19 posts tagged with "existentialism"

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?

10:37 AM, Wednesday. Sunlight attempted to penetrate the thick glass curtain wall of the office building, ultimately dissolving into a uniform, characterless light that spread across the grey carpet of the 'Quantum Leap Solutions Inc.' open-plan office. The air was filled with the smell of caffeine, printer toner, and an indescribable metallic tang called 'efficiency'. I, codenamed K, like a silent screw embedded in a corner of this vast machine, my fingers moving across the keyboard as if performing some ancient, unquestionable ritual.

Then, Tanaka collapsed.

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.

It started with a lukewarm beer and a WeChat message from my college roommate. On Friday night, as usual, I bought a canned beer and a bag of peanuts from the convenience store, preparing to while away the start of another weekend alone. The screen lit up. It was Xiaoyun. She sent a screenshot with a message: "Meiling, when did you become an actress? And in such a hit drama!"

Xiao Shi is a programmer, writing code in Shenzhen. In this place, the buildings are tall enough to pierce the heavens, and the rent is high enough to pierce one's courage. Xiao Shi lacks courage, at least the courage to dedicate the bulk of his monthly salary to supporting a pigeon coop. So, he doesn't live in a pigeon coop; he lives in a Deepal G318. The car, domestic, electric, isn't exactly small – better than some Hong Kong subdivided flats, at least. He's been living like this for four years, like an urban nomad, or perhaps, like a sardine packed in a tin can.

The rain wouldn't stop, like the final looping track of a cheap record – hoarse, stubborn, carrying a sense of weary fatalism. I was killing time in the old bookstore downstairs from my apartment building, the air thick with the mingled scent of musty paper and cheap coffee. The owner, a taciturn old man, was always behind the counter reading well-worn philosophy books, as if not even the apocalypse could disturb his rendezvous with Kant or Nietzsche.

Old Wang walked along this road every afternoon. There was nothing special about this road, much like countless others in the city, lined with buildings of moderate height housing various shops. People came and went; traffic flowed endlessly. When the sun was out, the mottled shadows of the plane trees would dapple the sidewalk, giving him an illusion of peace. Today, the sun wasn't particularly bright. The sky was somewhat overcast, and a heavy humidity hung in the air, hinting at a possible rain.

No one knew exactly how many floors the "Interdepartmental Joint Review Office for Tariff Exemption Lists" occupied, or indeed, if the building truly possessed a structure like "floors" comprehensible to mortals. It was merely rumored to be like a self-replicating grey dream, entrenched in some forgotten corner of the city. I, Shen Mo, am a low-level archivist here, number 718. My job, simply put, is to verify and file the lists of goods granted "exemption" status. However, the word "simple" here was like a faded lie, an ancient joke long lost to time.

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%.

That afternoon, like any other afternoon, was unremarkable, perhaps even a bit tedious. Faint motes of dust floated in the air, along with the hesitant warmth of impending early summer. I had just finished a rather uninteresting translation job and was walking home, headphones on, listening to Bill Evans's "Waltz for Debby." As I passed the Mixue Bingcheng on the corner, a sense of wrongness, like a small pebble dropped precisely into the calm surface of my consciousness, made itself felt.