The Rhyme from the Hill
Uncle Chen was working in his fields near the old middle school—built over leveled graves—when he heard children jumping rope and singing a rhyme. At dusk. Near the hill where nobody goes. He never finished his work that night.
My father has a way of collecting stories. At parties, at dinner tables, at the kind of gatherings where men drink too much and talk too loudly—he listens. And sometimes, when the night gets late and the conversation has wound down to something quieter, he pulls one out.
This one came from a man I'll call Uncle Chen. He was a neighbor, a farmer, the kind of person who worked the fields his whole life and never left the county. He came over for dinner one autumn evening, and after the third glass of baijiu, he started talking about the old middle school.
You know that school out past the village? The one on the hill?
I knew it. Everyone in town knew it. It had been built about twenty years back—a squat concrete building on a gentle slope at the edge of the fields. When they were breaking ground for the foundation, the workers found old graves. Lots of them. Old ones, the kind with no markers. The village council had them moved, the ground flattened, the school built. Practical. Done.
But old folks still talked about that hill. Said it had a history. Said the land remembered things even if people didn't.
Uncle Chen had fields just below the slope. He was finishing up one evening—couldn't remember exactly when, sometime in the late summer, maybe August—when the sun had already gone down but there was still enough light to see. The kind of gray light that makes everything feel suspended.
He was弯腰 pulling weeds when he heard it.
Children's voices. Close. Really close.
The sound of a jump rope hitting the ground. Thwap, thwap, thwap. And then a chant:
One, one, the river's wide,
A little cat went out to fish,
Out to fish, out to sea,
Come back home and count with me.
He froze. The jump rope kept going. Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.
He knew that rhyme. Every kid in the county knew that rhyme. But this wasn't a schoolyard. This wasn't a playground. This was the hill where they'd buried the old dead, and it was nearly dark, and no children had been anywhere near this place in months.
He stood up slowly. Looked around. Looked up toward the school.
Nothing. Empty. The building was dark. The fields were empty. The jump rope had stopped.
He didn't finish the weeding. He walked home and didn't look back.
---
He told the story at the dinner table like it was nothing. A funny thing that happened. A little strange, sure. But he laughed while he told it, and my father laughed along, and by the end of the night nobody remembered it except me.
I couldn't stop thinking about the rhyme. Something about the words. The simplicity of it. A little cat went out to fish. A counting game. The kind of thing you'd teach a child.
On the wrong side of a grave field.
At dusk.
When nobody was there.
---
*Have a story from a place that used to belong to someone else? Share it at CreepyVibes.*
This one came from a man I'll call Uncle Chen. He was a neighbor, a farmer, the kind of person who worked the fields his whole life and never left the county. He came over for dinner one autumn evening, and after the third glass of baijiu, he started talking about the old middle school.
You know that school out past the village? The one on the hill?
I knew it. Everyone in town knew it. It had been built about twenty years back—a squat concrete building on a gentle slope at the edge of the fields. When they were breaking ground for the foundation, the workers found old graves. Lots of them. Old ones, the kind with no markers. The village council had them moved, the ground flattened, the school built. Practical. Done.
But old folks still talked about that hill. Said it had a history. Said the land remembered things even if people didn't.
Uncle Chen had fields just below the slope. He was finishing up one evening—couldn't remember exactly when, sometime in the late summer, maybe August—when the sun had already gone down but there was still enough light to see. The kind of gray light that makes everything feel suspended.
He was弯腰 pulling weeds when he heard it.
Children's voices. Close. Really close.
The sound of a jump rope hitting the ground. Thwap, thwap, thwap. And then a chant:
One, one, the river's wide,
A little cat went out to fish,
Out to fish, out to sea,
Come back home and count with me.
He froze. The jump rope kept going. Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.
He knew that rhyme. Every kid in the county knew that rhyme. But this wasn't a schoolyard. This wasn't a playground. This was the hill where they'd buried the old dead, and it was nearly dark, and no children had been anywhere near this place in months.
He stood up slowly. Looked around. Looked up toward the school.
Nothing. Empty. The building was dark. The fields were empty. The jump rope had stopped.
He didn't finish the weeding. He walked home and didn't look back.
---
He told the story at the dinner table like it was nothing. A funny thing that happened. A little strange, sure. But he laughed while he told it, and my father laughed along, and by the end of the night nobody remembered it except me.
I couldn't stop thinking about the rhyme. Something about the words. The simplicity of it. A little cat went out to fish. A counting game. The kind of thing you'd teach a child.
On the wrong side of a grave field.
At dusk.
When nobody was there.
---
*Have a story from a place that used to belong to someone else? Share it at CreepyVibes.*