pipe screens

The Silicone Pipehttps://moritic.org/

Old Chen at the mouth of the alley was seventy-three years old and had spent his whole life with smoking pipes. His hands, rough and calloused, had shaped countless pipes from clay, wood, and stone. His knuckles twisted like dried vines, yet he was regarded as a living legend among pipe smokers in the city. Old Chen had always disdained new things, viewing them as monstrous aberrations. Then one day, a young man brought him an object—translucent, soft, and wobbling—a silicone pipe.

“Master Chen, it’s a new thing. Durable, easy to clean, cheap.”

From the slits of Old Chen’s eyes emerged two murky beads of contempt. A cold laugh squeezed out from his throat, like sandpaper scraping against rusted iron: “What kind of胶 (jiāo) is this? How dare it be called a pipe? A pipe should be hard, weighty, a living thing that warms to the hand and develops a patina over time! This soft, boneless thing—is it meant for toothless babies to suckle?”

The young man retreated awkwardly. But from that day on, Old Chen found no peace. The image of the silicone pipe seemed to bore into his brain. At night, he dreamed of that transparent, boneless thing twisting, expanding, devouring all the cherished pipes he had collected. Waking in a panic, he gazed at his “sturdy companions” and felt, for the first time, an unfamiliar doubt—were they too stubborn, too fragile?

Old Chen’s son returned from across the ocean and, to his surprise, brought back a silicone pipe too—colorful and bizarrely shaped. “Dad, try this. It’s safe.” In his son’s eyes shone the light of a new civilization, brooking no argument.

Old Chen flew into a rage, his bony finger jabbing almost to his son’s nose: “Get out! How could this monstrosity ever compare to my whole room of old treasures?”

Yet, unable to withstand his son’s insistence and the silent pressure of the times, he finally, one afternoon behind closed doors, trembling like a thief, picked up the silicone object. As he packed tobacco into it, the soft, resilient texture felt strangely alien, like squeezing a piece of warm flesh. Lighting up, he inhaled. The smoke was no different, yet entirely different—no faint scent of charred wood, no stony coolness, only an industrial emptiness.

Suddenly, he felt dizzy. Not from the smoke, but from a dizzying动摇 (dòngyáo—shake) of his foundations. The philosophy of “hardness” he had believed in all his life was cracking under the knock of this soft thing. He looked around in panic. The pipes covering his walls, those beings he had thought eternal, now seemed brittle and dying in the slanting sunlight outside the window. He vividly saw a Ming-era bamboo root pipe on the shelf silently split with a fine crack.

Old Chen fell ill. Not seriously, but he spent his days staring blankly at the silicone pipe. He no longer caressed his collection, as if afraid a touch would shatter it. His son thought he had finally accepted the new thing and felt quite pleased.

One night, a torrential rain poured down. Old Chen suddenly sat up in bed, walked barefoot into his workshop, placed the silicone pipe on the workbench, and took out the heaviest steel press knife, its edge worn sharp. He inhaled, raised the knife, and with the strength of his remaining life, smashed down hard!

The expected shattering did not happen. The silicone pipe was squashed flat, then quivered mockingly back to its original shape. The blade left only a white mark, which faded moments later.

Old Chen stood frozen. The rain狂暴地 (kuángbào de—violently) beat against the windowpanes. He stretched out those hands once praised as capable of bestowing soul upon pipes, tearing and pinching the soft material in vain. It yielded obediently, deforming, yet refusing to break, refusing to yield.

Finally, as if his spine had been pulled out, he slumped down, letting out a groan that was half sob, half laugh:

“Can’t kill it… this damned thing… how… just can’t kill it ah…”

The sound of rain swallowed his whimpers. On the workbench, under the lamp, the silicone pipe glowed with a senseless, flexible, and terrifying sheen.https://moritic.org/