19 posts tagged with "Kafkaesque"

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.

I stare at this outdated gadget in my hand, its screen edges curving elegantly downwards, like the hem of a shy girl's skirt, or perhaps less flatteringly, like chronically malnourished ribs. Once upon a time, this curve was touted as a rainbow bridge to the future, the ultimate embodiment of technological aesthetics. Salesgirls, spitting effusively, claimed this arc held the universe's mysteries, allowing you to feel the pinnacle of ergonomic care in your grip, as if this phone wasn't for scrolling short videos and checking food delivery reviews, but for direct calls to God. I must admit, I believed it back then. Or rather, I wanted to believe. People have to believe in something, even if it's just a curved piece of glass. Just like when I was young, I believed love could last forever, only to discover it was even less resilient than this piece of glass.

When Wang Wei first heard his passport had been "buried," he thought it was a bad joke, or perhaps a mistranslation. He was standing outside the leaky tent at the temporary settlement, trying to glean some news about returning home from the official distributing relief supplies. The earthquake in Myanmar had struck without warning, collapsing buildings and shattering the already fragile lives of many.

By the time the violent tremor from the neighboring country reached our small border town, its force was already spent. The initial swaying was like a weary sigh. Chandeliers swung gently, dust drifting down from the bookshelves like the low murmurs of ancient times disturbed from their slumber. I, Chen, the town library's administrator, was engrossed in a fragmented scroll on ancient geomancy—said to foretell the mysterious connection between shifts in the earth's veins and the ebb and flow of human hearts. Outside the window, the sky was a strange, overly calm grey-blue, as if drained of all emotion before a storm.

Old Wang, or perhaps, let's just call him Old Wang for now, because his story could happen to any ordinary person named Wang, Li, or Zhang. He had lived most of his life in Shanghai, this enormous, ever-changing city, and possessed a habit as natural as breathing: smoking while walking.

K. acquired the jacket on an ordinary rainy day. Neither bought nor gifted, it simply appeared in the hallway of his cramped apartment, hanging on the sole coat hook, as if it had always been there. The jacket was dark gray, a kind of lifeless gray that absorbed light. The label bore some indistinct symbols and a line of small text: "Highly waterproof, isolates everything." K. didn't think much of it at the time; the city was rainy, and a functional jacket was always useful. He even felt a secret delight, as if it were some anonymous favor.

Old Chen's mobile phone was an old-fashioned button phone handed down from his son. Apart from making and receiving calls, the flickering icons on the screen were like ancient hieroglyphs to him, both familiar and strange. Every month, he would go to the business hall at the corner of the street to pay his phone bill, no more, no less, always fifty yuan. The clerk mechanically tapped on the keyboard and handed him a thin piece of paper printed with numbers and symbols he couldn't understand.

K needed a new piece of clothing. This should have been the most ordinary of things, like eating when hungry, or sleeping when tired. However, as she pushed through the heavy, revolving glass door and stepped into the cold gleam of the department store's interior, an inexplicable premonition gripped her, as if the air was permeated by a subtle yet undeniable rule, one she knew nothing about.

Lao Wang hadn't been sleeping soundly lately. It wasn't due to physical ailments or neighborly disputes; what troubled him was something intangible yet weighty – gold.