Zebra and Olive Branch

Perhaps because of the journey, perhaps because of the uncomfortable soil, perhaps because of homesickness and excessive sadness, perhaps because the temperature difference between Kunming too cold, that skin named Dio's male zebra from the African grasslands transported to the Yuantong Mountain Zoo on the second day after falling ill. After veterinary examination, it is suffering from acute pneumonia, injections, and medication, tossed for several days, no improvement, still lying on the ground every day, eyes looking at the white clouds in the sky, a sickly look. The veterinarian said that the effect of the needle and medicine is limited, the sick horse is always lying on its side, the pressure on the lungs, will only aggravate the disease, we must let it stand up, more activities, invigorate the spirit, strengthen the body, with the treatment, the disease may be cured.

I didn't expect that it would be harder than ever to get the male zebra Dio to stand up. Several people took great pains to lift it and stand up straight, just let go, goo, it is like a pile of wet mud, like a four-legged bent, kneeling paralyzed on the ground. He moaned and moaned with tears in his eyes, but refused to stand up. The bridle was put on the horse's head and pulled with the reins but to no avail.

He was feverish and sick, but still able to eat small amounts but feed and water, and we couldn't believe that he was so weak that he couldn't even stand up. The veterinarian said that he had lost his will to live, his spirit had collapsed and he did not want to live himself, and there was nothing Hua Tuo could do in the face of such a sick person. The implication was that Dio was no longer viable.

Zebra is the most beautiful member of the horse family, produced in the savanna of Africa, according to the different black stripes on the body, divided into three varieties of ordinary zebra, mountain zebra, and fine grain zebra. The stripes on the ordinary zebra are wide and connected from the spine to the abdomen, like wrapping a belt; the mountain zebra has a white abdomen with thick and thin stripes, like a black ribbon, draped over the body, and disappears on the ventral side; the fine-striped zebra has a tall body, with fine and beautiful stripes, the most beautiful and brightest, and is the most valuable family.

Dio is a fine-striped zebra.

The Yuantong Mountain Zoo originally kept three female zebras, to breed offspring, and specially used foreign currency to buy stallions from distant Africa, the shipping costs alone are large and frightening. If Dio died, the loss would be tragic!

After a few more days, Dio's spirit became more and more depressed, and his condition worsened, lying on the ground, dazed, coughing, and wheezing, completely a look at death. The leader of the zoo panicked and announced that whoever could get Dio on his feet and cure his illness would be rewarded two thousand dollars. Several veterinarians looked at each other, all coveting that bonus, but no one dared to say anything.

There is no golden steel drill, not to take the porcelain work.

Under the heavy reward, there must be brave men. A young man from rural Henan came forward and said he was willing to give it a try. Everyone looked at him with suspicion, several university-educated veterinarians are at their wits' end, and a dark-looking peasant boy who had only studied in elementary school can do it. Park leaders thought about it and said, anxious to throw the doctor, on a dead horse, let him try it!

The peasant boy pedaled his bicycle to the Black Dragon Pool Botanical Garden and soon picked a bundle of olive branches. This is called African olive, and as the name implies, originated in Africa. The leaves of the olive branch are shaped like a comb, transparent and shiny, and emit a fragrant fragrance.

It is worthy of being a farmer's son, and the land has a kind of blood kinship, but also because he works outside to earn a living, often dreaming of the mountains and waters of his hometown, the heart to heart, knowing that the male zebra Dior in exile in a foreign country is more homesick for his distant hometown, picked African olive branches, to resolve its nostalgia in the heart of the pent-up. But I think, feeding some green olive branches, at most to meet his feelings of homesickness, and the spirit may be refreshing, but to stand up and cure his disease, I am afraid is not an easy task. You know, the olive branch is not a panacea.

It didn't occur to anyone that the farmer boy didn't take the olive branch to feed Dio, but made an H-shaped frame with wire, one end fixed to the horse's head, the other end sticking out from between the two ears, and then picked the freshest olive branch and tied it to the wire.

The green olive branch waved in front of the horse's face, its dull eyes suddenly lit up, its nose fluttered, sniffing greedily, and its mouth opened, eager to taste the delicacies from home. But he stretched his mouth several times, but could not eat the olive branch. The olive branch was hanging on its forehead, only half a foot away from the horse's mouth, as if it could be eaten with one stretch of the mouth, but in fact, it could not be eaten with any effort. This is the right spatial distance, but also the right psychological distance, between getting and not getting, full of temptation and hope.

