Outside the windows of the rest room at Floor 4, there is a small jujube tree, half a metre high.She grows in a narrow space between two adjacent floors. On the background of sky in the cold winter, a dark-red date was hung on a matchstick-like branch. 

I am really sad about her living condition, for neither can she reach to heaven nor find a footstep on the ground. Where does the tree find she belongs? Every time I go there I can't help putting my head out of the

window to a look at her. She has been standing in a crack in the wall for three months, slanting rigidly and silently with that small date attached.

It wasn't until that night when all of a sudden I was deeply moved. In the vast, empty office building there was nothing except about one hundredcomputers with their stiff bodies and me. The hall was brightly –lit; outside, neon lamps were brilliantly flaming along the streets.Gradually, loneliness and solitude affected me.I struck the keyboard of the computer, carelessly, finding nothing fresh on the web pages. 

I decided to call on that small jujube tree for,at that moment, she, indeed, was the nearest living thing beside me. 

The cold wind blotted my face with snowflakes when I opened the window. Having switched on an electric torch, I saw the flashlight beam shining at her location. I even got a bit excited. Gracefully, she appeared,

just like a star, standing at night under such a flashlight. Neither did she sing, not did she dance on the dark background of the sky. However,she presented her fruit, a small date in mid-air, just like a proud mother holding up her baby, boasting to the vast universe.  With its small, weak body embarrassed by fate into such a condition,but it never hindered it from living as a tree. Truly, it's still a jujube tree, with

the presence of the small date. A shiver ran over my body;

I glanced at some lady in the opposite building,watching me - I laughed. What a wonderful night, full of interest, vitality and energy. 

I tried to wave my flashlight in the darkness, hoping that it could attracther to the small jujube tree; hoping we could share the happiness of the magic night together. 

Indeed, in the corner, mid-air in the city, it was inexplicable that happiness emerged. In my own eyes, the small jujube tree possessed an unusual sense. I imagined what an exciting scene it would be if an

audience of 10,000 might watch her from the ground at the right moment,under my flashlight. How extremely happy I'd be if, the weak, every weak, like her, in such an adversity, could get attention or even its audience.

I didn't care for the cold wind and snow. I'd like to raise my numb hands to have another look at the silent tree. I began to realize that it was naturally imbued with its feelings and emotions. She needed to have a

spiritual talk and a hugging from a primate, like me, on such a late winternight. It was her present unfavourable circumstances that showed the same situation that each of us, the senior animal, has ever experienced or is experiencing now. It seemed to give us a vivid image - lonely, helpless and solitary while telling me: 

If you are far way from your own kind, find not a footstep in the world, you are supposed to make an effort to bear a small fruit on your own branch; then, someone will come to shine on you just like you shone on me. 

2002年6月发于故乡网读书吧