8 posts tagged with "Borges"

Lin Mu finally managed to buy the ticket. Four hundred and eighty yuan. He checked the ticket information over and over, as if the seat number printed on it wasn't a number but a complex legal provision requiring careful study to grasp its full meaning, especially the tiny, almost illegible additional clauses. The ticketing website was like a spinning maze, leading him down "Sold Out" cul-de-sacs countless times before finally, in an unexpected corner, spitting out this strangely numbered ticket. He wasn't even sure if he really wanted to go, but the process of obtaining the ticket itself, like completing an arduous and meaningless task, brought a kind of weary satisfaction.

K arrived at the "Comprehensive Affairs Processing Center" on a grey morning. No one knew exactly what "comprehensive affairs" this center processed, only that if you wanted to legally continue breathing, walking, existing in this city, you had to obtain a specific permit from here. No one remembered the permit's specific name; people vaguely referred to it as "that thing" or "the permit."

The Center was a massive, ugly concrete building, like a crouching grey beast, swallowing and spitting out anxious crowds. K took a deep breath; the air was thick with dust, sweat, and an indescribable musty odor, like old paper. He entered the main door and was immediately seized by the sight before him—a queue so long it disappeared from view, like a giant, docile, grey python composed of countless human figures, coiling through the hall and vanishing around a distant corner.

Old Wang, or as the neighbors more familiarly called him, "Master Wang," ran a tiny watch repair shop. It felt like an old-fashioned pocket watch forgotten in the city's breast pocket, its hands lazy, yet stubbornly recording the passage of time. Squeezed between a noisy Mala Tang stall and a clothing store perpetually having a clearance sale, the shop seemed out of place, like an old scholar insisting on writing letters in archaic script.

It is said that in the deepest recesses of this labyrinthine city, amid the dust of long-forgotten archives, dwelt a scribe named Aurelio. To others, he was known only for his days spent with yellowed pages and faded ink, yet none knew that he was not transcribing history, but pursuing a more ancient, more secret knowledge – the true essence of gold.

No one remembers exactly when or how the "Harmonizer" (some, privately, with a trace of ineffable fear, call it the "Machine Towards Goodness") quietly embedded itself into the fabric of our lives. Like a silent spore, it seemed to spread invisibly with every extension of the city's fiber optics, every system upgrade. The earliest records, scattered deep within the archives of long-forgotten tech forums, mention an experimental project aimed at "optimizing social welfare" and "enhancing civic morality." The project codename was vague, its funding sources obscure, its initiators even more indistinct, like a group of anonymous deities sowing seeds of well-being from behind a digital mist.

K first noticed the number on the scrolling screen of the commuter subway. A golden yellow number, accompanied by an up or down arrow of the same color, flickered quietly in the crowded, dim carriage. Initially, it was just another fragment in the stream of information, no different from the weather forecast, advertising slogans, or public service announcements. He wasn't even sure what it represented, only vaguely aware it had something to do with the "gold price," a distant and precious metal.

However, the number seemed to have a certain stickiness. The next day, it appeared on the display screen in the office elevator. The number had changed, the arrow pointing downwards, as if carrying a hint of dejection. When he went to the convenience store for a sandwich at noon, the small TV by the cashier was also broadcasting financial news, and that golden number caught his eye again, the arrow jumping upwards fiercely. K felt a strange unease, as if this number was silently seeping into every corner of his life. He didn't own any gold, nor did he care about investments. His salary was just enough to maintain a life that was neither good nor bad, occupying a cubicle in the huge office building like most of his colleagues, processing endless documents that seemed to point towards some grand goal, though what exactly it was, no one could say for sure.

Old Wang's life after retirement was like a gentle pastoral poem. He tended to flowers and plants every day and played with his granddaughter. His life was uneventful. Until that day, he saw the alluring blueberry advertisement online – "Freshly picked, plump, eight boxes for only XX yuan."

Li Weiming stared at the calendar. The bright red characters for "Spring Festival" were surrounded by dense annotations of "adjusted holidays," like a solitary island encircled by an endless cage. He felt a wave of dizziness, as if the entire world were spinning, the dates like runaway horses, galloping towards an unknowable black hole.