The Streetlight Code

The streetlight outside the Hassan family's house has started blinking in a strange rhythm every night. It goes three short flashes, a pause, then two more, over and over, for almost a week now. The younger kids on the street have started calling it "the code," half-convinced it's sending some kind of message. A couple of them refuse to walk past it alone after dark.

哈桑家门外的路灯，每天晚上都开始以一种奇怪的节奏闪烁。先是三下短闪，停一会儿，再闪两下，一遍又一遍，已经快一个星期了。街上的小孩子们管它叫“密码”，半信半疑地觉得它在发送某种信息。有几个孩子天黑以后，说什么也不肯一个人从它旁边走过。

Idris is sixteen, and usually the one asking older cousins for help rather than offering it. At the last neighborhood barbecue, he notices how genuinely unsettled the younger kids seem. One girl, maybe eight years old, asks him seriously whether he thinks the light is "talking to someone." He almost laughs, then realizes she isn't joking at all.

伊德里斯十六岁，平时总是向年纪大一点的表哥表姐求助，很少有人来找他帮忙。在上一次的邻里烧烤聚会上，他注意到那些小孩子是真的很不安。有个八岁左右的小女孩一本正经地问他，觉得那盏灯是不是“在跟谁说话”。他差点笑出声，随后才发现她一点也不是在开玩笑。

That night, instead of ignoring it the way he has for days, Idris walks down to the streetlight with his phone. He records the pattern on video, timing each flash carefully. He notices the light is one of the newer solar-powered ones the town installed last spring. It has a small metal panel and a status light near the base that he's never really looked at closely before.

那天晚上，伊德里斯没有像前几天那样不去理会，而是拿着手机走到了路灯下。他把闪烁的规律录成了视频，每一次闪烁都仔细地计时。他发现这盏灯是镇上去年春天装的新式太阳能路灯之一。灯杆上有一小块金属板，底部附近还有一个状态指示灯，他以前从没仔细看过。

He searches the manufacturer's name, stamped faintly on the panel, and finds an online manual. It explains exactly what different blink patterns mean. Three short flashes followed by two longer ones, it turns out, is a standard diagnostic signal for low battery charge. It isn't a malfunction or anything more dramatic. The light is simply reporting that a nearby tree's new summer growth has been blocking its solar panel from getting enough sun.

他搜索了金属板上隐约印着的厂家名称，找到了一份在线说明书。里面清楚地解释了各种闪烁规律的含义。原来，三下短闪加两下长闪，是表示电量不足的标准诊断信号。这既不是故障，也没有什么更离奇的原因。灯只是在报告：附近一棵树夏天新长出的枝叶，挡住了太阳能板，让它晒不到足够的太阳。

Idris reports what he found to the town's public works number the next morning. Within a few days, someone trims the branch, and the blinking stops for good. He also explains it to the younger kids on the street, showing them the video on his phone and letting them count the flashes themselves.

第二天早上，伊德里斯把自己的发现报告给了镇上的公共工程热线。没过几天，就有人来修剪了那根树枝，闪烁也就永远停止了。他还向街上的小孩子们解释了一遍，把手机里的视频放给他们看，让他们自己数闪了几下。

The eight-year-old who had asked him about it seems almost disappointed that the answer wasn't more mysterious. Idris tells her that now she knows something most adults on the street don't. She has learned how to read a streetlight's secret language, whenever one starts talking again.

那个问过他的八岁小女孩，似乎对答案不够神秘有点失望。伊德里斯告诉她，现在她知道了一件街上大多数大人都不知道的事。以后不管哪盏路灯再开口说话，她都已经学会怎么读懂它的秘密语言了。