4 posts tagged with "Kafkaesque Style"

K first noticed the fridge magnet on the partition of his colleague Wang's office cubicle. It was a brightly colored, slightly clumsy-looking cartoon character, grinning an overly brilliant smile, with a nonsensical motivational phrase printed beside it, something like "Keep it up today, duck!" or similar. K only glanced at it at the time, feeling rather indifferent, even thinking such things were childish. The office cubicle was already cramped; sticking something like this on it made it seem even more crowded, almost... desperate. A kind of futile desperation, trying to combat monotonous reality with cheap colors and slogans.

The thick gold chain around Zhang Wei's neck, once a totem of his sense of security, now felt like a cold fetter, tightening its grip with every plunge of the gold price on the screen, restricting his breath inch by inch.

It was last year, when the price of gold was soaring, breaking one historic high after another, that Zhang Wei joined the frenzy. He wasn't wealthy, just a hardworking middle-aged man scraping by in the city, having saved up some hard-earned money. Seeing his neighbors, colleagues, and even the grannies doing square dancing talking about gold, the anxiety of "losing out if you don't buy now" spread rapidly like a virus. It was a typical individual choice amidst the tides of the era, as described by Wu Xiaobo—less rational investment, more a panic hedge against an uncertain future, coupled with a faint hope for upward mobility.

Lao Wang felt like he was about to drown in these cardboard boxes.

Wang Laowu, known as "Old Man Wang," wasn't ancient, just past sixty, his back a bit stooped, like the old walnut tree at the village entrance—looking withered but still sturdy-boned. He'd spent over half his life scraping a living from this yellow earth in eastern Henan, knowing the dirt clods better than his own kin. The village, Wangjia Gada, wasn't large, just a few dozen households where chickens and dogs were familiar sounds. Life flowed like the river at the village edge—seemingly moving, yet always the same old routines, undisturbed by waves.