Duo stretched out his horse's tongue again, trying to lick and roll the olive branch, but the horse's tongue is different from the tongue of the avoidance service (chameleon). The tongue of a chameleon can be ejected from the mouth cavity like a long-handled spoon to capture the target; the horse's tongue is so short that it can only reach its lips and nose. The tip of its tongue touched the olive branch only lightly, which tickled its eyes even more, and finally, it struggled to stand up, thinking, as it must have done, that the olive branch was just above its eyelids and that if it stood up, it would be able to reach it and eat it.

We hurriedly and carefully helped it up. Oh, the olive branch swayed with its body, which made it salivate even more. Just take a step forward and you'll get it, he thought. It opened its weak legs and took a trembling step forward ......

Hope is the spark of the spirit. If you lose hope, life is dark; with hope, life appears bright. If you compare life to a lone boat sailing at night in the sea, hope is a beacon of light; if you compare life to an explorer trekking in the desert, hope is a wisp of smoke on the horizon. With hope, life has meaning; with hope, life has vitality. Hope does not fall, life does not grow old; hope is always green, and the tree of life is always green.

The peasant boy is just copying the common scene in the northern rural mill to the bear zebra Dio. To prevent the donkey from being lazy, the farmer tied a small bag of fried and fragrant bran in front of the donkey's mouth, and the donkey, to eat the bran, rushed forward without stopping, pulling the stone mill to a flying start.

Putting aside the cunning of people and the stupidity of donkeys, the small bag of bran was a symbol of hope for the donkeys, although it was unattainable. If it did not have that small bag of bran, it would not have been able to run so confidently and without regret on the never-ending mill path. Inspired by hope to go forward, no matter how to say, then being forced by the whip to go forward or threatened by the butcher's knife to go forward to be kinder, but also more meaningful.

Hope is the imagination and longing for a better life in the future. Hope is a process of struggle. Hope may fall short, or it may come true. For a variety of reasons, many hopes will eventually turn into a bubble. Even so, hope should be there. The struggle for hope itself is a demonstration of the value of life.

Buddhism says that life is suffering, doing good deeds, and accumulating virtue, and hope lies in the afterlife; Christianity says that life is born with original sin, suffering is atonement, and the soul can go to heaven after death. Nowadays, science is highly developed, and the spacecraft on Mars has long proved that God does not exist, and the birth of test-tube babies has also declared the absurdity of the theory of the reincarnation of life. However, the temples are still full of incense and the churches are still full of believers. I think one of the reasons is that every believer feels a sense of hope. Buddhism has hope in the afterlife, and Christianity has hope in the ascension of souls to heaven. This hope is far away and difficult to fulfill, but because of this, it has become an eternal light of hope that will not wear out.

Hope is the spiritual pillar of life.

In the Gaoligong Mountains of Yunnan, because of the backwardness of transportation, the mountain bells still ring and the horses come - carrying supplies by animal power. Horses are afraid of the cold, reluctant to go over the snowy mountains, to the snow line near the stumbling, which is, the horse pot head (in charge of the boss of the horse gang) from the backpack to pull out a heap of pre-prepared ghee, in each horse's lips like lipstick wipe a strange, the horse is like magic, obediently follow the horse pot head climbing the snowy mountains. Ghee is a food unique to the alpine zone, high fat and high calorie, eaten after the cold, and fitness. I once asked an experienced horsehead why he just rubbed some ghee on the horses' mouths instead of feeding them a full diet of ghee. Ghee is not expensive food, according to common sense, the horse ate cold ghee, which should be more heat and more strength over the snowy mountains ah! The wrinkled horse pot head said, the horse ate ghee, often over the snowy mountains, halfway will be attacked by the cold wind and snow down, and a little ghee on the horse's mouth, you can hoof over the snowy mountains in one go.

Generations of horse gangs have been doing this.

Hope is great spiritual energy, can step on difficulties, can withstand the cold, can be like a fire, and will burn life up a glorious flame, over the top of one snowy mountain after another, towards the sunny spring.

We certainly don't put our hopes on the illusory afterlife or heaven as religions do, we are growing a great era of change, we have a lot of down-to-earth hopes, we hope our motherland is prosperous and strong, and we hope the world is always peaceful, we hope the earth is green, we hope people love each other, we hope everyone lives a happy life ...... May each of us pull up the sail of hope and ride the waves in the sea of life.