羊毛战记 Part 3 Casting Off 23

　　23,　　The next morning, instead of climbing to her office, Juliette descended ² five flights to the upper dirtfarm for Marnes’s funeral. There would be no folder ³ for her deputy, no investigation ⁴, just thelowering of his old and tired body into the deep soil where it would decompose ⁵ and feed the roots. Itwas a strange thought, to stand in that crowd and think of him as a folder or not. Less than a week onthe job, and she already saw the manila jackets as places where ghosts resided. Names and casenumbers. Lives distilled ⁶ onto twenty or so sheets of recycled pulp ⁷ paper, bits of string and darts ⁸ ofrandom color woven beneath the black ink in which their sad tale had been jotted ⁹.,　　The ceremony was long but didn’t feel so. The earth nearby was still mounded where Jahns hadbeen buried. Soon, the two of them would intermingle inside the plants, and these plants wouldnourish the occupants of the silo.,　　Juliette accepted a ripe tomato as the priest and his shadow cycled among the thick crowd. Thetwo of them, draped in red fabric ¹¹, chanted as they went, their voices sonorous ¹² and complementingone another. Juliette bit into her fruit, allowing a polite amount of juice to spatter her overalls ¹³;chewed; and swallowed. She could tell the tomato was delicious, but only in a mechanical way. Itwas hard to truly enjoy it.,　　When it became time for the soil to be shoveled ¹⁴ back into the hole, Juliette watched the crowd.,　　Two people dead from the up top in less than a week. There had been two other deaths elsewhere inthe silo, making it a very bad week.,　　But then, the lowering of the body and the plucking of ripe fruit just above the graves was meantto hammer this home: the cycle of life is here; it is inescapable; it is to be embraced, cherished,appreciated. One departs and leaves behind the gift of sustenance ¹⁷, of life. They make room for thenext generation. We are born, we are shadows, we cast shadows of our own, and then we are gone.,　　All anyone can hope for is to be remembered two shadows deep.,　　Before the hole was completely filled, members of the feast stepped up to the edge of the farm’ssoil and tossed what remained of their fruit into the hole. Juliette stepped forward and added the restof her tomato to the colorful hail of rind and pulp. An acolyte ¹⁸ leaned on his too-large shovel ¹⁵ andwatched the last of the fruit fly. Those that missed, he knocked in with scoops ¹⁹ of dark, rich soil,leaving a mound ¹⁰ that would, in time and with a few waterings, settle.,　　After the funeral, Juliette began the climb back to her office. She could feel the flights of stairs inher legs, even though she prided herself on being in shape. But walking and climbing were differentsorts of exercise. It wasn’t turning wrenches ²⁰ or loosening stubborn bolts, and the endurance was of adifferent kind than merely staying up and alert for an extra shift. She decided ²¹ it was unnatural ²², thisclimbing. Humans weren’t meant for it. She doubted they were engineered to travel much beyond asingle level of a silo. But then another porter flew down the steps past her, a smile of quick greetingon his fresh face, his feet dancing across steel treads, and she wondered if perhaps it was somethingthat just took practice.,　　When she finally made it back to the cafeteria, it was lunchtime, and the room was buzzing withnoisy chatter ²³ and the clinking of metal forks on metal plates. The pile of folded notes outside heroffice door had grown. There was a plant in a plastic bucket, a pair of shoes, a small sculpture madeof colorful wire. Juliette paused over the collection. As Marnes didn’t have any family, she supposedit would be up to her to go through it all, to make sure the items went to those who would use thembest. She bent ²⁴ down and picked up one of the cards. The writing was in unsure print, scrawled ²⁵ withcrayon. She imagined the upper-grade school had spent craft time that day making cards for DeputyMarnes. This saddened Juliette more than any of the ceremonies. She wiped tears out of her eyes anddamned the teachers who thought to get the kids involved in the nastiness of it all.,He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱 。,A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头
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