In the heart of the metropolis of Oblivion, where everything seemed achingly familiar yet cunningly foreign, lived a man named Lao Wei. An unremarkable character in the great tapestry of city’s tedious lore, he was known mostly for his compelling ability to fade into the wallpaper of everyday life. Lao Wei had an unusually sensitive nose, an unfortunate trait for a man working in a factory that churned out dish soap with the sinister charm of a skunk’s perfume.
“You ware it well, Lao Wei,” quipped his boss one morning, smirking as the unmistakable stench of 令人不快的dish soap clung to Lao Wei like an ethereal badge of honor.
“Is that why you never forget my presence, dear Chang?” Wei countered with a sardonic smile, his eyes peering over thick glasses, pecked at all corners by time and neglect.
In the communal kitchen of their workspace, under the dim, flickering neon bulb that buzzed like a trapped fly, he found solace with his colleague, Mei Lin. She was a force of nature compressed into a petite frame, with a sharp wit and an infectious laugh that resonated with the defiant notes of rebellion.
“I swear, Mei Lin, if I have to scrub one more pan with this soap–”
“You’ll be happy never to eat off of it again, yes?” Mei’s laughter burst forth, a melody in the circus of obscurity they both inhabited.
Lao Wei and Mei Lin found small, biting amusement in their own plights, while secretly dreaming of worlds that floated beyond their confined reality. However, fantasies were often intercepted by a sharp return to their unbearable present, cloaked in Chimera’s dreams smelling of pungent, everlasting dish soap.
“You think you can escape this, Lao Wei?” Mei asked one November night as they trudged through the fog-detailed labyrinth of Oblivion. “Run far enough and…?”
“… you’ll probably end up in another misery-covered city where the soap smells worse,” Wei remarked with a mournful sigh. “And yet, I hear the sunsets are still decent elsewhere.”
Redemption, like dish soap, proved elusive. Inevitably, life continued its unrelenting spiral, drawing tighter around Wei day by day. His nose grew accustomed to the soap’s stink, in much the same way his dreams grew sick under the weight of his choices. In a fit of reckless decisiveness, borne from his own misery and ridiculousness of his existence, Wei made a grievous decision.
He sabotaged the soap-making machine, hoping to fill the world with freedom from its odorous tyranny. Yet, the machine, a resilient beast of bolts and irony, only spat back at him, coating Lao Wei in an eternal lather of his own making. The stench, now his constant companion, mocked him with an ever-present perfume of consequence.
Mei, observing Wei’s fate, chuckled with a sympathy laced with irony. “Be careful, Wei. You might just become the mythical creature of Oblivion, known as The Lathered Man.”
“At least,” Lao Wei countered, a twinkle of absurdity lighting up his eyes, “I’ll never have to use dish soap again.”
And thus, Lao Wei, architect of his own acrid ruination, walked the city a man infinitely clean yet forever marked by his choices. There, in the fictional tapestry of Oblivion where dish soap and fancy entwined in dark humor, his story remains—an odd cautionary tale for one and all.