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26 posts tagged with "Kafka"

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Exorbitant Water Bill and the Invisible Faucet

· 10 min read
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When Wang Jianguo received the water bill, he initially thought it was a misprinted joke. On the off-white paper, in neat standard font, a string of numbers was clearly printed: 39,390 yuan. The payment deadline was next Wednesday. He read it three times, then checked his phone calendar again. Yes, it had only been eighteen days since they moved into this new home, into which they had poured half a lifetime's savings.

Beijing on the Scales

· 7 min read
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At half-past four in the morning, the sky wasn't fully light yet, murky grey like the cooling embers in a hearth. Old Zhang rubbed his bleary eyes, shuffled in his cloth shoes, and carried his chipped enamel mug out to the courtyard tap. The faucet sputtered twice before reluctantly spitting out a thin, ice-cold stream of water.

The Alchemist of Gold

· 5 min read
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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.

Birth Directive

· 6 min read
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When Mr. K received the document, he was scraping the last bit of oatmeal from the bottom of his bowl with a spoon. The postman hadn't even knocked; the thick, beige envelope, bearing some sort of official seal, seemed to have materialized out of thin air on the doormat, exuding a characteristic archive room scent – a mixture of stale paper and dried ink. He couldn't even recall if he had heard footsteps.

Machine Towards Goodness

· 5 min read
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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.

The Gold Price Maze

· 6 min read
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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.

Live Turtles and the Silent Borderline

· 7 min read
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Let me tell you, that day was hot like a giant, clammy hug. The air was thick enough to paste up your throat. Fatty and I were walking down the road to the border, feeling like two slabs of melting butter. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst was, we were covered in "things". Not pimples, not tumors, but live, hard-shelled, still-wriggling turtles. Twenty-eight in total, no more, no less, strapped tightly to our bare chests and backs with wide tape and strips of ragged cloth. Fourteen on me, fourteen on him, like some kind of bizarre, symmetrical torture.

The Shadow of Numbers

· 7 min read
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Shi Lei felt like a firefly in this vast cavern, tiny, yet compelled to glow—though his light merely illuminated a small cracker smeared with foie gras or strawberry jam. The membership warehouse club where he worked, named 'Giant Warehouse' (Ju Cang), resembled a mountain range built of steel and concrete, piled high with a dazzling array of goods cascading from ceiling to floor, forming colorful cliffs. People pushed enormous shopping carts, like vessels on a river, navigating the canyons of this mountain range, their faces wearing a mixture of curiosity and possessiveness.

The Falling List

· 4 min read
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The list appeared on a gloomy morning, like a judgment handed down from the sky, silently landing on the principal's desk. A thin sheet of A4 paper, printed with more than a dozen names, all students of the school. Behind each name, in red ink, two startling words were marked: "Fallen to death."