5 posts tagged with "Social Fiction"

The city, this vast labyrinth built of steel and glass, exhales weary neon and clamor at dusk. And deep within the maze, behind an unremarkable window, lived Old Wang. Old Wang, a name as common as a roadside pebble, his existence too, like a pebble, swept along by the torrent of the times, submerged in a corner of the metropolis. He was once a diligent cog in a factory, polishing away half his life in exchange for the tranquility of this small room in his later years, and a string of digits in his passbook—modest, yet enough to console his declining days.

In 2046, I stood in front of what used to be a Dicos restaurant. Now, it's an unmanned convenience store selling pre-made meals. The cold, robotic arms waved under the dim lights, resembling the opening scene of some apocalyptic movie.

That year, I was thirty-seven, living alone on the edge of the city. Or rather, what used to be the edge of the city. Skyscrapers stood like abandoned building blocks, jutting crookedly from the cracked earth. The asphalt roads were long since fractured, revealing the yellowish-brown soil beneath, like so many desperate mouths, gaping uselessly.

I hadn't seen rain in a long time.

Old Li increasingly feels like a caged bird.

Beijing's early mornings always carried a hint of coal smoke and the sour tang of dòuzhī, seeping under the grey sky into every hutong. Zhang Ma, as the neighbors called her—what her actual name was, she herself had almost forgotten over time. Her day began with dressing her son, Ming'er.