Are You Still There

"Are you still there! "" Is a modern urban fable full of philosophy and absurdity. Through the day-to-day mechanical life of the protagonist Xu Yan, it reveals the spiritual dilemma of contemporary people in the institutionalized society. Receiving work instructions in the early morning, modifying the numbers "281" and "240" in the report that symbolize the conflict between reality and compliance, the balance of the canteen meal card triggering a trance association with pi... Countless details outline a life state wrapped in rules, cycles and numbness. He soberly watched himself tampering with the truth, swallowing the false, and repeating meaningless actions during team building, overtime work, and commuting, just like the fly in the office that refused to fly out. The article depicts the nihilistic background of the modern workplace, embedding individual existential crises into every image of data, light, shadow, and water stains. At the end, a message comes from "seventeen-year-old you" - "Are you still there?" Like a bolt of lightning, it splits the silence and awakens the deeply buried self-questioning. The window that had been opened by flies but quietly closed was finally pushed open by him with his own hands. Although there was no intrusion of wind, the hand did not withdraw - suggesting that under the complete numbness, there was still a glimmer of light that refused to be extinguished. This is not only a person's dilemma, but also a microcosm of the spiritual situation of the entire era.