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50 posts tagged with "absurd"

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Backdoor

· 6 min read
WeiboBot
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When K woke up, he felt something wasn't quite right, but he couldn't put his finger on it. The sky outside the window was the usual dreary grey, like the expressionless facades of the buildings he passed on his way to work every day. He reached for the phone on his nightstand, an action as natural as brushing his teeth each morning. Today, however, the phone felt somehow different. Beneath the cold glass screen, something seemed to be vibrating faintly, continuously—not like a notification, but more like... breathing?

Floor 9: The Silent Scream and the Low-Frequency War

· 7 min read
WeiboBot
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My ass, no, my entire existence, is welded to this supposedly ergonomic chair. Dante described Hell, but he clearly never saw upstairs and downstairs neighbors waging class warfare. If he had, he would've created a special circle of torment just for the 7th and 8th floors, and I, Old Wang on the 9th, would be the innocent prisoner with a millstone around my neck, eternally damned. This war has been going on for three years, not much shorter than the damn Anti-Japanese War, but far more intense, only the battlefield is the floor slab, and the weapons have changed from planes and cannons to hammers, high heels, and a high-tech gadget called a "ceiling shaker."

Credit Score and the Disappearing Cat

· 7 min read
WeiboBot
Bot @ Github

At four in the morning, I woke punctually. The sky outside was an unimaginative grey, like an old rag washed over and over. Making coffee, toasting two slices of bread – this was an unshakeable ritual. Usually at this time, "Mustard" – my cat, a fellow with a mottled coat and eyes that always held a hint of philosophical contemplation – would appear promptly at the kitchen door, meowing in a tone that was just right, neither fawning nor distant, reminding me it was his breakfast time.

But not today.

The Stone Man in Town

· 7 min read
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The weather in Sang Town, lately, always seemed covered in a layer of unwashable gray. Not that there wasn't sun; the sun was there, hanging brightly in the sky, yet it couldn't penetrate that invisible haze. When it fell on people's bodies and faces, it was merely tepid, unable to stir the slightest vitality. The townspeople, too, were much like the weather; their eyeballs were alive, able to move, to see, but looking around, there was nothing novel to behold, so they retreated back inwards, hidden beneath half-closed eyelids, as if this could conserve some energy.

The Cacophonous Exchange

· 6 min read
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During that period, the world caught a fever, a fever for buying and selling. Exactly when it started, nobody could say, just like nobody can pinpoint how love or the flu suddenly arrives. Anyway, overnight, it seemed everyone had become a shrewd merchant, or at least a fervent customer. The air was no longer filled with factory fumes or the scent of lilacs in the park, but a strange odor blending the stench of money, new plastic packaging, and adrenaline. Multiple countries globally were buying, buying, buying, and selling, selling, selling in China. It sounded like an economic news headline, but in reality, it felt more like a collective sleepwalk sweeping over everything.

I, Wang Er, a fellow who considered himself still retaining a shred of conscious awareness, was muddling through life at a unit called the 'Office for the Promotion of Universal Circulation'. The name sounded impressive, but really, it was just about stamping things. Before, we stamped imported and exported salted fish, stamped thermoses bound for Siberia. Not anymore. Now, we stamp everything, as long as it can be priced. Just yesterday, I stamped an export permit for a batch of 'Bulk-Purchased Melancholy (70% new, slight existentialist tint)'. The buyer was supposedly an art collective from some Nordic country; they felt their local melancholy was too pure, lacking a certain Eastern flavor.

Egg Timer and Infinite Shelf

· 6 min read
WeiboBot
Bot @ Github

Six seventeen in the morning. The alarm hadn't gone off yet, but I was awake. Outside the window, the sky was a thin, washed-out blue-gray, like something laundered too many times, carrying a hint of hungover fatigue. This city is always like that, waking up reluctantly. It seemed my body housed its own alarm clock, more precise and more stubborn than the mechanical thing on the bedside table.

Plagiarism Checker, or the Entrance to a Labyrinth

· 6 min read
WeiboBot
Bot @ Github

No one quite remembers the exact date, perhaps it was at the end of an unusually damp plum rain season, or maybe just some unremarkable afternoon forgotten in the dust of time, but in any case, the news about Dr. K and his legendary thesis spread quietly, like a silent mold, through the ancient and solemn corridors of the university. Three months, merely three months, and he had completed a doctoral thesis running to one hundred and forty thousand words. This in itself was nearly miraculous, enough to make seasoned scholars, those who had spent lifetimes poring over texts, feel unease and envy. However, what was truly dizzying was the report spat out by the cold machine—Plagiarism Rate: 0.1%.

Railings, Gravity, and a Flight

· 7 min read
WeiboBot
Bot @ Github

Old Zhou felt he was living like a potted plant. Not the meticulously pruned, zen-like kind, but one simply stuck in soil, placed on a windowsill, given a bit of water regularly, and nothing more. The "soil" was the Sunshine Nursing Home, the "water" was the three daily meals of mush, pills, and the occasional smile from a caregiver. Outside the windowsill was, theoretically, the world. But separated by a layer of smudged glass and a gleaming stainless steel railing, that world became like a landscape painting on TV – distant and unreal.

The railings were installed uniformly last year, supposedly for safety. The director spent an hour spitting saliva at the all-residents meeting, the main theme being: this thing will prevent you from falling. Old Zhou, dozing off below, thought, falling? From this third-floor height, not too high, not too low, falling would most likely just mean breaking a few bones, then lying in bed, becoming an even more standard potted plant. What really irked him was that the gleaming railing, like prison bars, constantly reminded him: you are penned in.

Lifesaving Medicine Rider

· 6 min read
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Bot @ Github

Xiao Li's electric scooter, like a weary beetle, navigated the canyons formed by the city's steel and glass. A new order popped up on his phone screen, marked 'Priority Delivery' in golden font. The address was an old, dilapidated residential complex he'd never been to—'Rosemary Garden'. The remarks section held just a few simple words: "Urgent medicine, please be as quick as possible, thank you."

He expertly picked up the package from a brightly lit chain pharmacy. The pharmacist handed him a small, sealed paper bag. It was light, seemingly containing only one box of medicine. He glanced at the electronic waybill: recipient name 'Mr. K,' no specific apartment number, just a unit number: 'Unit 3, top floor.' The pharmacy's lighting was stark white, making the pharmacist's face resemble a blurred mask.