53 posts tagged with "Absurdity"

Old Wang's greatest pleasure after retirement was flushing the toilet every morning. His toilet wasn't an ordinary one, but a high-tech smart toilet that could automatically detect the composition of human excrement and record daily health data. Old Wang felt this thing was more reliable than his good-for-nothing son.

Today, a bright red warning flashed on the toilet's display screen: "Solid waste exceeded, please clean immediately." Old Wang frowned, wondering if he had an upset stomach from something he ate last night. He pressed the flush button, and the toilet emitted a muffled hum, but the water seemed blocked and refused to go down.

Old Liu is an early warning operator at the city's Earthquake Early Warning Center, or more precisely, the "Chief Duty Officer" of the early warning team. The reason for the addition of "chief" is not because he has superior technical skills, but because he is the most senior and has the thinnest hair, making him the team's acknowledged "fixture."

Every morning at eight o'clock, Old Liu sits down in front of his outdated computer. The screen displays various fluctuating curves, like a heart monitor in a hospital. Old Liu's job is to stare at these curves, waiting for the line representing an earthquake to suddenly twitch.

After retiring, Old Li became obsessed with the internet, or more precisely, with "reconciling accounts" with American netizens. It's a strange thing to say, but it started with a post about a "China-US price comparison." Bored, he began arguing with a few American netizens. At first, it was just a comparison of who had more expensive eggs, but later it evolved into posting bills – utilities, property fees, internet fees, even grocery lists.

Old Li communicated with them using his broken English, but he was having a great time. He felt he had found a new hobby, which he grandly called "promoting international exchange." He often said, "Look, foreigners are the same, they also have to worry about pennies and dimes!"

At lunchtime, Zhang Qiang skillfully swipes his employee badge and walks into the brightly lit ByteDance cafeteria. A dazzling array of food is on display, each with an exquisite price tag, except for the plate in his hand—the 100-yuan standard meal, which is free.

This used to be a perk that countless internet workers envied: free, abundant, and high-quality. When Zhang Qiang first joined, he was also proud of it, feeling that ByteDance's generosity and strength were impressive. However, over time, he began to feel that something was amiss.

“Add episodes! Add episodes! Add episodes!”

On Little Li's computer screen, the barrage was filled with the words “add episodes,” so dense that it seemed to burst the screen.

Old Wang has recently become obsessed with "inner strength" courses.

It started when the company organized a "corporate culture" training session. The main speaker was a so-called spiritual mentor, who spoke eloquently on the stage: “People with inner strength should have a positive attitude, embrace change, not be afraid of challenges, and dare to take responsibility...”

Old John, a retired firefighter, habitually sat on the porch of his small cabin at the foot of the mountains in the evening, gazing at the distant peaks. Today, the sky was an unusually deep red; it wasn't the sunset glow, but a wildfire. Since that "redirected" fire, he had been watching like this every day, a nameless feeling always weighing on his heart.

Autumn in Los Angeles, even the air is burning.

The wildfires are like runaway wild horses, ravaging the edge of the city. On television news, the smoke billows, the flames lick at the hillsides, a scene of the apocalypse.

Autumn in Los Angeles, with a hint of dryness. The distant hills begin to smoke, like a kettle of boiling water.

An old man sits on his rickety wooden chair, gazing at the distant firelight, clutching a crumpled insurance policy in his hand, his last hope. His name is Carl, one of the few remaining residents at the foot of the mountain, the other neighbors having either moved away or gone bankrupt.

Old Wang has been troubled lately. To be precise, it has been for a while. Since he joined the company's "sleep optimization" program, he has had to lie on a special "sleep optimization bed" every night. This bed, more of a technological cocoon, monitors your sleep data and uses micro-current stimulation to "optimize" your sleep quality.