9 posts tagged with "Kafka"

Old Liu Tou recently felt a constant tightness in his chest, like a lump of poorly chewed wotou stuck there. That old locust tree at the entrance to the hutong, its leaves had yellowed and greened, greened and yellowed again; it had witnessed Old Liu Tou age from "Little Liu" to "Old Liu," and it had witnessed his son, Minghui, grow from a little tyke into a young man who had made something of himself, gotten into that... oh right, "Intelligent Monkey Academy," a company so bright it dazzled the eyes.

Old Wang felt like he was about to merge with his electric scooter, not in that cool Transformers kind of way, but more like a puddle of melted asphalt, sticky and grimy, clinging to the city's skin. He was a delivery driver, one crowned with the title "God of Bad Reviews." This wasn't a crown he chose; it was forced upon him by the algorithm, that formless, colorless digital phantom said to be impartial and just.

In that dusty small town, names, like dust, were easily forgotten. Lin Xiaoqing's name, however, was once the brightest star in town. Her home was a mud-brick house that seemed to tremble with every gust of wind. Her parents were farmers who toiled from dawn till dusk, their sweat watering the barren land and nourishing her seemingly unattainable dream of university. That year, the acceptance letter arrived like a golden dove, flapping its wings as it flew into their humble home. The red seal, the white paper, carried the entirety of a young girl's imagination about the future – sunlit classrooms, vast seas of books, and the hope of escaping this land.

That piece of news, like a stone dropped into the still lake of time, sent ripples spreading rapidly, eventually reaching the forgotten department where Archivist K worked. The President, during an impromptu remark, had expressed a desire for the miraculous—he wanted to meet the ghost allegedly 300 years old and still on the Social Security system's list. The order descended through layers of bureaucracy, finally becoming a memo with blurred ink placed on K's dust-covered desk. Task: Verify and locate Elias Greene, male, allegedly born 172X, currently still a social security beneficiary.

K. felt it necessary to go to the police station. This wasn't out of anger or revenge, although she had every reason to be angry—the man who claimed to be single, with whom she had been involved for nearly a year, the gentle and well-spoken Mr. Z, turned out to be already married. She discovered this purely by chance, as jarring as finding a hair not belonging to her on a clean floor. This isn't anger, K. told herself, it's a confirmation of order, a necessary clarification of facts. Deception is deception, just as two plus two equals four; it was a fact that needed to be recorded.

K, weary of the office air thick with a mixture of dust and despair, decided to climb a mountain during the holiday. He'd heard of one on the outskirts of the city, not high, but with views said to cleanse the soul. He needed cleansing, desperately. The city felt like a vast, sticky web, and he sensed he was being slowly digested. The mountain, perhaps, was a pocket of reality outside the web.

Li Ming awoke from a state of chaos and habitually glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand: 7:00. Outside the window, it was dim and gray, as if covered by a perpetually dirty rag. His building was always like this, shrouded in perpetual gloom.

I awaken to find myself in a vast labyrinth made of numbers. The walls shimmer with a cold fluorescence, constantly scrolling with various data: GDP, CPI, PMI… All of it revolves around a core number: 5%.

"5%," a voice echoes in my ear, low and mechanical, "This is the growth target for this year. You must find the path to 5%."

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.