Looping Taxes and Endless Rooms

Li Ming received a letter, a letter from the tax bureau. The envelope was thin, light, as if it carried not paper, but a kind of void judgment. He opened the letter and read the words "tax refund," a feeling of inexplicable joy surged in his heart, immediately replaced by a deeper doubt.

He had never applied for a tax refund.

Li Ming's life was a straight line, from his rented room to the office, and then from the office back to his rented room. His job was to organize documents, to file the words and numbers on stacks of paper, just like filing his own life, neat and uniform, without any ripples. He didn't even remember how much tax he had paid, just as he didn't remember how many times he had breathed.

He called the number on the letter. A mechanical female voice repeatedly announced: "Hello, this is the Tax Bureau Refund Center. You have a tax refund to claim, please press 1..." He pressed 1, and a jumble of keyboard tapping sounded from the other end of the line, like countless beetles gnawing on wood.

"Your refund number is...," the female voice announced a long string of numbers, like some kind of mysterious incantation, or the entrance to an endless maze.

Following the instructions, Li Ming arrived in front of a building that soared into the clouds. The building had no obvious sign, only a huge, revolving door. The door had no markings, just constantly swallowing and spitting out the crowds going in and out. He followed the flow of people into the revolving door and found himself in a huge, empty hall. The hall was lined with countless windows, each with a long queue in front of it. The queues snaked like serpents, with no end in sight.

He joined a queue, which moved slowly, as slow and heavy as time itself. The person in front of him kept repeating in a low voice, "Should I get a refund? Should I really get a refund?"

After queuing for who knows how long, it was finally Li Ming's turn. He handed the letter to the staff member in the window, an expressionless woman whose face seemed to be sculpted from plaster, devoid of any vitality.

"Your refund number?" the woman asked, her voice cold and mechanical.

Li Ming recited the string of numbers. The woman tapped on the computer a few times, then looked up, staring at Li Ming with an empty gaze: "Your refund has been processed."

"Processed?" Li Ming felt a wave of confusion. "But I haven't received anything."

"Your refund has been used to pay your taxes for the next year," the woman said expressionlessly.

"Taxes for the next year?" Li Ming felt dizzy. "But... I haven't even started working..."

"That's the regulation," the woman said coldly. "Next."

Li Ming was pushed away from the window. He felt like a discarded cog, spinning pointlessly in a giant machine. He walked back into the revolving door, only to find himself back in the hall, back in front of the countless windows and long queues. He saw the queue he had been in, still as long as before, and the person who kept repeating "Should I get a refund" was still in the queue, still repeating that sentence.

He realized he was trapped in a loop, an endless loop of taxes and rooms. Each room led to another room, each window led to the next window, each refund was used to pay the next tax. He started running, trying to escape the loop, but the faster he ran, the deeper he sank into it. He ran through room after room, each a replica of the last, only slightly different in orientation and detail.

He ran into a room. There was only a table in the room, and on the table was a mirror. He looked into the mirror, the reflection blurry, like a stone statue worn down by time. He vaguely saw in the depths of the mirror, countless rooms, countless versions of himself, all running, all searching for an exit, all repeating a meaningless cycle.

He understood. The exit did not exist, or rather, the exit was the entrance, the loop itself was the meaning. He stopped running, stood in front of the mirror, and quietly looked at his reflection, until the image in the mirror also stopped running, and quietly looked at him.

He suddenly laughed, the laughter echoing in the empty room, like a mockery of this absurd world, and also like a helpless acceptance of his own existence. He knew he would be forever trapped in this loop, until the end of time, or until he himself became part of the loop.