappeared into the Shanghai crowds. However,Zhang would sit with her,trying his best to pull her out of her misery,sometimes singing songs,sometimes acting the joker and sometimes being a solid rock against which Lin could rest andregain her strength. Lin began to gravitate towards Zhang and soon found herself in his small but comfortable lodgings where they shared a night of passion. A week later she moved in with Zhang,forgetting Huang like a bad dream,until the doctors words brought Huang springing back to life.

Lin realized she needed Huang now like she had never needed him before.“Its his baby,too...he has to come...I will have to find him...,”she told herself. In desperation,one day,she called Huangs father and told him that she was soon to be Huangs babys mother and that she could not find him anywhere.

“Please tell me where Huang is,”she pleaded with his father.

“I dont know. You took him away from us...now how can we find him for you?” he countered.

“But I will have his baby. Will you take care of the baby, please...at least until I can find him...”Lin asked.

Huangs father taunted Lin and added,“Thats your problem...you need to take care of it...” Lin heard the receiver crash into the cradle as Huangs father hung up.

For days Lin wondered what she could do,scanning the faces of all passersby as she wandered listlessly along the streets,her lips often pursed in a silent prayer. She hoped to run into Huang somewhere and kept up the hope until days turned to weeks and weeks to months and then the day came when the baby arrived, her little eyes staring into a strange world,her little voice a prayer, a song, a cry.

“Doctor,can I give this baby to someone?Will someone adopt her?” Lin asked the attending doctor who helped deliver her baby at the hospital. The doctor was silent, unsure what she could say.

When Lin returned from hospital,Zhang asked if the baby was really his.

“Yes,its your baby.” Lin lied. Zhang did not respond, his mind trying to do the arithmetic.

That night Zhang went out with his friends,unsure if the baby was his,unsure whether he should celebrate or mourn the arrival of a new life.

That night,the baby lay by Lins side,sometimes looking at her mother,sometimes staring into the space. Suddenly,the baby cried and Lin lifted her,guiding her little mouth to her milk-filled breasts. “Zhang will find out some day that the baby is not his. What will he do then?Will he also leave me?Why must babies be born this way? Why must life be so unfair to us women? Why cant a baby be born to a man?Will nature always cheat women?Will men always cheat women?Will men always take their pleasure and leave us their pains,their responsibilities?” Lins mind was filled with unanswered questions as her hand slowly tightened over the little mouth and nostrils. The baby said nothing,uttered nothing as life ebbed from her and her mothers milk dripped down the sides of its lifeless lips...