2 posts tagged with "realism"

Lao Lei, Lei Zhendong – quite a resonant name. But this past month, he felt more stifled than a sealed gourd. The little things at the company snowballed from sesame seeds to watermelons, then to winter melons, crushing him till he could barely breathe. The numbers on the reports were like rows of baring-fanged imps, constantly invading his dreams at night. People nicknamed him "the second Lei-Jobs," but the taste of being "second" now was nothing but bitter Coptis root. He himself grumbled, "This past month, damn it, has truly been the toughest time since I started the business!"

Old Ma, Teacher Ma, he was almost synonymous with this dusty rural elementary school. For forty years, like an old tree, his roots had sunk deep into this barren land, watching generations of children, like dandelions in the wind, fly off to distant places. Some flew high and far, while others fell back into deeper soil. His hair had long turned from jet black to frost white; chalk dust had whitened his temples and seemed etched into the rings of his life. In three more months, just three short months, he would be able to touch that shore called "retirement." On that shore lay the imagined, deserved tranquility, the meager but stable monthly pension, the finally relinquished pointer, and a throat no longer strained from shouting.